CHAPTER XXII.

NOTICE OF THE RELIGION, GOVERNMENT AND LAWS, LITERATURE, ARTS, COMMERCE, AND MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE LAST PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

Religion. The chief events connected with the religious history of this period have been recorded in the previous pages. They chiefly consisted in legislative acts, having for their end an enlarged system of toleration. The established church still remained, and still continues to remain, intimately connected with the state, but a greater liberty of conscience was allowed to all bodies of Protestant sectaries. By the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, with other measures of a similar tendency, all persons not in connexion with the established church are placed on nearly the same footing with churchmen, as regards political rights and privileges. There are few offices and dignities from which any class of British subjects is excluded on account of religious opinions. Even the Jews, who had for ages been trodden under foot, and looked upon as outcasts of society, have been permitted to have a voice in the great councils of the nation.

Government and Laws.-Concerning the government or this period, a few words will suffice. In England it remained essentially the same as it was in the last period noticed in this History. A great change, however, took place in the constitution of Ireland, in the abolition of its parliament, which has been mentioned in a previous page. Many important alterations were made in the criminal jurisprudence of England. Numerous barbarous statutes were erased from the statutebook, and others were rendered more consonant with the enlightened spirit of the age. Mercy has been blended with justice in a remarkable degree; and though some laws may still require modification, the British code may be said to be generally worthy of a Christian community.

Literature.-The progress of literature in this period was very remarkable. In the middle of the last century it had lost almost all traces of originality. Invention was discouraged, research unvalued, and the examination of nature proscribed. It seems to have been considered that the trea

sures accumulated in the preceding age were sufficient for all national purposes, and that the sole work of authors was to reproduce what had been already written in a more elegant shape, and a more polished style. This slavish obedience to established rules, however, was not lasting. The American war first, and then the French revolution, broke the chains that had thus fettered the public mind, and works of great ex cellence, too numerous to mention, appeared in every branch of literature. Most of the great English poets, historians, theo logians, critics, and scientific writers wrote in this age, and their productions are generally known to and read by all men. Cheap literature has become the order of the day; books are now as easily obtained by the poor, as they were by the rich at former periods. One striking feature of the literature of this age is displayed in what is termed "The Periodical Press." Reviews and magazines hold a high rank in literature. But with much that is excellent, there has also appeared much that is destructive to morality and religious principle. The press has proved a mighty engine for evil as well as for good. Infidel publications, and novels of an immoral tendency abound; and it becomes the young to be careful how to choose the good and refuse the evil. An ill book well written is like poisoning a fountain that runs for ever: a man may do mischief in this way as long as the world lasts. He is a nuisance to future ages, and lays a snare for those who are yet unborn. The poet says justly:

"Books are not seldom talismans and spells
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some to the fascination of a name

Surrender judgment hoodwink'd. Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds

Of error leads them by a tune entranced;

While sloth seduces more; too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,

And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice,
The total grist unsifted, husks and all."

COWPER.

Arts. The arts as well as literature made a remarkable progress in this period. Agriculture, architecture, painting, and music have made rapid strides toward perfection. A remarkable revival of the art of wood-engraving also took place, and it derives its principal interest from its application to the illustration of books. This period is further marked

by the English School of Painting: painters appeared who have immortalized their names by works equal to the great productions of the old masters. Thus the portraits of sir Joshua Reynolds have been justly compared with the simplicity of Titian, the vigour of Rembrandt, and the elegance and delicacy of Vandyke. It was in this period that the Royal Academy was founded, by which the art of painting has received great encouragement. The art of sculpture also made rapid progress in this period; in which the names of Banks, Bacon, Nollekins, Flaxman, and Chantrey are justly celebrated. Line engraving, in the hands of Woolet and Strange, was brought to a degree of perfection it had never yet reached, and which has never since been equalled. The arts of mezzotint and lithography have, likewise, been adopted with great success, for the purpose of illustrating popular works.

