verse? To define them is difficult, because they are so subtly
varied and so inextricably interwoven. Yet I think they may be
superficially described as the idyll and the lyric. Under the
idyll I should class all narrative and descriptive poetry, of
which this age has been extraordinarily prolific; sometimes
assuming the form of minstrelsy, as in the lays of Scott;
sometimes approaching to the classic style, as in the
Hellenics of Landor; sometimes rivalling the novellette, as in
the work of Tennyson; sometimes aiming at psychological
analysis, as in the portraits drawn by Robert Browning;
sometimes confining art to bare history, as in Crabbe;
sometimes indulging flights of pure artistic fancy, as in
Keats' "Endymion" and "Lamia." Under its many metamorphoses
the narrative and descriptive poetry of our century bears the
stamp of the idyll, because it is fragmentary and because it
results in a picture. ... No literature and no age has been
more fertile of lyric poetry than English literature in the
age of Victoria. The fact is apparent. I should superfluously
burden my readers if I were to prove the point by reference to
Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Rossetti,
Clough, Swinburne, Arnold, Tennyson, and I do not know how
many of less illustrious but splendid names, in detail. The
causes are not far to seek. Without a comprehensive vehicle
like the epic, which belongs to the first period of national
life, or the drama, which belongs to its secondary period, our
poets of a later day have had to sing from their inner selves,
subjectively, introspectively, obeying impulses from nature
and the world, which touched them not as they were Englishmen,
but as they were this man or that woman. ... When they sang,
they sang with their particular voice; and the lyric is the
natural channel for such song. But what a complex thing is
this Victorian lyric! It includes Wordsworth's sonnets and
Rossetti's ballads, Coleridge's' Ancient Mariner' and Keats'
odes, Clough's 'Easter day' and Tennyson's 'Maud,' Swinburne's
'Songs before Sunrise' and Browning's 'Dramatis Personæ,'
Thomson's 'City of Dreadful Night' and Mary Robinson's
'Handful of Honeysuckles,' Andrew Lang's Ballades and Sharp's
'Weird of Michael Scot,' Dobson's dealings with the eighteenth
century and Noel's 'Child's Garland,' Barnes's Dorsetshire
Poems and Buchanan's London Lyrics, the songs from Empedocles
on Etna and Ebenezer Jones's 'Pagan's Drinking Chant,'
Shelley's Ode to the West Wind and Mrs. Browning's 'Pan is
Dead,' Newman's hymns and Gosse's Chant Royal.
{960}
The kaleidoscope presented by this lyric is so inexhaustible
that any man with the fragment of a memory might pair off
scores of poems by admired authors, and yet not fall upon the
same parallels as those which I have made. The genius of our
century, debarred from epic, debarred from drama, falls back
upon idyllic and lyrical expression. In the idyll it satisfies
its objective craving after art. In the lyric it pours forth
personality. It would be wrong, however, to limit the wealth
of our poetry to these two branches. Such poems as
Wordsworth's 'Excursion,' Byron's 'Don Juan' and 'Childe
Harold,' Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' William Morris's
'Earthly Paradise,' Clough's 'Amours de Voyage,' are not to be
classified in either species. They are partly
autobiographical, and in part the influence of the tale makes
itself distinctly felt in them. Nor again can we omit the
translations, of which so many have been made; some of them
real masterpieces and additions to our literature."
_J. A. Symonds,
A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry
(Fortnightly Review, January 1, 1889,
pages 62-64)._
The difference between the drama and the novel "is one of
perspective; and it is this which in a wide sense
distinguishes the Elizabethan and the Victorian views of life,
and thence of art. ... It is ... the present aim of art to
throw on life all manner of side-lights, such as the stage can
hardly contrive, but which the novel professes to manage for
those who can read. The round unvarnished tale of the early
novelists has been dead for over a century, and in its place
we have fiction that seeks to be as complete as life itself.
