The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-29

peaSantry their industrial arts, ana, Tor the first time. England ceased to be de- pendent on Flanders and became herself wool manufacturing country. This economic change is of vast significance and the parallel between the industrial conditions of Elizabeth's reign and the in dustrial conditions in the south since 1870 is full of interest and suggestiveness. In this parallel cotton replaces wool, for cot ton did not then figure in English history as an industrial factor.
 The manufacturing population was not confined to the English towns but spread all over the country. Even North England, which had Jagged far behind South England (here we must reverse our paralleD now showed signs of in- tense industrial activity and entered into healthy competition with the more southern sections. Of course it was all domestic manufacture; it was handlwork But England increased rapidly In wealth. in commercial power, in all that consti- tutes material prosperity.
 The keels of Elizabeths bold free booters, Raleigh, Drake, Froblsher, and Hawkins vexed all seas and brought treasures from all shores. Sir Thomas Gresham founded the first Royal Ex- change. England felt as never before the thrill of a new industrial life and the thrill of rounded nationalism born of industrial freedom. 1 have often thought that when Shakespeare spoke of "This precious stone set in the silver sea, this blessed plot. this earth, this realm, this England" there passed before his eye not only a vision of armed and warlike England girt by fearless defenders, but vision of happy English homes filled with the peace and contentment that spring from self-supporting toll
 Elizabeth's reign was. then peculiarly an industrial epoch. I need not tell you that her reign was and Is the glory of English letters. It Is needless to rehearse those illustrious names that will perish only with the language that you and speak My purpose Is merely to show that in this wonderful period literature found not foe but a friend in industri- alism. Both were the products of a com. mon national awakening; and industrial ism, by deepening the sense of national power and greatness, contributed to lit erature for a nations literature is but the expression of the national self con- sciousness.
 Second Industrial Revolution.
 Let us pass now to another industrial revolution nearer our own time. In 1775 memorable date in our own history, James Watt began the manufacture of steam engines The change from the do- nestle system of industrialism to the modern method of production by ma. chinery and steam power was sudden and violent. Before the year 1900 all the great inventions of Watt, Arkwright Foulton, and Hargreaves had been com pleted, and the modern factory system had begun. The writers on industrial history tell us that England increa sed her wealth tenfold and gained a hundred years start in front Of the nations of Europe" In fifteen years Q7SS-1S0S) the cotton trade trebled itself.
 "Of course vigorous protests were made against this spirit of rampant industrial ism. Thomas De Qulncey. then only 15 years of age. complained in 1900 that he could not stir out of doors without being no'sed by a factory, a cotton bag. a cotton dealer, or something else allied to that detestable commerce. The Jere- miahs and Cassandras believed that everything was going to the 'demnition bowwows.'
 But what was literature doing? She was witnessing a renaissance second only to that of the spacious times of great Elizabeth So far from being material ized she passed into her romantic period her liberal era. This was the age that nourished Keats, Shelley, Byron, Scott Coleridge, Wordsworth, Burns and Burke In love of nature that made all sea- sons seem as spring, in devotion to demo- cratic Ideals, in variety of range and in- tensity of feeling, this period takes place precedence of Elizabeth's reign The lit- Coleridges lines:
 " And now twas like all instruments,
 Now like a lonely flute;
 And now it was an angels song
 That makes the heavens mute
 "It was of this age that Wordsworth said:
 " Joy was 1t in that dawn to be alive,
 Butlto be young was very heaven
 Third Industrial Period.
 '"rhere has been but one other great industrial era marked by wide reaching discovery and fruitful invention. It falls within the fifteen years from 1880 to 1S45 Those years are the storage battery of the industrial and also of the literary forces that have shaped our Victorian era. In those years railroads first began to intersect the land, telegraph lines were first stretched, and the ocean was crossed for the first time by steam propelled yes sels All of these mechanical trumphs tended to annihiate time and space. The products of manufacture could now be sent with dispatch to the most distant quarters Nations came closer together The two hemispheres became and have continued one vast arena of industrial ln- terchange. Even Tennyson catches the in- dustrial inspiration, and in 1S42 celebrates in the same breath the glores of inven- tion and the triumphs of commerce.: " For l dipt into the future, far as hu-
 man eye could see,
 Saw the vision of the world, and all the
 wonder that would be;
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, ar
 gosies of magic sails.
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping
 down with costly bales.
 "But let us look at the purely literary record of those mechanical and industrial years. Every student knows that the English writers who have dominated the literary life of our Victorian era, and who bid fair to dominate many decades Browning, and Mrs. Browning in poet "; Dickens Thackeray. and George Eliot in fiction; Ruskin and Carlyle in miscel- laneous literature. Every one of these writers rose to prominence between 1890 and 1S45. Before 1880 they were unknown; by 1S45, not to know them was to confess inexcusable ignorance
 lndustralism and American Literature
 Ut is equally noteworthy that in 1880 with the single exception of Washington Irving's work, we had no distinctive lit- erature in America; but in 1S45 we were represented by Longfellow, Lowell. Whit tier, Hawthorne Emerson, and Holmes, the six names that have given the New England states their incontestable su- premacy in American literature.