The Political History of England – Vol XI

Among minor poets of this period the highest rank must perhaps be assigned to Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore as authors of some of the most stirring and graceful lyrics in the English language. The former had attained celebrity by the Pleasures of Hope, published before the end of the eighteenth century, but his choicest poems, such as Ye Mariners of England, the fine verses on Hohenlinden and Copenhagen, and Gertrude of Wyoming, appeared between 1802 and 1809. The series of Moore's Irish melodies, on which his poetical fame largely rests, was begun in 1807, though not completed until long afterwards. They were followed by other lyrical pieces of great merit, and by a series of witty and malicious lampoons, collected in 1813 into a volume called the Twopenny Post Bag. Lalla Rookh, his most ambitious effort, was not published until 1817.

Two prose writers of the same epoch, Southey and Bentham, claim special notice, though Southey may also be numbered among the poets. Having established himself close to Keswick in 1804, he prosecuted a literary career with the most untiring industry until his mental faculties at last failed him some thirty-six years later. During this period he produced above a hundred volumes in poetry and prose, besides numerous scattered articles and other papers. Most of these were of merely ephemeral interest, but the Life of Nelson, published in 1813, may be said to have set a standard of simplicity, purity, and dignity in English prose which has been of permanent value. Bentham's style, on the contrary, was so wanting in beauty and perspicuity that one at least of his chief works is best known to English readers in the admirable French paraphrase of his friend Dumont. This is his famous Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, in which the doctrines of the utilitarian philosophy are rigorously applied to jurisprudence and the regulation of human conduct. Several of his numerous treatises had been planned, and others actually composed, before the end of the eighteenth century, but his practical influence, ultimately so great, first made itself felt in the early part of the nineteenth century. This influence may be compared within the sphere of social reform to that of Adam Smith within the sphere of economy. Many amendments of the law, an improved system of prison discipline, and even the reform of the poor law, may be directly traced to his counsels, and it was he who inspired the leading radicals when radicalism was not so much a destructive creed as a protest against real and gross abuses.

MALTHUS.

Perhaps, next to Bentham, no writer of this period influenced educated opinion so powerfully as Malthus, whose Essay on Population, first published anonymously in 1798, attracted comparatively little attention until 1803, when it was republished in a maturer form. No work has ever been more persistently misrepresented. While he shows that population, if unchecked, will surely increase in a ratio far outstripping any possible increase in the means of subsistence, he also shows, by elaborate proofs, that it will inevitably be checked by vice and misery, whether or not they are aided by moral restraint. Later experience has done little to weaken his reasoning, but it has proved that "moral restraint" (in the most general sense) operates more widely than he ventured to expect, and that larger tracts of the earth's surface than he recognised could be brought under profitable cultivation. With these modifications, his theory holds the field, and the people of Great Britain only escape starvation by ever-growing importations of grain from countries whose production – for the present – exceeds their consumption.

Several other writers of eminence, such as Sheridan and Paley, who lived in the latter days of George III. are more properly to be regarded as survivors of eighteenth century literature. Horne Tooke was returned for Old Sarum in 1801, and enjoyed a reputation in society until his death in 1812, but his old-fashioned radicalism had long since been superseded by a newer creed. Dugald Stewart continued to lecture on moral philosophy until 1809, and was fortunate in numbering among his pupils Palmerston, Lansdowne, and Russell. A younger student of philosophy was Richard Whately, who was born in 1787, and elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1811. He soon began to play an active part in university life, and, after being principal of St. Alban Hall, was removed to the archbishopric of Dublin in 1831. Though not a great philosopher, he was an acute logician, and his Logic, published in 1826, entitled him to a high place among the thinkers of his generation. But it was not merely as a teacher and writer that Whately promoted the cause of philosophy in Oxford. He was one of the leaders in that organisation of studies which made philosophy one of the principal studies, if not the principal study, of the abler students in that university, and gave elementary logic a place in the ordinary "pass-man's" curriculum.

The best work of Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen appeared in the early part of the nineteenth century. Maria Edgeworth's novel, Castle Rackrent, was published in 1800, and rapidly followed by other tales descriptive of Irish life; four of Jane Austen's novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma, were published between 1811 and 1816, while Northanger Abbey and Persuasion appeared after her death in 1817. All her work displays a power of minute analysis of character shared by few, if any, of our other novelists. Both authors deserve gratitude not only for having inspired Scott with a new idea of novel-writing, but for having exercised a purifying influence on the moral tone of English romance.

