Part 94

Since Watt had demonstrated the value of steam for driving machinery (S563), a number of inventors had been experimenting with the new power, in the hope that they might apply it to propelling vessels. In 1807 Robert Fulton, an American, built the first successful steamboat, and made the voyage from New York to Albany in it. Shortly afterwards his vessel began to make regular trips on the Hudson. A number of years later a similar boat began to carry passengers on the Clyde, in Scotland. Finally, in 1819, the bold undertaking was made of crossing the Atlantic by steam. An American steamship, the Savannah, of about three hundred tons, set the example by a voyage from the United States to Liverpool. Dr. Lardner, an English scientist, had proved to his own satisfaction that ocean steam navigation was impracticable. The book containing the doctor's demonstration was brought to America by the Savannah on her return.

Twenty-one years afterward, in 1840, the Cunard Company established the first regular line of ocean steamers. They sailed between England and the United States. Since then fleets of steamers ranging from two thousand to more than forty thousand tons each have been built. They now make passages from continent to continent with the regularity of clockwork, and in fewer days than the ordinary sailing vessels formerly required weeks. The fact that during a period of more than seventy years one of these lines has never lost a passenger is conclusive proof that Providence is on the side of steam, when steam has men that know how to handle it.

566. Literature; Art; Education; Travel; Dress.

The reign of George III is marked by a long list of names eminent in letters and art. First in point of time among these stands Dr. Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the first English dictionary worthy of the name, and that on which those of our own day are based to a considerable extent. He was also the author of the story of "Rasselas,"--that notable satire on discontent and the search after happiness. Next stands Johnson's friend, Oliver Goldsmith, famous for his genius, his wit, and his improvidence,--which was always getting him into trouble,--but still more famous for his poems, and his novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield."

Edward Gibbon, David Hume, author of the well-known "History of England," and Adam Smith come next in time. In 1776 Gibbon published his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," which after more than a hundred years stands the ablest history of the subject in our language. In the same year Adam Smith issued "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," which had a great effect on legislation respecting commerce, trade, and finance. During this period, also, Sir William Blackstone became prominent as a writer on law, and Edmund Burke, the distinguished orator and statesman, wrote his "Reflections on the French Revolution."

The poets, Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, with Sheridan, the orator and dramatist, and Sterne, the humorist, belong to this reign; so, too, does the witty satirist, Sydney Smith, and Sir Walter Scott, whose works, like those of Shakespeare, have "made the dead past live again." Then again, Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen have left admirable pictures of the age in their stories of Irish and English life. Coleridge and Wordsworth began to attract attention toward the last of this period, and to be much read by those who loved the poetry of thought and the poetry of nature; while, early in the next reign, Charles Lamb published his delightful "Essays of Elia."

In art we have the first English painters and engravers. Hogarth, who died a few years after the beginning of the reign, was celebrated for the coarse but perfect representations of low life and street scenes; and his series of Election pictures with his "Beer Lane" and "Gin Alley" are valuable for the insight into the history of the times.

The chief portrait painters were Reynolds, Lawrence, and Gainsborough, the last of whom afterwards became noted for his landscapes. They were followed by Wilkie, whose pictures of "The Rent Day," "The Reading of the Will," and many others, tell a story of interest to every one who looks at them.

Last came Turner, who in some respects surpassed all former artists in his power of reproducing scenes in nature. At the same time, Bewick, whose cuts used to be the delight of every child that read "Aesop's Fables," gave a new impulse to wood engraving, while Flaxman rose to be the leading English sculptor, and Wedgwood introduced useful and beautiful articles of pottery.

In common-school education little advance had been made for many generations. In the country the great mass of the people were nearly as ignorant as they were in the darkest part of the Middle Ages. Hardly a peasant over forty years of age could be found who could read a verse in the Bible, and not one in ten could write his name.

