A.D. An act passed for disarming the Highland clans and prohibiting the The electrical apparatus called the Leyden jar invented. 1752. The identity of lightning and electricity proved by Dr. Franklin. CHAP. XX. THE RELIGION, GOVERNMENT, LITERATURE, ARTS, COMMERCE, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC., OF THIS PERIOD. Religion.- THE Revolution which dethroned the family of the Stuarts was the victory of Protestantism, and, as such, the victory of the English Church; and this victory was complete. There were some, indeed, who were dissatisfied with it; but all their attempts to subvert the established order of things proved abortive; and as these attempts have been narrated in the foregoing pages, it is sufficient here to allude to them. In England the Revolution consolidated and confirmed the established episcopacy; but it had an opposite effect in Scotland, where it swept it utterly away, and in its place re-erected the old edifice of presbytery on broader and deeper foundations than ever. But in both countries the Revolution may, in reference to this matter, be regarded as the completion of the Reformation, or at least the accomplishment of the first aim of that great movement, the acquisition and secure establishment of a national church in harmony with the national faith. Popery was completely shorn of its strength, and laws were enacted which rendered it impossible for the Roman Catholics again to obtain power in England. By the Revolution, however, the generality of Protestant dissenters obtained greater liberty of conscience than they had ever before enjoyed. The Corporation and Test Acts, indeed, still remained on the statute-book; but the people were mostly left free to worship God in the manner most agreeable to their own consciences, and the liberty they enjoyed is proved by the establishment of several new sects both in England and Scotland. Methodism took its rise in this period. It sprung up originally in England, but was planted also in America, Scotland, and Ireland. Its founders were John Wesley and George Whitfield, whose labours were chiefly confined to the labouring population; and it is amongst them that Methodism has chiefly flourished to this day. Government. With the present period a new era in our constitutional history commenced. There were no more attempts on the part of the English monarchs to render themselves absolute; but the monarchy was strictly and definitively limited by law. It had, indeed, been limited by law before; but it was found to be one thing to place a law on the statute roll and another to enforce it: now, however, the kings of England felt it their interest as well as their duty to govern by the laws of the kingdom. The Revolution had taught a lesson not soon to be forgotten; and introduced a race of kings less disposed to the assumption of arbitrary power than the family of the Stuarts: moreover, a claim could no longer be laid to the crown merely on the score of hereditary right, since, though a descendant of the old family had been placed on the throne, she was not the next in succession; and the choice was therefore as much opposed to hereditary right as if a total stranger had been elected king. Hence all the mischiefs which have their source in "The right divine of kings to govern wrong" were completely swept away, and both the kings of England and their people united in a due observance of the laws and constitution of the kingdom. Literature. It has been remarked that the Revolution, brought on by some of the causes that had given birth to the Commonwealth, and restoring something of the same spirit and condition of things, came like another nightfall upon our literature, extinguishing whatever was poetical in the land still more completely than even that previous triumph of the popular principle. Up to this period English literature had grown and flourished chiefly in the sunshine of Court protection and favour; and, whatever were the faults of the Stuarts, the high praise must be given them of encouraging learning and literary merit. When they were dethroned literature was left to the public appreciation; and this not being at the time sufficiently extensive to afford it the necessary warmth and shelter, it naturally languished. The spirit and affections of literature were still in the main courtly; and when the encouragement of the court was withdrawn, it drooped and withered, from the deprivation of its customary support and sustenance. The state of literature in the time of William III., partly no doubt from the effects of the frivolity and depravity of the preceding period, was much depressed; but in the reign of Queen Anne it again flourished vigorously, and there appeared a crowd of great men, whose characters are well known, and whose names are familiar to every one acquainted with the literature of his country. Swift, Addison, Rowe, Steele, Prior, Pope, Congreve, and others not only enjoyed the friendship and familiarity of those in power, but most of these men obtained places in some of the less burdensome departments of government, which put it in their power to pass the rest of their days in ease and independence. Several men of genius united in furnishing the public with a daily paper, under the name of the Spectator; which greatly contributed to improve both the manners and tastes of the people. The ministers of George I. were patrons of literature, and some of them were no mean proficients themselves; and the reign of George II. also produced a great number of learned and ingenious writers. The bench of bishops was never better provided with able prelates than it was at the commencement of his reign; a proof that the nobility and ministry were judges of literary qualifications. In other departments of erudition the favour of the public now began to compensate for the coldness of the court. A taste for literature had been excited in the general public; and it was usually well supported. After the rebellion in 1745, when Pelham was considered first minister, the government showed less indifference to literature, and men of genius began again to bask in the sunshine of royal favour. Although, therefore, at the commencement of this period it drooped, at its close it again flourished; and though few great poets existed, prose writers of celebrity abounded, whose works are still purchased, and read with pleasure and profit. Arts. The arts were in a very low state during this period. Painting was generally degraded throughout Europe; in Italy art was almost extinct; the French school was on the decline; the sources were now dried up or vitiated, from which the demands of England had hitherto been satisfied; and sculpture had no higher name to mention