The Brownsville daily herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1897-1910, 1907-03-04
"Annus MirabiIis"

on the twelve months just ended.
Yet, looking from this distance,
there was not much in the England
of that day to excite wonder or
Qualification. The period of Char
les II, known in history as the
Restoration, as it replaced the
House of Stewart on the throne
torn from them by Cromwell, was
certainly rot an era of material
prosperity. The whole country |
had been ravaged by the armies of
the civil war. The nation was
heavily in debt. the common peo-
pie were desperately poor, most of
the land was held by the great
lords, corruption reighned supreme.
Agriculture, especially, was at a
low ebb, its methods being crude,
it devotees ignorant, its yields
meagre. Still the poets eye in
fine phrensy rolling. doth glance
from heaven to earth. from earth
to heaven and Dryden, with the
optimism of his class, was able to
see much to rejoice over in his
stately hexameters. When his
poem was written, about two
hundred and twenty-five years
ago, the republic across the waters
was not dreamed of. Only few
thousand people were scattered
along the Atlantic coast the first
colony (Virginia) was only some
sixty years old, and many were
still alive who remembered the
Deardless Powhatan and the peer
less Pocahontas.
Dryden, therefore, the sweet |
singer of the day, was some
ahead of his subject: If
ne could find anything wonderful
n poverty-stricken old England r
IF the Restoration, what would he {
nave said had he gone with US
through the year that recently
,losed? Surely he would have re-
written his 'Annus Mirabilis" q
With fervid increase of admiring t
detectives and large accretion of q
lyberbole. The really remarkable L
ear occurred, not in the old r
ountry, but in the great republic n
which has grown since Dryden's I
ay. Charles II would have been d
lad to collect in forty years the .
wealth produced by the United 9.
,tates in a single twelve months. n,
Dur farmers alone extracted from et
Iother Earth enough to keep n
>harles wasteful government go "
ng for more than three decades.
ut the paltry few hundred million
ollars OF that day by the side of ID
he American farmers contribu- a.
on to henatfonal wealth last in
ear, and you will see a Himalaya III
vertopping a pigmy hill. The
300, 000,0 900 of wealth placed to 10
lie credit of our agriculture on r.
81 was enough to have II
ought all England when Con- th
reve was writing his brilliant A
and Wychcrly was max
lg love to the fine ladies of the
ourt Old Sarah Marlborough, Sc
ateful mother of a grasping but NJ
elebrated son, would have had Zig
er natural greed intensified at an an
respect of dipping her foul hands du
to this enormous pile of money. de
So it is 1906 memorable year of an an
memorable age, that calls for the
lythmic rhymes of the lyrist and
e fervid eloquence of the orator.
ct. the most gifted poet, the Es
ost enthusiastic eulogist, would
Id words lacking to fully exem- tn
ify his theme. Indeed, the chief Ca
ems in the material wealth of the ar,
nited States for 1906, deal with sal
gures so large that they are be- du
md the grasp of the ordinary Pr
There was an in ju.
ease all along the line; 25,OOO,-
% tons of pig iron, 500, 900, 900
liars in gold, 425,OOO tons of Es
pper. $500, 900, 900 worth of
al and an entire mineral produc- y