The most typical feature of English literature in the earlier years of the nineteenth century was the extraordinary development of the periodical and newspaper press. The eighteenth century was the golden age of pamphlets. When the "governing classes" represented but a fraction of the population, mostly concentrated in London, the practical effect of such political appeals as those issued by Swift or Burke was incredibly great, and not to be measured by their limited circulation. The rise of journalism as a power in politics may be roughly dated from the notoriety of Wilkes' North Briton, and of the letters of "Junius" in the Public Advertiser. Thenceforward, newspapers, at first mere chronicles of passing events, inevitably grew to be organs of political opinion, and had now almost superseded pamphlets, as addressed to a far larger circle of readers. Notwithstanding the heavy stamp duties, as well as duties on paper and advertisements, six daily journals were published in London, of which the Times was already the greatest. Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, commenced in 1802, was diffusing new ideas among the middle classes, but it was not yet committed to radicalism, and did not win its way into cottages until its price was greatly reduced in 1816. After Cobbett's death in 1835, it ceased to appear. Still the ice was broken, and, as the educated public recovered from the panic caused by the French revolution, the newspaper press became a potent and independent rival of parliament and the platform.

EDINBURGH AND QUARTERLY REVIEWS.

But the influence of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews was perhaps even greater among readers of the highest intelligence. The first of these was founded in 1802 by Jeffrey, Brougham, Horner, and Sydney Smith, but was supported at first by Scott and other able contributors. So remarkable a body of writers must have commanded attention in any age, but at a time when the only periodicals were annuals and miscellanies, the literary vigour and range of knowledge displayed by the new review carried all before it. For several years it had an unique success, but, as it identified itself more and more with the whig party, Canning, with the aid of Scott, determined to challenge its supremacy by establishing a new review to be called the Quarterly. Scott was finally estranged from the Edinburgh by an article against the war of independence in Spain, and the first number of the Quarterly appeared in February, 1809, with three articles by him. It was published by John Murray, and edited by Gifford, on much the same lines as the Edinburgh, but with a strong tory bias, and with somewhat less of literary brilliancy. Blackwood's Magazine followed a few years later, and the almost classical dualism of the Quarterly and Edinburgh has long since been invaded by a multitude of younger serials.

After the loss of its early monopoly of talent, the Edinburgh Review still retained Jeffrey and Sydney Smith, and it was abundantly compensated for the loss of Scott by the acquisition in 1825 of the fluent pen of Macaulay. Born in 1800, the son of Zachary Macaulay, who like many other philanthropists was on the tory side, he was early converted to the whig party. He was well fitted to be a popular writer. His thought, never deep, is always clear and vivid. None knew better how to seize a dramatic incident or a picturesque simile, or to strike the weak points in his adversary's armour. It has been said of him that he always chose to storm a position by a cavalry charge, certainly the most imposing if not the most effective method. Many of his contributions to the Edinburgh Review were afterwards republished as Essays, and already in those earlier essays which appeared before 1837, we can see him assuming the rôle of the historical champion of the whigs. Widely read and with a marvellous memory, he was generally accurate in his facts, but his criticism of Gladstone applies with even greater force to himself: "There is no want of light, but a great want of what Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices." The critic is sunk in the advocate, and even a good cause is spoiled by a too obvious reluctance to admit anything that comes from the other side. Perhaps his happiest, though far from his greatest, work is to be found in the stirring ballads of Ivry and the Armada, the precursors of the Lays of Ancient Rome. Deservedly popular and full of patriotic fire, the class of literature to which they belong renders questions of fairness or unfairness beside the point.

Another contributor to the Edinburgh Review, also famous as a historian, was Thomas Carlyle. He was born in 1795 at Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire, and wrote for Brewster's Encyclopædia and the London Magazine as well as the Edinburgh. In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, and in 1828 he retired from journalism to live humbly on her means. It was now that he began to produce his best work. Sartor Resartus appeared in 1833-34, and the History of the French Revolution in 1837. Even in the latter of these works he is as much a preacher as a historian. Perhaps no other writer of the age exercised a greater direct influence, and in his own country, which seems specially amenable to the preacher's powers, his message has been as effective in favour of broader views as the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 was in favour of the old orthodoxy. His teaching has its roots in a German soil, but it bears the mark of his own strong personality. His style, with a wilful ruggedness, displays the German taste for the humour of an incongruous homeliness, where the subject seems to call for a more dignified treatment. Perhaps this obvious falseness of expression only relieves the weight of his stern earnestness of purpose and makes us the more ready to join in his constant denunciation of everything hollow and pretentious.

LAMB.

