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18.—THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, THE
HISTORY OF PROGRESS.

1. The history of England is emphatically the history of progress. It is the history of a constant movement of the public mind, of a constant change in the institutions of a great society. We see that society, at the beginning of the twelfth century, in a state more miserable than the state in which the most degraded nations of the East now are. We see it subjected to the tyranny of a handful of armed foreigners. We see a strong distinction of caste separating the victorious Norman from the vanquished Saxon. We see the great body of the population in a state of personal slavery. We see the most debasing and cruel superstition exercising boundless dominion over the most elevated and benevolent minds. We see the multitude sunk in brutal ignorance, and the studious few engaged in acquiring what did not deserve the name of knowledge.

2. In the course of seven centuries the wretched and degraded race have become the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw; have spread their dominion over every quarter of the globe; have scattered

the seeds of mighty empires and republics over vast continents, of which no dim intimation had ever reached Ptolemy1 or Strabo ;2 have created a maritime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together; have carried the science of healing, the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical art, every manufacture, everything that promotes the convenience of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought magical; have produced a literature which may boast of works not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us; have discovered the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies; have speculated with exquisite subtlety on the operations of the human mind; have been the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the career of political improvement.

3. The history of England is the history of this great change in the moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants of our own island. There is much amusing and instructive 'episodical matter; but this is the main action. To us, we will own, nothing is so interesting and delightful as to contemplate the steps by which the England of the Doomsday Book, the England of the Curfew and the Forest Laws, the England of crusaders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, outlaws, became the England which we know and love, the classic ground of Liberty and Philosophy, the school of all Knowledge, the mart of all Trade.

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4. The Charter of Henry Beauclerk,3 the Great Charter,4 the first assembling of the House of Commons,5 the extinction of personal slavery, the separation from the See of Rome, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act,9 the Revolution,10 the establishment of the liberty of unlicensed printing,11 the abolition of religious disabilities, 12 the reform of the representative system, 13 all these seem to us to be the

successive stages of one great revolution; nor can we fully comprehend any one of these memorable events unless we look at it in connection with those which preceded and with those which followed it.

5. Each of these great and ever-memorable struggles, Saxon against Norman, Villein against Lord, Protestant against Papist, Roundhead against Cavalier, Dissenter against Churchman, Manchester against Old Sarum, was, in its own order and season, a struggle, on the result of which were staked the dearest interests of the human race; and every man who, in the contest which in his time divided our country, 'distinguished himself on the right side, is entitled to our gratitude and respect.

6. We said that the history of England is the history of progress, and when we take a comprehensive view of it, it is so. But when examined in small, separate portions, it may with more 'propriety be called a history of actions and reactions. We have often thought that the motion of the public mind in our country resembles that of the sea when the tide is rising. Each successive wave rushes forward, breaks, and rolls back; but the great flood is steadily coming in. A person who looked on the waters only for a moment might fancy that they were retiring, or a person who looked on them only for five minutes might fancy that they were rushing 'capriciously to and fro; but when he keeps his eye on them for a quarter of an hour, and sees one sea-mark disappear after another, it is impossible for him to doubt of the general direction in which the ocean is moved.

7. Just such has been the course of events in England. In the history of the national mind, which is, in truth, the history of the nation, we must carefully distinguish between that recoil which regularly follows every advance, and a great general ebb. If we take short intervals,-if we compare 1640 and 1660, 1680 and 1685, 1708 and

1712, 1782 and 1794, we find a 'retrogression. But if we take centuries,-if, for example, we compare 1794 with 1660, or with 1685,-we cannot doubt in which direction society is proceeding. LORD MACAULAY.

an-ni-hi-late, bring to nothing; de-,
stroy,

ca-pri-cious-ly, wilfully.
dis-tin-guished, made famous.
ep-i-sod-i-cal, accidental; digressive.

1 Ptolemy, a famous Egyptian geographer, who flourished at Alexandria early in the second century after Christ. 2 Stra'bo, a famous Greek geographer; died 20 A.D.

3 Charter of Henry Beauclerk, the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I. in 1100.

4 The Great Charter, granted by King John in 1215.

5 First......House of Commons, by the Earl of Leicester in 1265.

pro-pri-e-ty, correctness; fitness.
re-coil', falling back.
ret-ro-gres-sion, going back.
subt-le-ty, acuteness.
van-quished, conquered.

8 The Petition of Right, drawn up by the Commons, and reluctantly accepted by Charles I. in 1628. It claimed exemption from (1) taxation without consent of Parliament, (2) punishment for resisting such taxation, (3) billeting of soldiers, (4) martial law in time of peace.

9 The Habeas Corpus Act, passed in 1679, secures the liberty of the subject by limiting the time during which one may be imprisoned without a trial.

10 The Revolution, of 1688, followed by the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701).

refused to renew the expired Act which had restrained the press.

6 Extinction of personal slavery.-Serfdom disappeared from England by insensible degrees, and not as the result of any special enactment. It 11 Liberty of unlicensed printhad almost entirely died out at the ending, secured in 1694, when Parliament of the dynasty of York (1485). Various causes are assigned for its disappearance; the Wars of the Roses, which destroyed the power of the nobility; the growth of towns, which were homes of free labour; the assertion of the rights of the serfs in popular risings, such as Wat Tyler's insurrection.

7 Separation from the See of Rome, in 1534, when Parliament declared the King to be head of the Church in England.

12 Abolition of religious disabilities.-The Test and Corporation Acts (1661, 1673) were repealed in 1828; Roman Catholics were admitted into Parliament in 1829; Jews were admitted in 1858.

13 Reform of the representative system.-The Parliamentary Reform Act was passed in 1832; the Municipal Reform Act in 1835.

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