AND ITS COMMEMORATION · A LIT­ERARY AND PICTORIAL REVIEW OF THE PERIOD · THE STORY OF THE VICTORIAN TRANSFORM­ATION · BY SIR WALTER BESANT 1837 1897 The Werner Company · · London Chicago · New York · Berlin · Paris Eighteen Hundred and Ninety Seven...

When Sydney Smith, towards the close of his life, considered the changes which had passed over the country within his recollection, he said that he wondered how the young men of his time had managed to preserve even a decent appearance of cheerfulness. Sydney Smith died in 1845, just at the beginning of those deeper and wider changes of which he suspected nothing; for, though he was a clear-headed man in many ways, he was no prophet—he saw the actual and the present, but was unable to feel the a

In 1837 the Queen mounted the throne. It was a time of misgiving and of discontent. The passing of the Reform Act of 1832 had not as yet produced the results expected of it; there were other and more sweeping reforms in the air: the misery and the oppression of the factory hands, the incredible cruelty practised on the children of the mill and the mine, the deep poverty of the agricultural districts, the distress of the trading classes, formed a gloomy portal to a reign which was destined to be

“Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.”— Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Above all things, gentlemen,” says Goldsmith’s prisoner for debt, “let us guard our liberties.” What were the liberties of the people? They were very real; but they did not open the debtor’s prison; nor did they include representation. You will hardly believe that the old condition of things should have lasted so long. Before the Reform Act of 1832 the only persons who had votes at elections were freeholders; in so

“Will you mock at an ancient tradition?”— Henry V. When one speaks of the Bourgeois, one means the class which Matthew Arnold was never tired of ridiculing as without culture, ideals, or standards. For my own part, I think it would be more useful to recognise, first, that there are certain occupations in life which can be carried on very well without ideals; that the advent or genesis of ideas among certain people would inevitably spoil them for their humble work; and that it is sufficient for t

Sixty years ago there were three professions and two services. The two services were the Army and the Navy; the three professions were the Church, Law, and Medicine. The Church was the natural home of the scholars: a few scholars drafted off into the Law; there were also a few in the House, where they made apt quotations from Horace, and delighted the members by giving a Virgilian turn to a debate. Nowadays—alas!—were a scholar to venture on a Latin quotation, the House would not understand. It

Let me present to you, first, an early Victorian girl, born, indeed, about the Waterloo year; next, her granddaughter, born about 1875. The young lady of 1837 has been to a fashionable school: she has learned accomplishments, deportment, and dress. She is full of sentiment: there was an amazing amount of sentiment in the air about that time—she loves to talk and read about gallant knights, crusaders, and troubadours; she gently touches the guitar—her sentiment, or her little affectation, has tou

Let us leave London, and visit a certain English country town—a market town—as it was in the year 1837. We will then consider the place as it is to-day. In 1837 it is a quiet town with no industries except those created by the requirements of an agricultural centre. This not only causes a certain amount of activity and trade, but also gives rise to such industries as saddlery, farm implements, etc. The town consists chiefly of two or three streets running parallel, the larger and more important

“Voices call us—whither? Ah! whither?” It is doubtful business to ascribe new ideas to a whole people. For change of ideas is more gradual than change of manners. We may go on for a long time acting under one influence and thinking that we believe in another. But from all that has gone before, I think we may assume a change in the governing beliefs and sentiments of the nation greater than any change since the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the old faith gave way to the new and with the new faith

By Charles Palmer All the national pride and the power, the love of country, the growth of Empire, the loyalty, and the kinship which has characterised the reign of Queen Victoria, was exemplified or expressed in the memorable events that marked the Sixtieth Anniversary of Her Majesty’s Accession to the Throne. To tell the story of those days of joyous enthusiasm, which culminated in the triumphal progress of the Sovereign to London’s Cathedral of St. Paul’s on 22nd June 1897, is to write the re