PREFATORY NOTE TO VOLUMES IV. AND V. THE two volumes now published together contain a History of the English Commonwealth, a History of Cromwell's Interim Dictatorship and of his First and Second Protectorates, and a History of the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell and of the subsequent Anarchy to the Restoration. They also contain the Biography of Milton through those eleven years, with an account of his Secretaryship and other relations to the successive Governments, and an elucidated inventory and abstract of his State-Letters. Volume VI., which is in progress, will complete the work, and will be accompanied by a copious Index to the whole. EDINBURGH November, 1877. |