... There is, then, in each of these periods an excellence and
a relative defect: in the Elizabethan, roundness and balance,
but, to us, a want of fulness; in the Victorian, amplified
knowledge, but a falling short of comprehensiveness. And
adapted to each respectively, the drama and the novel are its
most expressive literary form. The limitations and scope of
the drama are those of its time, and so of the novel. Even as
the Elizabethan lived with all his might and was not troubled
about many things, his art was intense and round, but
restricted; and as the Victorian commonly views life by the
light of a patent reading-lamp, and so, sitting apart, sees
much to perplex, the novel gives a more complex treatment of
life, with rarer success in harmony. This rareness is not,
however, due to the novel itself, but to the minds of its
makers. In possibility it is indeed the greater of the two,
being more epical; for it is as capable of grandeur, and is
ampler. This largeness in Victorian life and art argues in the
great novelists a quality of spirit which it is difficult to
name without being misunderstood, and which is peculiarly
non-Elizabethan. It argues what Burns would call a castigated
pulse, a supremacy over passion. Yet they are not Lucretian
gods, however calm their atmosphere; their minds are not built
above humanity, but, being rooted deep in it, rise high. ...
Both periods are at heart earnest, and the stamp on the great
literature of each is that of reality, heightened and made
powerful by romance. Nor is their agreement herein greatly
shaken by the novel laying considerable stress on the outside
of life, while the drama is almost heedless of it; for they
both seek to break into the kernel, their variance being
chiefly one of method, dictated by difference of knowledge,
taste, and perception."
_T. D. Robb,
The Elizabethan Drama and the Victorian Novel
(Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, April, 1891,
pages 520-522)._
England: A. D. 1838-1842.
The Chartist agitation.
"When the Parliament was opened by the Queen on the 5th of
February, 1839, a passage in the Royal Speech had reference to
a state of domestic affairs which presented an unhappy
contrast to the universal loyalty which marked the period of
the Coronation. Her Majesty said: 'I have observed with pain
the persevering efforts which have been made in some parts of
the country to excite my subjects to disobedience and
resistance to the law, and to recommend dangerous and illegal
practices.' Chartism, which for ten subsequent years
occasionally agitated the country, had then begun to take
root. On the previous 12th of December a proclamation had been
issued against illegal Chartist assemblies, several of which
had been held, says the proclamation, 'after sunset by
torchlight.' The persons attending these meetings were armed
with guns and pikes; and demagogues, such as Feargus O'Connor
and the Rev. Mr. Stephens at Bury, addressed the people in the
most inflammatory language. ... The document called 'The People's
Charter,' which was embodied in the form of a bill in 1838,
comprised six points:--universal suffrage, excluding,
however, women; division of the United Kingdom into equal
electoral districts; vote by ballot; annual parliaments; no
property qualification for members; and a payment to every
member for his legislative services. These principles so
quickly recommended themselves to the working-classes that in
the session of 1839 the number of signatures to a petition
presented to Parliament was upwards of a million and a
quarter. The middle classes almost universally looked with
extreme jealousy and apprehension upon any attempt for an
extension of the franchise. The upper classes for the most
part regarded the proceedings of the Chartists with a contempt
which scarcely concealed their fears. This large section of the
working population very soon became divided into what were
called physical-force Chartists and moral-force Chartists. As
a natural consequence, the principles and acts of the
physical-force Chartists disgusted every supporter of order
and of the rights of property."
_C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 23._
"Nothing can be more unjust than to represent the leaders and
promoters of the movement as mere factious and self-seeking
demagogues. Some of them were men of great ability and
eloquence; some were impassioned young poets, drawn from the
class whom Kingsley has described in his 'Alton Locke'; some
were men of education; many were earnest and devoted fanatics;
and, so far as we can judge, all, or nearly all, were sincere.
Even the man who did the movement most harm, and who made
himself most odious to all reasonable outsiders, the once
famous, now forgotten, Feargus O'Connor, appears to have been
sincere, and to have personally lost more than he gained by
his Chartism. ... He was of commanding presence, great
stature, and almost gigantic strength. He had education; he
had mixed in good society; he belonged to an old family. ...
There were many men in the movement of a nobler moral nature
than poor, huge, wild Feargus O'Connor. There were men like
Thomas Cooper, ... devoted, impassioned, full of poetic
aspiration, and no scant measure of poetic inspiration as
well. Henry Vincent was a man of unimpeachable character. ...