Two new magazines appeared in or about 1817, Blackwood's and the London. Brilliant as the leading contributors to the former were, none of them perhaps can claim a place in the front rank of English literature. Of the contributors to the London Lamb is doubtless entitled to the first place. Born in 1775, he was employed as a clerk in the East India House from 1792 to 1825. He was a schoolfellow of Coleridge and contributed to his earlier volume of poems It is, however, to the Essays of Elia that he owes his fame. These appeared in the London Magazine and were published in a collected form after his death in 1834. Few authors that have been so much admired have exercised so little influence. The reason for this is not far to seek. His style defies imitation, and he would have been the last man to endeavour to win disciples to his opinions. Another essayist who belongs to the same group of writers as Coleridge and Lamb is Thomas de Quincey. He wrote both for Blackwood's and for the London Magazine, in the latter of which appeared in 1821 his best known work, the Confessions of an English Opium Eater. He excelled in what was the dominant characteristic of English prose of this period, in imagery, a quality which is conspicuous in the light fancy of Coleridge's most famous poems, and which gives life to an author so uniformly in dead earnest as Macaulay. Viewed historically, this taste for imagery is the English side of the romantic movement, which in Germany reacted against the conventional, not only in works of the imagination, but in the heavier form of new philosophical systems. But these systems, in spite of Coleridge, never became native in England. The growth of the scientific spirit has made such thought and such language seem unreal in serious literature, and prevents a later generation from imitating, though not from admiring, the brilliance of the early essayists.

Hazlitt's genius was of a heavier type. As an essayist his work breathes the spirit of an earlier age; but as a literary critic he is a leader, and displays an inwardness in his appreciation that makes him in a sense the model of the new age in which criticism has so largely supplanted creation. It may be doubted, however, whether the abnormal growth of criticism, as a distinct branch of English letters, has been a benefit on the whole to our literature. Certainly it has tended to substitute the elaborate study of other men's thoughts for original production, and, after all, the greatest critics have been those who, being more than critics, have shown themselves capable of constructive efforts.

Two statesmen-novelists, Bulwer and Disraeli, are among the most interesting literary characters of the end of this period. The former of these, like his French contemporary Victor Hugo, had a remarkable gift for expressing each successive phase of popular taste. He resembled Disraeli in acquiring a pre-eminent position in letters in early youth, which was followed by political success at a later age. Though neither rose to cabinet rank before a time of life which must with literary men rank as "middle age," Bulwer had, in the midst of an active parliamentary career, been an active novelist, in fact the most popular novelist of his day. Disraeli, on the other hand, only entered parliament after the close of the period dealt with in this volume, and it is to this period, while he was still unknown to politics, that the greater part of his literary work belongs. One other resemblance between these writers is perhaps not less interesting to the historian than to the critic. Both made use of literature to establish for themselves a reputation as "men of the world," an ambition which Bulwer's social position might easily justify, and without which it would be impossible to understand the career of Disraeli. Born in 1803 and 1804 respectively, both made their mark with their first novels in 1827, Bulwer with Falkland, Disraeli with a work in which his own career has been supposed to be foreshadowed —Vivian Grey. One other great novelist had appeared before the close of the reign of William IV. In 1836 Charles Dickens produced Sketches by Boz and began the Pickwick Papers, but he belongs properly to the next reign.

Among the historians of this period the first place undoubtedly belongs to Henry Hallam. Born in 1788, he produced his View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages in 1818, and his Constitutional History of England in 1827, while his Introduction to the Literature of Europe began to appear in 1837. Like Macaulay he represents the whig attitude towards politics, but does so less consciously and less emphatically than his younger contemporary. There is a sense in which no constitutional historian has adopted so strictly legal an attitude. It is not merely that his interest centres on the legal side of the constitution, but, lawyer-like, he judges every constitutional issue of the past in the light of the legal system which the law of his own day presupposes for the date in question. No one can deny the validity of this principle in a court of justice, but no one gifted either with historical imagination or with historical sympathy could wish to introduce it into a historical work. Yet the very narrowness of his outlook made it easier for him to adopt the impartiality of a judge; his criterion of justice is too definite to allow him to indulge in special pleading or to twist facts to suit his theories; and the student still turns to Hallam with a sense of security which he does not feel in reading Macaulay or Carlyle.

FINE ART.

The fine arts cannot be said to have flourished in England during the period of the great war, and architecture was certainly at a low ebb, but several eminent names belong to this period. Sir Thomas Lawrence was by far the foremost English portrait painter, and fitly represents the elegance of the regency, while Raeburn enjoyed an equal reputation in Scotland. Turner, however, was painting in his earlier manner and showing originality even in his imitations of old masters. Constable, too, was producing some of those quiet English landscapes which, though little appreciated at the time, have since made him famous. Two other English landscape painters, Callcott and the elder Crome, were also in their prime, and Wilkie executed several of his best known masterpieces at this time. David Cox and Prout did not earn celebrity till a little later. The Water-Colour Society was founded in 1804. Soon afterwards Flaxman was in the zenith of his fame, being elected professor of sculpture by the Royal Academy in 1810, and Chantrey was beginning to desert portrait painting for statuary.