than that of Bernini. Architecture flourished under Wren and Vanbrugh; but when they died no one was found worthy to succeed them except Inigo Jones. Agriculture, however, was improved in this period. The English system of gardening was now introduced by William Kent; and with little talent for any other art except that useful one, the art of rising in the world, Kent professed himself a painter, sculptor, and architect, and contrived to establish and maintain through life the reputation of a universal genius. His only title to the extraordinary reputation he obtained, however, lies in his talent for landscape gardening; but on this ground his fame rests on a substantial basis. Kent taught his pupils to imitate nature, or, more properly speaking, to act upon her plan in forming pleasure-grounds, instead of impressing upon every natural object the hard stamp of art. He taught that the perfection of gardening consists in humouring and adorning, not in constraining nature; that the whole secret of good gardening consists in making proper use of natural scenery, wood and water, hill and valley, in conjunction with architecture, so as to give beauty and variety to the embellished ground; in judiciously veiling and exposing the surrounding country; and in contrasting the luxuriant meadow with the barren heath, the verdant slope with the rugged steep, the sylvan temple with the ruined tower, the meandering rill with the majestic river, and the smooth surface of the lake with nature's most sublime object, the ocean. Engraving made great progress in this period, a very desirable thing, as historical pictures can only become the property of the rich, and are liable to be injured by time or accident; while by the art of engraving copies may be multiplied at a moderate price. Hogarth commenced his career as an engraver; but this great and original genius soon felt his strength, and aspired to something beyond this occupation. He formed, indeed, a new school in painting, and his works are unlike those of any other man. "He belonged to no school of art - he was the produce of no academy; no man, living or dead, had any share in forming his mind or in rendering his hand skilful. He was the spontaneous offspring of the graphic spirit of his country; as native to the heart of England as independence is; and he may be fairly called, in his own walk, the firstborn of her spirit. He painted life as he saw it. He gives no visions of bygone things—no splendid images of ancient manners: he regards neither the historian's page nor the poet's song: he was content with the occurrences of the passing day, with the folly or sin of the hour; but to the garb or fashion of the moment he adds story and sentiment for all time." Music made vast strides in the British dominions during the period between the Revolution and the reign of George III.; and the improvement was equally observable in the church, the chamber, and the theatre. Among the names of distinguished composers may be mentioned those of Purcell, Handel, Playford, Eccles, Haydn, Arne, Carey, and Leveridge; and there were also many able writers on the science of music, as Holden, Malcolm, Smith, Avison, and Pepusch. Academies of music were formed at this period, and also a club under the name of the Madrigal Society. Commerce. At the commencement of this period the Revolution, having brought on a war with France, commerce, which had been rapidly increasing, became again depressed. So greatly, indeed, were the resources of the country cut off, that at the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, the kingdom seems to have felt like a man staggering with fatigue and weakness. On the return of peace, however, the spirit of enterprise reopened the channels of industry and commerce, and from that time there was a gradual and steady *expansion of the stream. The active spirit of our national in dustry, and the growth of our trade and manufactures, were shown by nothing more remarkably than by the continued extention of the metropolis and most of our other long-established centres of population; and the rapid rise of several places of insignificance to the rank of great towns. In London no less than eight parishes were erected in this period; and Bristol, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Frome, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin each derived a large accession of population, some of them to the extent of several times the numbers they contained at the period of the Revolution. One of the sources to which our commerce owed its gradual and steady expansion was the growing importance of our possessions in the islands and on the continent of America. Great numbers of people had emigrated to those colonies within the present period; and hence they enlarged their boundaries and became of the utmost importance to the mother country. The most beneficial trade arose from the colonies in the West India islands; but the East India trade also was rendered more important than it had been in any previous period. It may likewise be noticed that England now became a corn-exporting country, though not to a very considerable extent. Manners, Customs, &c.—The costume of this period underwent several alterations in the different reigns; but as it is familiar from various prints, no further notice is required. The same may be said of the furniture of our English mansions; for the commencement of the eighteenth century provided them with nearly every article of convenience or luxury which they at present possess. These articles, indeed, were often made in so superior a style in respect both of elegance of form and durability of material, that they are now eagerly sought after, and imitations widely fabricated to meet the demand. The circumstances in which the present period commenced had the effect of diffusing political partisanship throughout English society; party spirit took possession of all classes, and gave rise to various new habits of life, extensively influencing the manners and customs of the time. Old and young, rich and poor, men and women, became politicians; and contentions about affairs of state not only overran literature and religion, the coffee-house and the church, but the places of public amusement, and the very street merriments of the people. Punch abandoned his domestic brawls for public feuds, and might be heard at the corners of streets gibbering for or against the existing order of things at the pleasure of his employer. Female politicians abounded. Ladies were known to be of a certain political party by the arrangement of their patches. The Spectator gives a humorous account of a Whig lady who had a natural mole, like a patch, upon the Tory side of her |