LECTURE IL 
ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
It was in the eighteenth century that the expansion of 
England advanced most rapidly. If therefore we would 
understand the nature of that expansion, and measure how 
much it absorbed of the energy and vitality of the nation, 
cannot do better than consult the records of the 
eighteenth century. Those records too, if I mistake not, 
will acquire new interest from being regarded from this 
point of view. 
I constantly remark, both in our popular histories 
an d in occasional allusions to the eighteenth century, what 
a faint and confused impression that period has left upon 
the national memory. In a great part of it we see nothing 
but stagnation. The wars seem to lead to nothing, and 
' Ve do not perceive the working of any new political 
Kleas. That time seems to have created little, so that we 
ean only think of it as prosperous, but not as memorable. 
hose dim figures George I. and George II., the long 
tame n-dministrations of Walpole and Pelham, the com 
mercial war with Spain, the battles of Dettingen and 
°ntenoy, the foolish Prime Minister Newcastle, the dull 
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