veteran left to receive our heart homage. The Duke of Wellington, the "dear old duke," as he is universally called, though thirty-six long years have passed since his and England's great day, the BATTLE OF WATERLOO, must feel from the respect and reverence with which he is greeted by all ranks, that his services are not forgotten, and England is proud of her gallant soldier, whose name in after ages will be associated with those of the heroes of Cressy and Poictiers, Agincourt and Blenheim. It would far exceed the limits of this little work to attempt a philosophical review of our gradual progress from barbarism to civilization, nor would it be proper to touch on any event in the reign of our present most gracious and beloved sovereign, under whose gentle rule we are daily becoming more enlightened as individuals, and important as a nation. Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Charles Dickens have exploded the long-cherished romance of "The good old Times," "when noblemen were destitute of comforts the "want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when "farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of "which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died "faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most "pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the "lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana," and taught us to believe that to return to the manners and customs of the middle ages would not be to our advantage. Our cities are no longer composed of narrow lanes of overhanging lath and plaster, low-ceilinged hovels, festering courts, and squalid alleys, Where dirt and sloth Wooed pestilence, and confirmed disease. These filth-clogged, unpaved avenues, and ricketty, unhealthy sheds, have given place to broad streets, lofty shops, and dwellings of brick and stone, princely squares and noble crescents, hemmed in on every side by suburban towns, almost as large and populous as the capital itself, scarcely as far back as the fifteenth century. Gas and a well organised police force render our streets as safe by night as by day. Steam has wrought such a wonderful revolution in travelling, that a journey which but sixty years ago could not be accomplished under five days, can now be performed in as many hours. Education is now within the reach of the poorest, and the charitable hope of George the Third, "that the day might come in which every poor child in his dominions should be able to read his bible" is accomplished. Colossal advances have been made in every branch of art and science, and the number of men of note within the last century is unparalleled. In science, to the illustrious names of Priestly, Bradley, Arkwright, Maskelyne, Smeaton, Brindley, Cartwright, Dollond, Rumford, Black, Watt, Cavendish, and Playfair, which shed lustre on the reign of George III., may be added, as the contemporary portion of his successor, those of Davy, Wollaston, Dalton, Ivory, Babbage, Faraday, South, Young, Arnott, Ai Leslie, Brewster, Herschel, Buckland, Telford, M‘Adam, and Rennie. Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Landor, Baillie, Elliott, Edgworth, Jeffrey, Gifford, Lingard, Hallam, Roscoe, Palgrave, D'Israeli, Mackintosh, Wordsworth, Crabbe, Southey, Moore, Coleridge, Rogers, Hogg, Montgomery, and Campbell, are enduring names that would shed lustre on the proudest period of English literature; in essay, and lighter political writing, Hazlitt, Lamb, the Smiths, Leigh Hunt, Wilson, Maginn, and Lockhart, shone conspicuous and completed, with other auxiliaries, the intellectual array which delighted their contemporaries, and embellished the pacific era of George IV. This long list of great names has, within the last thirty years, received many valuable additions from the senate, the bar, and the church. History has found two great illustrators in MR. MACAULAY and MISS AGNES STRICKLAND; the former, by his happy combination of the sterner style of the annalist, with the eloquence and perspicuity of the orator, has rendered the study of history not as it has hitherto been, a dry, unpalatable task, but a labour of pleasure and of love. To the latter we are indebted for one of the most elaborate, truthful, and fascinating books in our language. For the first time have the lives of our queens been presented to us in their interesting details, and while we follow them through the eventful phases of their chequered fortunes, we grow more and more in love with virtue, and pay homage to the delicate and pure mind which has so ably advocated woman's worth, and so charitably extenuated woman's faults and frailties. At the head of our dramatic literature, although it has been somewhat the fashion of late to lament its decay, stands JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES, the author of "Virginius," and "William Tell," the honest, open-hearted, fortune-buffetted, good man, whose genius has enriched our stage with so many noble dramas, and won both honours and wealth for so many of his interpreters. Judge Talfourd, Miss Mitford, Thomas Serle, George Stevens, R. H. Horne, G. Tomlins, J. Heraud, G. Lewes, and many other highly gifted dramatic poets, have also given us works to be remembered. Douglas Jerrold, who, to the satire of Pope and the solidity of Doctor Johnson, joins the whim of Smollett, and the wit of Congreve; Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Foster, Bourcicault, Sullivan, Marston, Bell, Planché, Dance, Oxenford, Lover, Lemon, Buckstone, Chorley, Thackaray, Albert Smith, Lever, James, Lady Blessington, and Mrs. Gore, as the writers of comedies, novels, and periodical essays, have, by their brilliancy and taste, maintained the high character of our lighter literature; while the great master spirit of the age, CHARLES DICKENS, by his gigantic intellect, wondrous power of observation, and, above all, his Christian humanity, and love of the good and beautiful, which pervade every page of his numerous