{961}
Ernest Jones was as sincere and self-sacrificing a man as ever
joined a sinking cause. ... It is necessary to read such a
book as Thomas Cooper's Autobiography to understand how
genuine was the poetic and political enthusiasm which was at
the heart of the Chartist movement, and how bitter was the
suffering which drove into its ranks so many thousands of
stout working men who, in a country like England, might well
have expected to be able to live by the hard work they were
only too willing to do. One must read the Anti-Corn-Law Rhymes
of Ebenezer Elliott to understand how the 'bread tax' became
identified in the minds of the very best of the working class,
and identified justly, with the system of political and
economical legislation which was undoubtedly kept up, although
not of conscious purpose, for the benefit of a class. ... A
whole literature of Chartist newspapers sprang up to advocate
the cause. The 'Northern Star,' owned and conducted by Feargus
O'Connor, was the most popular and influential of them; but
every great town had its Chartist press. Meetings were held at
which sometimes very violent language was employed. ... A
formidable riot took place in Birmingham, where the
authorities endeavoured to put down a Chartist meeting. ...
Efforts were made at times to bring about a compromise with
the middle-class Liberals and the Anti-Corn-Law leaders; but
all such attempts proved failures. The Chartists would not
give up their Charter; many of them would not renounce the
hope of seeing it carried by force. The Government began to
prosecute some of the orators and leaders of the Charter
movement; and some of these were convicted, imprisoned and
treated with great severity. Henry Vincent's imprisonment at
Newport, in Wales, was the occasion of an attempt at rescue
[November 4, 1839] which bore a very close resemblance indeed
to a scheme of organised and armed rebellion." A conflict
occurred in which ten of the Chartists were killed, and some
50 were wounded. Three of the leaders, named Frost, Williams,
and Jones, were tried and convicted on the charge of high
treason, and were sentenced to death; but the sentence was
commuted to one of transportation. "The trial and conviction
of Frost, Williams, and Jones, did not put a stop to the
Chartist agitation. On the contrary, that agitation seemed
rather to wax and strengthen and grow broader because of the
attempt at Newport and its consequences. ... There was no lack
of what were called energetic measures on the part of the
Government. The leading Chartists all over the country were
prosecuted and tried, literally by hundreds. In most cases
they were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
... The working classes grew more and more bitter against the
Whigs, who they said had professed Liberalism only to gain
their own ends. ... There was a profound distrust of the
middle class and their leaders," and it was for that reason
that the Chartists would not join hands with the Anti-Corn-Law
movement, then in full progress. "It is clear that at that
time the Chartists, who represented the bulk of the artisan
class in most of the large towns, did in their very hearts
believe that England was ruled for the benefit of aristocrats
and millionaires who were absolutely indifferent to the
sufferings of the poor. It is equally clear that most of what
are called the ruling class did really believe the English
working men who joined the Chartist movement to be a race of
fierce, unmanageable, and selfish communists, who, if they
were allowed their own way for a moment, would prove
themselves determined to overthrow throne, altar, and all
established securities of society."
_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 5 (volume 1)._
Among the measures of coercion advocated in the councils of
the Chartists was that of appointing and observing what was to
be called a "'sacred month,' during which the working classes
throughout the whole kingdom were to abstain from every kind
of labour, in the hope of compelling the governing classes to
concede the charter."
_W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_T. Cooper,
Life, by himself,
chapter 14-23._
_W. Lovett,
Life and Struggles,
chapters 8-15._
_T. Frost,
Forty Years' Recollections,
chapters 3-11._
_H. Jephson,
The Platform,
part 4, chapters 17 and 19 (volume 2)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1839-1842.
The Opium War with China.
See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.
Adoption of Penny-Postage.
"In 1837 Mr. Rowland Hill had published his plan of a cheap
and uniform postage. A Committee of the House of Commons was
appointed in 1837, which continued its inquiries throughout
the session of 1838, and arrived at the conviction that the
plan was feasible, and deserving of a trial under legislative
sanction. After much discussion, and the experiment of a
varying charge, the uniform rate for a letter not weighing
more than half an ounce became, by order of the Treasury, one
penny. This great reform came into operation on the 10th of
January, 1840. Its final accomplishment is mainly due to the
sagacity and perseverance of the man who first conceived the
scheme."
_C. Knight,
Crown History of England,
page 883._
"Up to this time the rates of postage on letters were very
heavy, and varied according to the distance. For instance, a
single letter conveyed from one part of a town to another cost
2d.; a letter from Reading, to London 7d.; from Brighton, 8d.;
from Aberdeen, 1s. 3½d.; from Belfast, 1s. 4d. If the letter
was written on more than a single sheet, the rate of postage
was much higher."
_W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_G. B. Hill,
Life of Sir Rowland Hill._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.
The Queen's marriage.