There were no cheap books or newspapers, and no proper system of public instruction. The poor seldom left the counties in which they were born. They knew nothing of what was going on in the world. Their education was wholly of the practical kind which comes from work and things, not from books and teachers; yet many of them with only these simple helps found out two secrets which the highest culture sometimes misses,--how to be useful and how to be happy.

See Wordsworth's poem "Resolution and Independence."

The ordinary means of travel were still very imperfect. Stage-coaches had been in use for more than a hundred and fifty years. They crawled along at the rate of about three miles an hour. Mail coaches began to run in 1784. They attained a speed of six miles an hour, and later of ten. This was considered entirely satisfactory.

The close of George III's reign marks the beginning of the present age. It was indicated in many ways, and among others by the declining use of sedan chairs, which had been the fashion for upwards of a century, and by the change in dress. Gentlemen were leaving off the picturesque costumes of the past,--the cocked hats, elaborate wigs, silk stockings, ruffles, velvet coats, and swords,--and gradually putting on the plain democratic garb, sober in cut and color, by which we know them to-day.

567. Last Days of George III.

George III died (1820) at the age of eighty-two. During ten years he had been blind, deaf, and crazy, having lost his reason not very long after the jubilee, which celebrated the fiftieth year of his reign (1809). Once, in a lucid interval, he was found by the Queen singing a hymn and playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord.

He then knelt and prayed aloud for her, for his family, and for the nation; and in closing, for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy calamity, or grant him resignation to bear it. Then he burst into tears, and his reason again fled. In consequence of the incapacity of the King, his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was appointed regent (1811), and on the King's death came to the throne as George IV.

See Thackeray's "Four Georges."

568. Summary.

The long reign of George III covered sixty very eventful years. During that time England lost her possessions in America, but gained India and prepared the way for getting possession of New Zealand and Australia. During that period, also, Ireland was united to Great Britain. The wars with France, which lasted more than twenty years, ended in the great naval victory of Trafalgar and the still greater victory on the battlefield of Waterloo. In consequence of these wars, with that of the American Revolution, the National Debt of Great Britain rose to a height which rendered the burden of taxation well-nigh insupportable.

The second war with the United States in 1812 made America independent on the sea, and eventually compelled England to give up her assumed right to search American vessels. The two greatest reforms of the period were the abolition of the slave trade and the mitigation of the laws against debt and crime; the chief material improvement was the extension of canals and the application of steam to manufacturing and to navigation. The "Industrial Revolution" transformed the North of England.

GEORGE IV--1820-1830

569. Accession and Character of George IV.

George IV, eldest son of the late King, came to the throne in his fifty-eighth year; but, owing to his father's insanity, he had virtually been King for nearly ten years (S567). His habits of life had made him a selfish, dissolute spendthrift, who, like Charles II, cared only for pleasure. Though while Prince of Wales he had received for many years an income upwards of 100,000 pounds, which was largely increased at a later period, yet he was always hopelessly in debt.

Parliament (1795) appropriated over 600,000 pounds to relieve him from his most pressing creditors, but his wild extravagance soon involved him in difficulties again, so that had it not been for help given by the long-suffering taxpayers, His Royal Highness must have become as bankrupt in purse as he was in character.

After his accession matters became worse rather than better. At his coronation, which cost the nation over 200,000 pounds, he appeared in hired jewels, which he forgot to return, and which Parliament had to pay for. Not only did he waste the nation's money more recklessly than ever, but he used whatever political influence he had to opposesuch measures of reform as the times demanded.

570. Discontent; the "Manchester Massacre" (1819).

When (1811) George, then Prince of Wales, became regent (S567), he desired to form a Whig ministry, not because he cared for Whig principles (S479), but solely because he would thereby be acting in opposition to his father's wishes. Finding his purpose impracticable, he accepted Tory rule (S479), and a Cabinet (S534) was formed with Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister. It had for its main object the continued exclusion of Catholics from representation in Parliament (S478).