Commerce. Of the British commerce, that branch which we enjoyed exclusively, namely, the commerce with our colonies, was long regarded as the most advantageous. Since the separation of the American states from Great Britain, however, the trade, the industry, and manufactures of the latter have greatly increased. New markets have opened, the receipts from which are more certain and less tedious than those from America. By supplying a great variety of markets, the skill and ingenuity of British artisans have taken a wider range. The productions of their labour have been adapted to the wants, not of rising colonies, but of nations the most wealthy and refined, in every part of the globe. Our commercial system, no longer resting on the artificial basis of speculation, has been rendered more solid as well as more liberal. The recent great measures of free trade have proved of the utmost benefit to British commerce. No nation upon the face of the earth is so great as regards its commerce as Great Britain. It is, indeed, on its commerce that its greatness is based. Its ships visit all lands and all climes, carrying its productions thence, and receiving in return their gold and their produce. One great cause of the extension of commerce is the application of machinery in our manufactures. By this means Great Britain is enabled to supply the world with articles for domestic use which cannot readily be obtained elsewhere. "To see," writes a British tourist, in 1791, "barren hills and valleys laugh and sing under the influence of an auspicious trade, must give the benevolent heart the most agreeable sensations.. Villages

swarming with strong, healthy, and beautiful children, well fed these may be considered as the offspring of trade. Handsome country-houses on every hill, elegantly furnished, and surrounded by as elegant pleasure-grounds: these are thy blessings, O Commerce! these are thy rewards, O Industry!"

"Ingenious Art, with her expressive face,
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race;
Not only fills necessity's demand,
But overcharges her capacious hand:
Capricious taste itself can crave no more
Than she supplies from her abounding store:
She strikes out all that luxury can ask,

And gains new vigour at her endless task."

Manners and Customs.-The period at which this history has now arrived is so recent, and its habits and modes of thought differ by such fine and scarcely perceptible shades from our own, that the subject of manners and customs may be dismissed in few words. On former occasions it was necessary to be more minute, that the imagination of the reader might be transported back to the times described, in order to call up their bodily presence before them. Now, however, it may be assumed that the prominent characteristics of the manners to which this section refers are so much the same which still prevail as to render detail unnecessary. There may be shades of difference in the dress, the habits, the furniture, and the amusements of the former part of the period to which these remarks refer, but they are so fine as not to call for any specific notice. An acute writer's opinion on the manners of the English at the close of the reign of George III. are applicable to the present day. "The dominating idea which gives form and bearing to the manners of Great Britain is English. Before it all provincial peculiarities are giving way to it Scotch and Irish manners are conforming. It is the model in which all are cast, though its impress is less distinct and sharp, in many cases, from the unfavourable nature of the materials, or of the circumstances under which they have been passed through it. An Englishman's ideal of manners is not unusually typified by his ideal of dress and equipage. There is in his choice of all three a shunning of the gaudy, or anything that appears to approach to it, which amounts even to affectation. There is combined with this an intense anxiety that the quality of the article should be excellent, and its finish, with all the plainness of its form,

exquisite. The English gentleman, if addicted to show, lavishes it not on his own person, but on his domestics; and even, with regard to them, he wishes their appearance to be rich rather than gaudy. His plain carriage must be as neat as tools and varnish can make it, and as commodious; his horses must strike by their blood and high keeping; the harness must be such as to pass unnoticed; and the standard of taste to which the deportment of the English gentleman must conform is strictly analogous. His amusements are manly, with a strong dash of the useful: his taste is to make himself comfortable. He is a hunter, a votary of the turf, a cricketer, a yachter; and in all of these pursuits he prides himself on being a master of mechanical details. He is fond of farming, or of reading, or of taking a part in public business; but these serious pursuits he affects to treat as amusements: even though an enthusiast in them, he must talk lightly of them. On the other hand, he must affect a passionate interest in the pleasures of the table, and similar trifles. He will be pardoned, too, for being passionately attached to them, so long as he combines with them a relish for manly sports. The English gentleman is hardy, endowed with a healthy relish for pleasure, and has a high sense of honour. This ideal of the high-bred gentleman communicates its sentiment to the whole of society: even the ladies catch something of its selfdependent, elastic tone, without diminution of or injury to their perfectly feminine graces. This model is emulated throughout society, in sufficiently gross and awkward caricature sometimes, but still so that lineaments of what is imitated can be detected." That England, at the close of the reign of George III., had much to learn in the philosophy of social intercourse, and that it still has much to learn, even in the nineteenth century, cannot be denied; but its social habits and modes of thought are infinitely superior to what they were at the first dawn of English history, and may challenge comparison with those of the most refined nation in Europe. It has truly been remarked that they are a source of justifiable pride, and of good augury for the future. For refined manners, for high morality, and for noble sentiment, England ranks high among the nations of the earth.

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