three years, the longest in English history, saw a series of remarkable men in charge of the queen's government. Four

brilliant parts: Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, and William Ewart Gladstone. The queen did not allow the cabinet to control the government absolutely she tried to keep informed at all times and claimed a right to share in the adoption of governmental policies; however, in such matters she usually found it. necessary to defer to the opinions of the ministers in charge.1

Queen Victoria mar

ried Albert, a prince

from one of the lesser German states.2

Prince
Albert.

QUEEN VICTORIA

Prince Albert was never

popular with the English people: he was somewhat stiff and reserved and had none of those genial graces that Englishmen love to see in royalty. No place was made for him in the government, and for a long time he had no legal title; but the queen was finally able to persuade parliament to give him the title of Prince Consort. Though he was the queen's husband, the ruling powers in England did not intend that he should be anything more than mere consort. This, however, did not prevent him from becoming a real force 1 Masterman, 190-195. 2 Bates and Coman, 388-392; Cheyney, No. 427.

THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE

553

in the government of the kingdom. He was naturally the queen's confidential adviser, and his counsel car- Prince Albert's ried great weight with the cabinet as well as with place in the the queen. After twenty years of married life the prince died,1 and for forty years longer Queen Victoria struggled single-handed with parties and ministers.

government.

It was the peculiar duty and privilege of Albert and Victoria to reestablish monarchy in the affections of the English people. The Hanoverian line of kings had not been famous The either for intelligence or for virtue. The queen's Hanoverians. grandfather, George III, had, indeed, lived a most proper private life; but his narrowness and stubbornness combined with a feeble intellect made him anything but an ideal ruler. Her uncle, George IV, had disgusted the nation; and her other uncle, William IV, while in many ways an improvement or his impossible brother, was erratic and was believed by many to be slightly unbalanced. But Queen Victoria, as wife and mother and mistress of a home, illustrated what Private life was noblest and best in the English character.2 of Victoria. Early in the queen's reign it was freely predicted that the British Isles would before long become a republic. To-day monarchy is firmly intrenched in the English political system. Even radicals admit the value of a dynasty in a nation like England and in a government like that of the United Kingdom. Albert and Victoria redeemed monarchy.

Literature.

503. The Victorian Age in Literature. The same generation that gave England her queen also produced a series of great literary artists and thinkers, whose writings have made the Victorian age a notable period in the literary history of the world. The decade from 1809 to 1819, the year of Victoria's birth, is honored by the birth of Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, and George Eliot. None of these writers was more than ten years older than the queen herself; George Eliot was a few months 1 Bates and Coman, 392-394 (Tennyson). 2 Ibid., 395-396 (Tennyson).

younger. In other lines, too, this wonderful decade was productive of genius, for it counts the scientist Charles Darwin and the statesman William Ewart Gladstone. John Stuart Mill, the economist, and Thomas Carlyle, though a few years older, also belong to this group.

for reform.

These men and women achieved greatness in their own various lines; but they also have their places in the social and Most of them Literature and political movements of the age. the movement received their earlier impressions during the period of reform agitation that preceded the parliamentary reform act of 1832. In the subsequent struggle for social reconstruction, especially when the enthusiasm for reform rose once more during the forties, these men and women through their writings and otherwise proved a tremendous force in the shaping of public opinion. It cannot be estimated how much strength the democratic movement gained from Thackeray's powerful satires, the Book of Snobs, for instance. Mention has already been made of Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Children, which to this day has remained an effective argument for a certain type of industrial legislation. In the same way the demand for aid and justice to the poor found a literary voice in Charles Dickens, whose novels ring with protest against the many abuses in the social life of the time. He exposed the miseries of the newly established workhouses and the degrading influence of the prison for debt; he attacked the antiquated system of education and the slow and stupid methods of the courts; he brought to light the dreadful poverty of the London slums. In most of the other writers of the age the same spirit is present, though the purpose is not so evident in their works.

Writers of the age of Wordsworth.

To the earlier generation of nineteenth century writers, whose work was done chiefly before 1832, the reform movement owes very little, though an exception may be made of Thomas Hood, whose Song of the Shirt doubtless was effective in creating sympathy for the women in the sweat shops. Scott died in 1832; Byron and Shelley 1 Oliver Twist, Little Dorritt, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, and other novels.

had preceded him nearly ten years earlier; Southey and Wordsworth survived Scott, but their important work was done before 1832. At some period in life nearly all these men had been sympathetic toward revolution. But they were not reformers; their writings did not deal with the problems of their own time. Shelley may be regarded as an exception, but his work had little influence. Moreover, the reaction drove several of them into the conservative camp: Scott, Southey, and Wordsworth died as confirmed Tories of the older type.

504. Summary. The "forty years of peace" that followed the treaties drawn up at Vienna in 1815 may be grouped into three periods. (1) The first dozen years (1815- Twelve years 1827) were a period of much discontent, great comof agitation. mercial and industrial development, and almost continuous agitation for domestic reforms. During these years the Tories were in power and were led successively by Castlereagh, Canning, and Wellington. In parliament the opposition to the Tories looked to Earl Grey, Lord John Russell, and Henry Brougham for leadership; while outside parliament the multitude listened chiefly to William Cobbett, who preached reform in his Weekly Political Register. (2) This period was followed by a decade of reform legislation: political rights A decade of were restored to the Catholics and the Protestant reforms. dissenters; parliament was reformed; factory laws were enacted; a new poor law was placed on the statute books; the boroughs were reorganized; slavery was abolished in the colonies; and other far-reaching changes were given legal sanction. This decade also saw the first practical steam railway and the first successful attempts to cross the ocean in ships that were propelled by steam power only. In politics the period saw the beginnings of the Liberal party which was The Liberal being formed out of three separate political groups: party. the Whigs, the Radicals, and the Canningite Tories. 1838 the fervor of the reformers cooled somewhat. Many important laws affecting English social life were, indeed, enacted something was done to improve the conditions in

(3) After

interests.

mines and factories, to shorten the hours of labor, and to proChanging mote the public health; but, on the whole, the statesmen who controlled the government during the earlier decades of Queen Victoria's reign were not intensely concerned with domestic problems.

REFERENCES

THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE: DISTRESS AND DISCONTENT. Cross, History of England, 867-871; Innes, History of England, 778-780; Jenks, Parliamentary England, 324-342; Ransome, Advanced History of England, '913-919. O'CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. Cross, 879-882; Jenks, 343

354; Johnston and Spencer, Ireland's Story, c. xxvii; Lawless, Ireland, c. lv; Morris, Wellington, 333-340; Ransome, 930-934.

THE UNREFORMED PARLIAMENT. - Beard, Introduction to the English Historians, 538-548 (Walpole); Cross, 909-914.

THE PARLIAMENTARY REFORM OF 1832.

- Beard, 549-565 (Walpole); Innes,

790-794; Jenks, 356-378; Morris, 342-351; Ransome, 939-944.

PROGRESS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. — Edwards, Story of Wales, c. xxvi; Gardiner, Student's History of England, 905-909; Innes, 801-808. INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENTS. Cross, 895-901; Gardiner, 887-890, 940-943;

Innes, 808-812.

REFORM LEGISLATION. - Innes, 815-819; Ransome, 944-948.
REFORM OF THE BOROUGH GOVERNMENT.

British Constitution, c. xxvi.

66

Masterman, History of the

QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE CONSTITUTIONALIZING OF THE MONARCHY." Masterman, c. xviii.