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brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with tiger's leaps. She carries no key; for, though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is Mater TenebrarumOur Lady of Darkness.

CHAPTER VIII

THE VICTORIAN AGE

TO THE DEATH OF TENNYSON

1837-1892

N the period just reviewed, from the publication of

IN

the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 to the death of Scott in 1832, Europe was convulsed by the Napoleonic wars and then groaned under the tyranny of social and political reaction nearly everywhere. Austria and the Holy Alliance controlled international politics; and Metternich, the great reactionary statesman, held undisputed sway over the destinies of the peoples of Europe. In France, successive revolutions and a great military defeat were necessary before a permanent republic could be formed; Germany, after rejecting a liberal constitution, was united only by the victories over Austria in 1866 and France in 1870-1; Italy threw off the Austrian yoke and proclaimed herself free in 1859; Hungary made a vain attempt to gain her freedom and finally won equal power with Austria in the Dual Monarchy; and Greece freed herself from Turkish rule in 1825.

It was under these conditions that the outburst which we call the Romantic Movement occurred. On Napoleon's first appearance in the public eye he was hailed by the romanticist as the hero of his dreams, the deliverer who should carry the Gospel of the Rights of Man to all Europe. This, in a sense, he did, but, as his liberal lead

ership became a military despotism, the hero fell from his pedestal and his disillusioned followers saw him for what he was.

It needs to be re-emphasised that the Romantic Movement is closely related to the French Revolution, and that it passionately felt the democratic and revolutionary impulses which issued from that great event. A trust in natural goodness and a faith that, grant ordinary human instinct a chance to assert itself, true progress will result, is behind the revolutionary concept. Progress through revolution, as it was conceived in those hopeful days, meant knocking off the chains of convention or of social and legal institutions which prevented this natural expansion of human nature. This trust in natural goodness is a distinguishing trait of the romanticist; and it is in fact an entire change from the former view of humanity held by orthodox moralists, namely, that men are prone to follow the primrose path of selfish ambition unless they are restrained by the inner voice of conscience or the outer check of the law.

Before we face the dominant forces of our present epoch, we perceive the several strands of a very complicated skein of tendencies and events. The first in time and importance was this same impulse toward political equality, inspired by the French Revolution. Political democracy joined hands with the attempt of the oppressed toilers to free themselves from the intolerable evils of the factory system, and there was initiated the long class struggle that has become acute during the present generation. The next strand we must pick up and follow through is the immense advance of material science and its alliance with industrialism to multiply the social problems that were engaging the attention of thinking men.

This

in turn led to changes in economic theory to fit and justify new conditions. Finally, must be mentioned the manner in which Victorian sentiment endeavored to accommodate itself to these aspects of the age.

I. The most important event in the social history of modern Europe was the Industrial Revolution which we have already met in our review of the preceding age, paralleling in its influence the political force of the French Revolution. The discovery of the uses of steam by James Watt and the inventions of Arkwright, Cartwright, and Eli Whitney revolutionized industry, establishing the factory system upon the ruins of the ancient apprentice system and intensifying the social distinctions between capital and labor. A very grave situation had developed during the transforming years of the early half of the nineteenth century, when wealth was created faster than laws could be passed to control it. Thenceforth it came about that legislation was enacted in the interest of the capitalist, or captain of industry, rather than in satisfaction of the claims of rival monarchs, and a new struggle arose between these new social forces at the two ends of the industrial system. Inevitably grave abuses crept into the working of the capitalistic system, and the reign of Victoria was mainly occupied with righting social wrongs. The passage of various mine and factory acts, the passionate but ineffective Chartist agitation, the formation of trades unions, and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, were among the events in the industrial history of the period. In 1832 occurred the passage of the the first Reform Bill, abolishing the pocket boroughs and widening the franchise, one of the steps toward political liberty which find a beginning in Magna Carta. The year 1867 saw the Second Reform Bill passed by the

Conservatives under Disraeli. Gladstone, however, Disracli's Liberal opponent, was chiefly instrumental through his long career as Prime Minister in bringing about industrial reforms and enfranchising the working class. By the year 1892 a fair degree of political democracy had been obtained, but the industrial question remained an unwelcome legacy to our present age.

II. Closely interwoven with the progress of democracy and the acute class struggle, and in fact a direct cause of the situation as it appears to-day, was the unprecedented advance in scientific inquiry and the application of science to modern industry. By the dying out of the romantic fire, old creeds and old beliefs were left without a vital spark. In religion, in politics, in society, the old orthodoxy stood face to face with the new facts of science and industrial democracy.

SIR CHARLES LYELL's Principles of Geology (1830) began the assault upon orthodox theology. CHARLES DARWIN'S Origin of Specics in 1859 was epoch-making. Thenceforth the older order gave way before the advance of scientific criticism. Men like Wallace, Huxley, and Herbert Spencer became the apostles of the new scientific theories. The exaltation of science as a remedy for all ills met the Berserker rage of Carlyle, the moral indignation of Ruskin, the penetrating criticism of Matthew Arnold, the opposition of the Oxford Movement, the attempted reconciliation of science and faith in the verse of Tennyson, and an inspired optimism on the part of Browning. Social criticism took the place of creative effort; and it may not be unfair to contrast the divine energy of the Elizabethans with a restiveness and a critical analysis of social ills that prevented the composition of anything like really great literary masterpieces. It

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