"On January 16,1840, the Queen, opening Parliament in person,
announced her intention to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of
Saxe Coburg-Gotha--a step which she trusted would be
'conducive to the interests of my people as well as to my own
domestic happiness.' ... It was indeed a marriage founded on
affection. ... The Queen had for a long time loved her cousin.
He was nearly her own age, the Queen being the elder by three
months and two or three days. Francis Charles Augustus Albert
Emmanuel was the full name of the young Prince. He was the
second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and of his
wife Louisa, daughter of Augustus, Duke of
Saxe-Gotha-Altenberg. Prince Albert was born at the Rosenau,
one of his father's residences, near Coburg, on August 26,
1819. ... A marriage between the Princess Victoria and Prince
Albert had been thought of as desirable among the families on
both sides, but it was always wisely resolved that nothing
should be said to the young Princess on the subject unless she
herself showed a distinct liking for her cousin.
{962}
In 1836, Prince Albert was brought by his father to England,
and made the personal acquaintance of the Princess, and she
seems at once to have been drawn toward him in the manner
which her family and friends would most have desired. ... The
marriage of the Queen and the Prince took place on February
10, 1840."
_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 7 (volume 1)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1841-1842.
Interference in Afghanistan.
The first Afghan War.
See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1803-1838; 1838-1842; 1842-1869.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1841-1842.
Fall of the Melbourne Ministry.
Opening of the second administration of Sir Robert Peel.
In 1841, the Whig Ministry (Melbourne's) determined "to do
something for freedom of trade. ... Colonial timber and sugar
were charged with a duty lighter than was imposed on foreign
timber and sugar; and foreign sugar paid a lighter or a
heavier duty according as it was imported from countries of
slave labour or countries of free labour. It was resolved to
raise the duty on colonial timber, but to lower the duty on
foreign timber and foreign sugar, and at the same time to
replace the sliding scale of the Corn Laws then in force [see
TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828] with a fixed
duty of 8s. per quarter. ... The concessions offered by the
Ministry, too small to excite the enthusiasm of the free
traders, were enough to rally all the threatened interests
around Peel. Baring's revision of the sugar duties was
rejected by a majority of 36. Everybody expected the Ministers
to resign upon this defeat; but they merely announced the
continuance of the former duties. Then Peel gave notice of a
vote of want of confidence, and carried it on the 4th of June
by a single vote in a House of 623 members. Instead of
resigning, the Ministers appealed to the country. The
elections went on through the last days of June and the whole
of July. When the new Parliament was complete, it appeared
that the Conservatives could count upon 367 votes in the House
of Commons. The Ministry met Parliament on the 24th of August.
Peel in the House of Commons and Ripon in the House of Lords
moved amendments to the Address, which were carried by
majorities of 91 and 72 respectively." The Ministry resigned
and a Conservative Government was formed, with Peel at its
head, as First Lord of the Treasury. "Wellington entered the
Cabinet without office, and Lyndhurst assumed for the third
time the honours of Lord Chancellor." Among the lesser members
of the Administration--not in the Cabinet--was Mr. Gladstone,
who became Vice-President of the Board of Trade. "This time
Peel experienced no difficulty with regard to the Queen's
Household. It had been previously arranged that in the case of
Lord Melbourne's resignation three Whig Ladies, the Duchess of
Bedford, the Duchess of Sutherland, and Lady Normanby, should
resign of their own accord. One or two other changes in the
Household contented Peel, and these the Queen accorded with a
frankness which placed him entirely at his ease. ... During
the recess Peel took a wide survey of the ills affecting the
commonwealth, and of the possible remedies. To supply the
deficiency in the revenue without laying new burthens upon the
humbler class; to revive our fainting manufactures by
encouraging the importation of raw material; to assuage
distress by making the price of provisions lower and more
regular, without taking away that protection which he still
believed essential to British agriculture: these were the
tasks which Peel now bent his mind to compass. ... Having
solved [the problems] to his own satisfaction, he had to
persuade his colleagues that they were right. Only one proved
obstinate. The Duke of Buckingham would hear of no change in
the degree of protection afforded to agriculture. He
surrendered the Privy Seal, which was given to the Duke of
Buccleugh. ... The Queen's Speech recommended Parliament to
consider the state of the laws affecting the importation of
corn and other commodities. It announced the beginning of a
revolution which few persons in England thought possible,
although it was to be completed in little more than ten
years."
_F. C. Montague,
Life of Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 7-8._
ALSO IN:
_J. R. Thursfield,
Peel,
chapter 7-8._
_W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapters 3-5._
_J. W. Croker,
Correspondence and Diaries,
chapter 22 (volume 2_).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1842.