Science, especially in its practical applications, made greater strides than art in the early years of the nineteenth century. It was now that Jenner's memorable discovery of vaccination, dating from 1796, was generally adopted by the medical profession. In 1802 his claim to priority was recognised by a parliamentary committee, with the result that £10,000 were then voted to him, and a further grant of £20,000 was made in 1807, when vaccination was established at the Small-pox Hospital. In 1814, George Stephenson, after many preliminary experiments, made a successful trial of his first locomotive engine. In 1812, Bell's steamboat, the Comet made its first voyage on the Clyde, and the development of steam navigation proceeded more rapidly than that of steam locomotion by land. Sir Humphry Davy began his researches in 1800, and took part in that year, with Count Rumford and Sir Joseph Banks, in founding the Royal Institution. His invention of the safety lamp was not matured until 1815.

But if the principal contributions of England to physical science in the early years of the century were mainly in the direction of practical application, her contributions to pure theory under the regency and in the reign of William IV. were no less distinguished. Sir John Herschel, following in the footsteps of his father, began in 1824 his observations on double stars and his researches upon the parallax of fixed stars, while Sir George Airy published in 1826 his mathematical treatises on lunar and planetary theory. In Michael Faraday England possessed at once an eminent chemist and the greatest electrician of the age. The discovery of benzine and the liquefaction of numerous gases were followed by an investigation of electric currents, and in 1831 by the crowning discovery of induction. Not less valuable perhaps than these discoveries of his own were the fertile suggestions which he left to others. William Smith, sometimes called the father of modern English geology, vigorously followed up the work of James Hutton by publishing in 1815 his great map of English strata as identified by fossils. Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology marks a great advance in geological science. In this book, which appeared in 1833, the author advanced the view, now universally accepted, that the great geological changes of the past are not to be explained as catastrophes, followed by successive creations, but as the product of the continuous play of forces still at work. This theory contained all that was vital in the doctrine of evolution; but it was only at a later date, when the doctrine had become the property of zoologists as well as geologists and had been popularised by Darwin, that it came to exercise an influence over non-scientific thought.

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

A review of the literary and scientific progress of this period would be incomplete without some notice of progress in higher education. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge with their numerous colleges had in the eighteenth century lapsed into that lethargic condition which seemed to be the common fate of all corporations. They had to a certain extent ceased to be seats of learning. At Oxford the limitations imposed upon colleges by statute or custom in elections to fellowships and scholarships ensured the mediocrity of the teachers and gave the preference to mediocrities among the students. Where emoluments were not so restricted they were generally awarded by interest rather than by merit; and it was even the case that a scholarship at Winchester, carrying with it the right to a fellowship at New College, was often promised to an infant only a few days old. The Oxford examination system had not been reformed since the time of Laud, and the degree examinations had degenerated into mere formalities until the university in 1800 adopted a new examination statute, mainly under the influence of Dr. Eveleigh, provost of Oriel. The new statute, which came into operation in 1802, granted honours to the better students of each year. The number of candidates to whom honours were granted, at first very small, rapidly increased till in 1837 about 130 received honours in a single year. The attention which the examination system received from the hebdomadal board, so often accused of sluggishness, is proved by the frequent changes in the regulations, which among other things differentiated between honours in "Literæ Humaniores" and in mathematics in 1807, and separated the honours and pass examinations in 1830. The same desire to encourage meritorious students showed itself in the institution of competitive examinations for fellowships, in which Oriel led the way. It was followed in 1817 by Balliol, which in 1827 threw open its scholarships as well. It was not, however, till the reign of Queen Victoria that the college statutes as a whole were so modified as to make open competition possible in more than a very few instances.

Cambridge suffered less than Oxford from restrictions as to the choice of fellows. In fact the majority of the fellowships, more especially of those which carried with them a vote in the government of the colleges, were, so far as the statutes went, open to all comers. Though the course of study was still nominally regulated by statutes dating from the Tudor period, which it would often have been ludicrous to enforce, an effective stimulus was given to mathematical studies by the mathematical tripos, which had existed from the middle of the eighteenth century, and to which in 1824 a classical tripos was added. The ground covered by these honour examinations was certainly narrower than that which lay within the scope of the corresponding examinations at Oxford, but at both places the studies of most undergraduates were still directed more by the judgment of their tutors than by the regulations of the university.