works, has won by public acclamation the mantle of Sir Walter Scott, and made his name a "Household Word" throughout Europe. Music, which since the latter part of George the Second's reign has been gradually growing among us, has within the last few years made great advances. The continual influx of foreign talent, although, for a time, of great detriment to our native professors, has at last become a general advantage, by imbuing our young musicians with a purer style, and stimulating them to emulate those beauties which ages of cultivation, enthusiastic popular admiration, and liberal government patronage have rendered almost unapproachable to any nation unpossessed of such powerful advantages. The number of highly accomplished composers, vocalists, and instrumentalists we already possess give promise that in a very few years, when the advance of musical taste will have afforded our native musicians the foreign advantages of a proper arena for the exercise of their talent (which, to the shame of our great metropolis, although it supports two Italian opera houses, does not now exist), a government academy on the principles of the continental conservatoires, and an annual subsidy for the maintenance of national music, our English composers, vocalists, and instrumentalists will fearlessly compete with the best talent of Italy, Germany, or France. In painting and in sculpture we have also made great advances, and our stage exhibits a marked improvement in propriety of costume, scenery, and general truthfulness in the conduct and tone of the acting; and although we may not possess the multitude of great names that gave lustre to the Garrick, the Kemble, and the Edmund Kean eras, we have still a few time-honoured veterans, and a host of intelligent young artists, by whom the higher attributes of the English drama are zealously maintained, and the greatness of their predecessors successfully emulated." Our machinery, manufactures, and inventions have kept pace with our general improvement; in short, there is no branch of literature, science or art, in which we have not made great progress towards perfection. Such is our present enviable position; and although romancists may rhapsodize on the superiority of the "good old times," when might securely lorded over right, and the liberty of the subject was in continual jeopardy, unbiassed historians who will hereafter write on the nineteenth century, must admit that the condition of the bold yeomen who assisted in the triumphs of the Black Prince and Henry the Fifth, the glories of Elizabeth, and the gaieties of Charles the Second, can bear no comparison in moral, physical, and political advantages with the intellectual and noble people, who reformed their parliament, gave freedom to their trade, removed religious distinctions, and extended the hand of friendship to every quarter of the globe. Making England, truly merry England, and the reign of QUEEN VICTORIA THE FIRST, the most happy, the most prosperous, the most brilliant, and the most glorious in the history of the world. TABLE, SHOWING THE NAMES AND YEARS OF RULE OF THE ROMAN EM- KINGS AND QUEENS OF ENGLAND, FROM EGBERT TO VICTORIA I. THE ROMAN ERA FROM B.C. 55, To A.D. 409. EGBERT-Crowned at Winchester, 827. Reigned 10 years. Died 837. Buried at Winchester. * ETHELWOLF (Bishop of Winchester) son of Egbert-Crowned 837. Reigned 21 years. Died 857, at Stanbridge, where he was first buried; but his body was afterwards removed to the cathedral at Winchester. * Egbert's grand-daughter married the Count of Flanders, from whom descended Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror, heuce the kings of England all trace their pedigree from Egbert. ETHELBALD (son of Ethelwolf)-Crowned 857. Reigned 6 years conjointly with his father and brother. Died 860. Buried first at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire (where at that time was the Cathedral Church and Episcopal See), his body was ultimately removed to Salisbury. ETHELBERT (second son of Ethelwolf)-Crowned 860. Reigned 6 years. Died 866. Buried at Sherborne. ETHELRED I. (third son of Ethelwolf)-Crowned 866. Reigned 5 years. Died 871. Buried at Wimborne, in Dorsetshire. ALFRED (the Great), fourth son of Ethelwolf-Crowned at Winchester, 871. Reigned 21 years. Died 901, in the 52nd year of his age. Buried first at Winchester; his body was next removed into the church of the new monastery; and, lastly, his body, monument, church and monastery, were all removed without the north gate of the city, since called Hide.* EDWARD (the Elder), son of Alfred-Crowned at Kingstonupon-Thames, 901. Reigned 24 years. Died 925, at Farrington, in Berkshire. Buried at Winchester. ATHELSTAN (Edward's son, illegitimate)-Crowned at Kingston, 925. Reigned 15 years. Died 940, at Gloucester, in the 46th year of his age. Buried at Gloucester. EDMOND I. (fifth son of Edward the Elder)-Crowned 940. Reigned 6 years. Assassinated at Puckle Kirk, in Gloucester, 946, in the 25th year of his age. Buried at Glastonbury. EDRED (sixth son of Edward the Elder)-- Crowned at Kingston, 946. Reigned 9 years. Died 955. Buried at Winchester. EDWY (eldest son of Edmond) - Crowned at Kingston, 955. Reigned 4 years. Died of a broken heart, 959. Buried at Winchester. EDGAR (surnamed the Peaceable)-Crowned at Kingston, 959. Reigned 16 years. Died, 975. Buried at Glastonbury. EDWARD (the Martyr)-Edgar's eldest son. Crowned at Kingston, 975. Reigned 3 years. Assassinated by the instructions of his mother-in-law, Elfrida, as he was drinking at the gate of Corfe Castle, in Dorsetshire. He was first buried at Wareham, but was removed, three years afterwards, in great pomp, to Shaftesbury.+ ETHELRED II. (second son of Edgar)-Crowned at Kingston, 978. Reigned 37 years. Died in London, 1016. Buried at St. Paul's. *Alfred was born at Wanading, now Wantage, in Berks, where anciently was a manor house of the King of England. + Part of his body was some time after removed to Leominster, and another to Abingdon. |