«•] ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ig 
of a development, and each development of this kind 
furnishes a chapter to the national history, a chapter 
which will get its name from the event. 
For a plain example of the principle take the reign 
of George III. What can be more absurd than to treat 
this long period of sixty yearn as if it had any historical 
U “7; s“ 86 ° ne maQ was king during the whole 
ot it. What then are we to substitute for the king as a 
principle of division ? Evidently great events. One part 
of the reign will make a chapter by itself as the period of 
the loss of America, another as that of the struggle with 
the French Revolution. 
But in a national history there are large as well as 
smaller divisions. Besides chapters there are, as it were, 
books or parts. This is because the great events, when 
examined closely, are seen to be connected with each 
other; those which are chronologically nearest to each 
other are seen to be similar; they fall into groups, each 
oi which may be regarded as a single complex event, and 
the complex events give their names to the parts, as 
the simpler events give their names to the separate 
chapters, of the history. 
In some periods of history this process is so easy that 
we perform it almost unconsciously. The events bear their 
significance written on their face, and the connexion of 
events is also obvious. When you read the reign of 
Fouis XV. of France, you feel without waiting to reason 
that you are reading of the fall of the French Monarchy. 
But in other parts of history the clue is less easy to find, 
and it is here that we feel that embarrassment and want 
°f interest which, as I have said, Englishmen are conscious 
o when they look back upon their eighteenth century. 
An most cases of this kind the fault is in the reader ; he