These two universities were, however, subject to two limitations, which prevented them from providing a higher education for all aspiring students. The expense of living at Oxford and Cambridge, and the close connexion of both universities with the Church of England, rendered them difficult of access to many. These limitations were emphasised by the fact that Scotland possessed five universities which were the opposite of the English in both respects, and not a few English students could always be found at the Scottish seats of learning. The reform ministry made a serious effort to remove or alleviate the grievances of dissenters. Among other reforms mooted was the abolition of theological tests for matriculation and graduation. In 1834 a bill, which proposed to effect this change, but which left intact such tests as existed for fellowships and professorships, passed its second reading in the commons by a majority of 321 against 174, and its third reading by 164 against 75. It was, however, thrown out on the second reading in the lords by 187 votes against 85. Though in this particular case the demands of the dissenters were moderate, they were themselves opposed to other measures introduced for their benefit, and the question of tests at Oxford and Cambridge was not unnaturally allowed to rest for another twenty years.

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

It was only in the reign of George IV. that anything was done to provide a university education for those who were unable to proceed to the ancient seats of learning. But the movement, once started, progressed rapidly. The oldest of the university colleges, as they are now called, is St. David's College, Lampeter, which was founded in 1822, mainly through the exertions of Dr. Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St. David's, who was supported by many others among the Welsh clergy. The college was opened in 1827, but at first it had no power of conferring degrees, and contented itself with the education of candidates for holy orders. A more important movement was initiated in 1825. In a public letter written by the poet Campbell to Brougham, the project of founding a university of London, which should be free from denominational restrictions, was advocated. The scheme was warmly embraced by many whose names are found associated with other movements of the times. Among them were Hume, Grote, Zachary Macaulay, Dudley, and Russell. A large proportion of the promoters of the new university had been educated at Scottish universities, and had therefore a clear idea of the type of university which they might establish, and the movement, although started primarily in the interests of dissenters, received the support of many who still valued the connexion of the universities with the Church. The "London University," as it was called, was opened in 1828, when classes were formed in arts, law, and medicine, but not in divinity. It was technically a joint-stock company, and the attempt of the shareholders to obtain a charter of incorporation was successfully resisted by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Meanwhile some of the original supporters of the movement, regarding the non-religious character of the new university with suspicion, had decided to transfer their support to a new college, where the doctrine and worship of the Church of England should be recognised. The Duke of Wellington took a lively interest in this movement, and King George IV.'s patronage gave the new institution the name of "King's College". There seemed every reason to expect that the foundation would be on a munificent scale, when Wellington's acceptance of catholic emancipation offended many of the subscribers so deeply that they immediately withdrew from the undertaking, and the college was in consequence left almost entirely without endowment. State recognition, however, was given it from the first. It was incorporated in 1829, and opened in 1831. In 1835 the demand of "London University" for a charter received the support of the house of commons, and Lord Melbourne's government decided to propose a compromise, by which the so-called "London University" was to be converted into University College, and an examining body was to be created under the title of the University of London, while the work of teaching was to be performed by University College, King's College, and other colleges, which might from time to time be named by the crown. These terms were accepted by the existing "university," and charters were given to the new university and to University College, London, in 1836. It was thus left open to students or their parents to select either a denominational or an undenominational college, according to their preference.

Meanwhile another university had been founded in the north of England. The dean and chapter of Durham had determined to set aside a part of their emoluments for the foundation of a university, and the bishop had undertaken to assist them by attaching prebendal stalls in the cathedral to some of the professorships. An act of parliament was obtained in 1832, authorising the establishment of the new university, which was opened in October, 1833, and was incorporated by a royal charter on June 1, 1837. As an ecclesiastical foundation, the university of Durham was of course in the closest connexion with the established Church.

None of these new foundations could compare in respect of endowments with the old universities of Oxford and Cambridge, yet it was not altogether without reason that the founders of University College, London, hoped to give as good an education at a greatly reduced cost. It must be remembered that only a small fraction of the endowments of the old universities and their colleges was at this time applied to strictly educational purposes, and, until they should either be reformed or become more sensible of their opportunities, there was a fair field for an energetic rival.

The beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed a marvellous expansion of manufacturing industry, not so much caused by new discoveries as by the energetic application of those made at the end of the last century, by the growth of the factory-system, and, above all, by the monopoly of English-made goods during the great war. The innovation of machine-spinning and weaving by power-looms had an instant effect in stimulating and cheapening the production of cottons, but that of woollens, cramped by heavy duties on the raw material, languished for some time longer under traditional methods of handspinning. When stocking-frames and other forms of machinery penetrated at last into its strongholds in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in the midland counties, the demand for "hands" was inevitably reduced, and "frame-breaking" riots ensued, which lasted for several years. From this period dates the industrial revolution which gradually abolished domestic industries, separated mill-owners and mill-hands into almost hostile classes, undermined the system of apprenticeship, and brought about a large migration of manufactures from centres with abundant water-power to centres in close proximity to coal-fields.

PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE.

The progress of British agriculture during the period under review was almost as marked as that of British manufactures. Under the impulse of war prices, and of the improvements adopted at the end of the eighteenth century, the home-production of corn almost kept pace with the growing consumption, and between 1801 and 1815 little more than 500,000 quarters of imported corn were required annually to feed the population. No doubt, when the price of bread might rise to famine-point, the consumption of it fell to a minimum per head; still, the rural population continued to multiply, though not so rapidly as the urban population, and neither could have been maintained without a constant increase in the production of the soil. This result was due to a progressive extension of enclosure and drainage, as well as to wise innovations in the practice of agriculture. Not the least important of such innovations was the destruction of useless fences and straggling hedge-rows, the multitude and irregular outlines of which had long been a picturesque but wasteful feature of old-fashioned English farming. This was the age, too, in which many a small farm vanished by consolidation, and many an ancient pasture was recklessly broken up, some of which, though once more covered with green sward, have never recovered their original fertility. Happily, the use of crushed bones for manure was introduced in 1800, and the efforts of the national board of agriculture, aided by the discoveries of Sir Humphry Davy, brought about a far more general application of chemical science to agriculture, partly compensating for the exhaustion of the soil under successive wheat crops. Not less remarkable was the effect of mechanical science in the development of new agricultural implements, which, however, retained a comparatively rude form of construction. The Highland Society of Scotland took a leading part in encouraging these gradual experiments in tillage, as well as in the breeding of sheep and cattle, with a special regard to early maturity. Had the farmers of Great Britain during the great war possessed no more skill than their grandfathers, it would have been impossible for the soil of this island to have so nearly supported its inhabitants before the ports were freely thrown open.

The great triumphs of engineering in the fifteen years before the battle of Waterloo were mainly achieved in facilitating locomotion, and are specially associated with the name of Telford. It was he who, following in the footsteps of Brindley and Smeaton, constructed the Ellesmere and Caledonian Canals; he far eclipsed the fame of General Wade by opening out roads and bridges in the highlands, and first adopted sound principles of road-making both in England and Wales, afterwards to be applied with marvellous success by Macadam. It is some proof of the impulse given to land-travelling by such improvements that 1,355 public stage-coaches were assessed in 1812, and that a rate of speed little short of ten miles an hour was attained by the lighter vehicles. But Telford's labours were not confined to roads or bridges; they extended also to harbours and to canals, which continued to be the great arteries of heavy traffic until the development of railways. The new power destined to supersede both coaches and barges was first recognised practically when Bell's little steam vessel the Comet was navigated down the Clyde in 1812, to be followed not many years later by a steamship capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In a few years steam packets were numerous, but it was not till well into the reign of Victoria that steam navigation was used in the royal navy.

RAILWAYS.

The most conspicuous improvement in the social and economic condition of the country between 1815 and 1837 is undoubtedly the invention of the steam locomotive engine. A few steam locomotives had been invented before the former date, but they had met with little success and were as yet more costly than horse traction. It was only in or about the year 1815 that George Stephenson, enginewright in Killingworth colliery, succeeded in inventing a locomotive engine which was cheaper than horse-power. The value of railways was by this time better understood. Short railways worked by horses were common in the neighbourhood of collieries, and a few existed elsewhere. In 1821 Edward Pease obtained parliamentary powers to construct a railway between Stockton and Darlington. A visit to Killingworth persuaded him to make use of steam-power. In 1823 an act authorising the use of steam on the proposed railway was carried, and in 1825 the railway was opened. In 1826 an act was passed for the construction of a railway between Liverpool and Manchester. Stephenson was employed as engineer to make the line, and his success as a road-making engineer proved equal to his brilliance as a mechanical inventor.

In 1829 the line was completed. The directors were at first strongly opposed to the use of steam-locomotion, but were induced by Stephenson, before finally rejecting the idea, to offer a reward of £500 for the best locomotive that could be made. Of four engines which were entered for the competition, Stephenson's Rocket was the only one that would move, and it proved able to travel at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. The opening of the railway in 1830, and the fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson which attended it, have been noticed already. The accident did more to attract attention to the power of the locomotive than to discredit it. The opposition to railways was not, however, at an end. A proposal for a railway between London and Birmingham was carried through parliament, only after a struggle of some years' duration, but the construction of the line was at length authorised in 1833. The English railway system now developed with great rapidity, and by the end of the reign of William IV. lines had been authorised which would when complete form a system, joining London with Dover, Southampton, and Bristol, and both London and Bristol with Birmingham, whence lines were to run to the most important places in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and on to Darlington. Numerous small lines served other portions of the country, partly in connexion with these, but more often independently.