The Ashburton Treaty with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1845-1846.
Repeal of the Corn Laws and dissolution of the League.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1845-1846.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1845-1846.
First war with the Sikhs.
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
Settlement of the Oregon Boundary Question with the United
States.
See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
The vengeance of the Tory-Protectionists.
Overthrow of Peel.
Advent of Disraeli.
Ministry of Lord John Russell.
"Strange to say, the day when the Bill [extinguishing the
duties on corn] was read in the House of Lords for the third
time [June 25] saw the fall of Peel's Ministry. The fall was
due to the state of Ireland. The Government had been bringing
in a Coercion Bill for Ireland. It was introduced while the
Corn Bill was yet passing through the House of Commons. The
situation was critical. All the Irish followers of Mr.
O'Connell would be sure to oppose the Coercion Bill. The
Liberal party, at least when out of office, had usually made
it their principle to oppose Coercion Bills, if they were not
attended with some promises of legislative reform. The English
Radical members, led by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, were
certain to oppose coercion. If the protectionists should join
with these other opponents of the Coercion Bill, the fate of
the measure was assured, and with it the fate of the
Government. This was exactly what happened. Eighty
Protectionists followed Lord George Bentinck into the lobby
against the Bill, in combination with the Free Traders, the
Whigs, and the Irish Catholic and national members. The
division took place on the second reading of the Bill on
Thursday, June 25, and there was a majority of 73 against the
Ministry."
_J. McCarthy,
The Epoch of Reform,
page 183._
{963}
The revengeful Tory-Protectionist attack on Peel was led by
Sir George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, then just making
himself felt in the House of Commons. It was distinctly
grounded upon no objection in principle to the Irish Coercion
Bill, but on the declaration that they could "no longer trust
Peel, and, must therefore refuse to give him unconstitutional
powers.' ... He had twice betrayed the party who had trusted
his promises. ... 'The gentlemen of England,' of whom it had
once been Sir Robert's proudest boast to be the leader,
declared against him. He was beaten by an overpowering
majority, and his career as an English Minister was closed.
Disraeli's had been the hand which dethroned him, and to
Disraeli himself, after three years of anarchy and
uncertainty, descended the task of again building together the
shattered ruins of the Conservative party. Very unwillingly
they submitted to the unwelcome necessity. Canning and the
elder Pitt had both been called adventurers, but they had
birth and connection, and they were at least Englishmen.
Disraeli had risen out of a despised race; he had never sued
for their favours; he had voted and spoken as he pleased,
whether they liked it or not. ... He was without Court favour,
and had hardly a powerful friend except Lord Lyndhurst. He had
never been tried on the lower steps of the official ladder. He
was young, too--only 42--after all the stir that he had made.
There was no example of a rise so sudden under such
conditions. But the Tory party had accepted and cheered his
services, and he stood out alone among them as a debater of
superior power. Their own trained men had all deserted them.
Lord George remained for a year or two as nominal chief: but
Lord George died; the conservatives could only consolidate
themselves under a real leader, and Disraeli was the single
person that they had who was equal to the situation. ... He
had overthrown Peel and succeeded to Peel's honours."
_J. A. Froude,
Lord Beaconsfield,
chapter 9._
Although the Tory-Protectionists had accomplished the
overthrow of Peel, they were not prepared to take the
Government into their own hands. The new Ministry was formed
under Lord John Russell, as First Lord of the Treasury, with
Lord Palmerston in the Foreign Office, Sir George Grey in the
Home Department, Earl Grey Colonial Secretary, Sir C. Wood
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Macaulay
Paymaster-General.
W. C. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapter 11.
The most important enactment of the Coercion Bill "(which
subsequently gave it the name of the Curfew Act) was that
which conferred on the executive Government the power in
proclaimed districts of forbidding persons to be out of their
dwellings between sunset and sunrise. The right of proclaiming
a district as a disturbed district was placed in the hands of
the Lord-Lieutenant, who might station additional constabulary
there, the whole expense of which was to be borne by the
district."
_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 4, page 137._
ALSO IN:
_S. Walpole,
Life of Lord John Russell,
chapter 16 (volume 1)._
_B. Disraeli,
Lord George Bentinck,
chapter 14-16._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
Difference with France on the Spanish marriages.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1848.
The last Chartist demonstration.