Among the more conspicuous metropolitan improvements of this age may be mentioned the introduction of gas and the incipient construction of new bridges over the Thames, in which the engineer Rennie took a leading part. Before the end of the eighteenth century the workshops of Boulton and Watt had been lit by gas, and Soho was illuminated by it to celebrate the peace of Amiens. By 1807 it was used in Golden Lane, and by 1809, if not earlier, it had reached Pall Mall, but it scarcely became general in London until somewhat later. At the beginning of the century the metropolis possessed but three bridges, old London bridge and the old bridges at Blackfriars and Westminster. The first stone of the Strand Bridge (afterwards to be called Waterloo Bridge) was laid on October 11, 1811, and Southwark Bridge was commenced in 1814, but these bridges were not completed till 1817 and 1819 respectively. The existing London Bridge, designed by Rennie, but built after his death, was completed in 1831. In 1812, the architect Nash was employed in laying out the Regent's Park, and in 1813 an act was passed for the construction of Regent Street, as a grand line of communication between it and Carlton House, the residence of the regent.

The work of geographical discovery had been well commenced before the end of the eighteenth century, and was inevitably checked during the great war. The wonderful voyages of Cook had revealed Australia and New Zealand; Flinders had carried on the survey of the Australian coast; Vancouver had explored the great island which bears his name with the adjacent shores; Rennell had produced his great map of India; Bruce had published his celebrated travels in Abyssinia; and an association had been formed to dispel the darkness that hung over the whole interior of Africa. Among its first emissaries was Mungo Park, who afterwards was employed by the British government, and died in the course of his second expedition in 1805-6. The idea of Arctic discovery was revived early in the nineteenth century, and was no longer confined to commercial aims, such as the opening of a north-east or north-west passage, but was rather directed to scientific objects, not without the hope of reaching the North Pole itself. Meanwhile, the ordnance survey of Great Britain itself was in full progress, and that of British India was commenced in 1802, while the hydrographical department of the admiralty, established in 1795, was organising the system of marine-surveying which has since yielded such valuable fruits.

The progress of philanthropy, based on religious sentiment was very marked during the later years of the war. The institution of Sunday schools between 1780 and 1790 had awakened a new sense of duty towards children in the community, and the growing use of child-labour, keeping pace with the constant increase of machinery, forced upon the public the necessity of legislative restrictions, which have been noticed in an earlier chapter. Banks of savings, the forerunners of savings banks under parliamentary regulation, had been suggested by Jeremy Bentham, and one at least was instituted in 1802. The idea of penitentiaries, for the reformation as well as for the punishment of criminals, had originated with the great philanthropist, John Howard. It was adopted and popularised by Jeremy Bentham, and might have been further developed but for the introduction of transportation, which promised the well-conducted convict the prospect of a new life in a new country. Meanwhile, prison reform became a favourite study of benevolent theorists in an age when the criminal law was still a relic of barbarism, when highway robbery was rife in the neighbourhood of London, when sanitation was hardly in its infancy, when pauperism was fostered by the poor law, and when the working classes in towns were huddled together, without legal check or moral scruple, in undrained courts and underground cellars. So capricious and shortsighted is the public conscience in its treatment of social evils.

CANADA.

At the opening of the nineteenth century the colonial empire of Great Britain was in a transitional state. The secession of thirteen American colonies had not only robbed the mother country of its proudest inheritance, but had also shattered the old colonial system of commercial monopoly for the supposed benefit of British interests. Its immediate effect was to annul the navigation act as affecting American trade, which became free to all the world, and by which Great Britain itself profited largely. Canada at once gained a new importance, and a new sense of nationality, which Pitt recognised by dividing it into two provinces, and giving each a considerable measure of independence, both political and commercial. It was troubled by the presence of a conquered race of white colonists side by side with new colonists of English blood, who were, however, united in their resistance to the revolted colonies in the war of 1812-14. After the war a steady stream of immigration poured into Canada. In 1816 the population was estimated at 450,000; between 1819 and 1829 Canada received 126,000 immigrants from England, and during the next ten years 320,000. The result was that the French element ceased to be preponderant, except in Lower Canada. The French Canadians felt that they did not enjoy their share of the confidence of government; the home government, ready enough to grant any favour that home opinion would permit, was trammelled by a public opinion, which suspected all who were of a French origin of a desire to restore the supremacy of the Roman Catholic religion and to assert political independence. A vacillating policy was the result, which only increased suspicions, and led in the first year of the reign of Victoria to a civil war.

In the Mauritius and the West Indies the one event of importance in this period is the abolition of slavery. It was found impossible to obtain from free negroes as much work as had been obtained from slaves, and their place had to be supplied by Indian coolies in the Mauritius, and by Chinese in Jamaica. At the same time the West Indies had begun to suffer from the competition of the United States.

The colony of the Cape of Good Hope was still peopled almost entirely by blacks or by the descendants of Dutch settlers, known as boers, or peasants. Four thousand British colonists went out in 1820 to Algoa Bay, but these were a mere handful compared with the Dutch. Unfortunately the government adopted a line of policy which produced great irritation in the Dutch population. They were granted no self-government, and in 1826 English judicial forms were introduced, and English was declared the sole official language. The reform administration made matters worse by defending the blacks against the boers. In 1834 it set free the slaves, offering £1,200,000, payable in London, very little of which ever reached the boers, as compensation for slaves valued at £3,000,000. A Kaffir war in 1834 had led to the conquest of Kaffraria, but in 1835 the home government restored the independence of the Kaffirs, and appointed a lieutenant-governor to defend their rights. After this the boers considered their position intolerable, and in 1835 began their first "trek" into the country now known as Natal.

AUSTRALIA.

Meanwhile, the great discoveries of Captain Cook, and the first settlement of New South Wales, brought within view a possible extension of our colonial dominion, which might go far to compensate for its losses on the North American continent. Governor Phillip had been sent out by Pitt to Botany Bay in 1787-88, but it was many years before the earliest of Australian colonies outgrew the character of a penal refuge for English convicts. The first convict establishments were at Sydney and Norfolk Island, but another settlement was founded on Van Diemen's Land in 1805, and in 1807, after this island had been circumnavigated by Flinders and Bass, it became the headquarters of that convict system, whose horrors are not yet forgotten. Between 1810 and 1822 the resources of New South Wales were vastly developed by the energetic policy of Governor Macquarie. While his efforts to utilise convict labour, and to educate convicts into free men, may have retarded the influx of genuine colonists, he prepared the way for settlement by constructing roads, promoting exploration, and raising public buildings, so that when he returned home the population of New South Wales had increased fourfold, and its settled territory in a much greater proportion. This territory comprised all English settlements on the east coast, and included large tracts of what is now known as Queensland, which did not become a separate colony until 1859.

The early history of Australia, it has been said, is chiefly a tale of convict settlements, bush-ranging, and expeditions of discovery. There is much truth in this saying, but the real basis of Australian prosperity was the introduction of sheep-farming on a large scale, after the merino-breed had been imported and acclimatised by Macarthur at the beginning of the century. Long before the region stretching northward from the later Port Phillip grew into the colony of Victoria, sheep-owners were spreading over the vast pastures of the interior, though many years elapsed before the explorer Sturt opened out the great provinces further westward.

The development of Australia made rapid progress during the generation following the great war. Though Australia itself and Van Diemen's Land, now called Tasmania, were still in the main convict settlements, free settlers had been arriving at Sydney for some time, and in 1817 they began to arrive in moderate numbers in Van Diemen's Land. In 1825 that island had sufficiently progressed to be recognised as a separate colony. The attempt to found a colony in western Australia in 1829 was, on the other hand, an almost complete failure. But in 1824 a new centre of colonisation in New South Wales had been established at Port Phillip. Meanwhile a sharp cleavage of parties had arisen. The convicts and poorer colonists were opposed to the large sheep-owners, who were endeavouring to form an aristocracy. Governor Macquarie favoured the convicts, and Governor Darling (1825-31) the sheep-owners. In 1823 a legislative council, consisting of seven officials, had been instituted; in 1828 it was developed into one of fifteen members, chosen entirely from among the wealthiest colonists.

Gibbon Wakefield's Letter from Sydney, published in 1829, marks an epoch in the history of Australian colonisation. In this work he proposed that the land should be sold in small lots at a fairly high price to settlers, and that the proceeds of the sales should be used to pay the passage of emigrants going out as labourers. This idea had hardly been published when it was adopted by the home government, and five shillings an acre was fixed as the minimum price of land. The number of emigrants increased rapidly, but the new system threatened ruin to the owners of sheep-runs. Unable to pay the stipulated price, they only moved further into the interior and occupied fresh land without seeking government permission, an unlicensed occupation which has left its mark upon the language in the word "squatter". At last in 1837 a compromise was arranged, by which the squatters were to pay a small rent for their runs, the crown retaining the freehold with the right to sell it to others at some future date. In 1834 the British government sanctioned the formation of a new colony, that of South Australia. It was to be settled from the outset on the Wakefield system, and no convicts were ever sent to it. The first lots were sold as high as twelve shillings an acre, and in 1836 a company of emigrants went out and founded Adelaide.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I.