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How much does the man of great poetic genius or eloquence owe to mankind! If he sing not the highest word of joy or woe, how great is his remissness! If he dedicate his pen to lust and wine, to ribald mock and scoff, it is the greatest charity that can say to him, Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.' The glory that burns around the brow of the Nazarene, so that we see him two thousand years off, was the birth of this thought -The Son of Man has come to save that which is lost.'

Himself vicious, he lashed vice in others with bitterness of invective. Aspiring after excellence, he was practically enslaved to vice. In short, he was an assemblage of clashing qualities, an extraordinary mixture of the seraph and the beast. We cannot but say of him, with mournful regret:

"This should have been a noble creature: he

Hath all the energy which would have made

A goodly frame of glorious elements,

Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,

It is an awful chaos-light and darkness,

And mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts,
Mix'd and contending, without end or order,

All dormant or destructive.'

Influence. He flooded forth good and evil impetuously. Much that he wrote is licentious in tone; some of it is openly obscene. Worse still, he holds up to admiration moral monsters in whom 'one virtue is linked with a thousand crimes.' The mean and corrupt are made attractive by clothing them in a blaze of diction, or by associating them with images of beauty and sublimity. Virtue is often disparaged, and dignity is conferred on vice. Doubtless, personal hatreds, bitter and reckless moods, frequently prompted him to say what he did not believe or feel. Accused, for example, of thinking ill of women, he replied:

'If I meet a romantic person, with what I call a too exalted opinion of women, have a peculiar satisfaction in speaking lightly of them; not out of pique to the sex, but to mortify their champion; as I always conclude, that when a man overpraises women, he does it to convey the impression of how much they must have favored him, to have won such gratitude towards them; whereas there is such an abnegation of vanity in a poor devil's decrying women,-it is such a proof positive that they never distinguished him, that I can overlook it.'

As we have seen, side by side with this alluring Dead-sea fruit,—

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are the fruits of the spirit,-beauty, loveliness, aspiration, pity, faith, hope, charity. Byron will always have charms for active, restless youth; and will ever find an echo in the breast of voiceless suffering. We shall not venture to pronounce on the general tendency of his writings. In that fadeless garden, flowers and weeds are commingled; in that eternal spring the waters are both salubrious and noxious.

How much does the man of great poetic genius or eloquence owe to mankind! If he sing not the highest word of joy or woe, how great is his remissness! If he dedicate his pen to lust and wine, to ribald mock and scoff, it is the greatest charity that can say to him, 'Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.' The glory that burns around the brow of the Nazarene, so that we see him two thousand years off, was the birth of this thought -The Son of Man has come to save that which is lost.'

DIFFUSIVE PERIOD.

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CHAPTER VI.

FEATURES.

On, like the comet's way, through infinite space,
Stretches the long untravelled path of light,
Into the depths of ages.-Bryant.

Politics.-Legislative measures are but temporary expedients. Because times are progressive, institutions must change. The Act of 1832 came to be regarded by many as a mere instalment of justice. Further expansion was demanded, and the advocacy of reform was no longer attended with personal risk. The agitators grew into a formidable party. The chief were extreme Liberals, the 'Chartists.' Vast meetings were held, at one of which two hundred thousand persons were computed to be present A monster petition, bearing more than a million names, was rolled into Parliament in a huge tub. Six points were embodied, most of which, in whole or in part, have since been incorporated in British law: universal suffrage; annual parliaments; secret voting,-vote by ballot; abolition of the property qualification for a seat in the House of Commons; payment of members; equal electoral districts. In 1846 the Corn Law, the key-stone of the protective system, was repealed. Free Trade was soon adopted in every department of commerce, and for nearly forty years the commercial policy of Britain has accepted the maxim,—‘Buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest.' Among later political achievements are the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Protestant Church, and the abolition of all religious tests for admission to office or for university degrees.

Evidently England in this era has entered upon the victories of peace. The only war which properly recalls the battleperiod of her history was the Crimean, waged with Russia in defence of Turkey. Insular security and national sense have left

her tranquil. The stormy contentions that rage abroad and imperil the fortunes of continental nations, present themselves to her islands in a mitigated form.

Anglo-Americans, troubled with no fear of their neighbors, entertaining no purposes of aggression, and occupying a continent of boundless resources, had elected from the first a career of peaceful industry. Two notable wars have interrupted this development, that of 1812, and the Great Rebellion; the first originating in the British claim to search American ships, the second in the awakened conscience on the subject of slavery, and the conflict of opinion regarding state sovereignty. The South maintained the right of each state to withdraw, at pleasure, from the Union; and the northern antipathy to the slave system furnished the pretext for secession. The rebellion quelled, industry was resumed with quickened energy. The restoration of order in the wasted and disorganized South, however, has been slow. In the North, growth has been rapid beyond all precedent. To-day united America presents a record of industrial progress without parallel in the annals of the human family. Her population has increased to more than fifty millions. To her hospitable shores men throng from the four quarters of the globe. Yet only a fraction of her magnificent heritage is under cultivation. A century since, in the words of Chatham, she was not allowed to make a horse-shoe nail. Year by year her imports have diminished, and may so continue, till she virtually ceases to be a customer, and supplies her own wants. Her industries have rooted firmly in the soil under the shelter of protective duties. That she will adopt ultimately the broad principle of unrestricted commerce, it may be safe to predict. Meanwhile the disastrous experience of the Old World, in the creation of sectional jealousies and class tyrannies, gives warning of the increasing peril of a tariff which has outlived its necessity. In 1879 Mr. Bright wrote to the editor of the North American Review:

'It is a grief to me that your people do not yet see their way to a more moderate tariff. You are doing wonders, unequalled in the world's history, in paying off your national debt. A more moderate tariff, I should think, would give you a better revenue, and by degrees you might approach a more civilized system. What can be more strange than for your great free country to build barriers against that commerce which is everywhere the handmaid of freedom and civilization?

I should despair of the prospects of mankind if I did not believe that before long the intelligence of your people would revolt against the barbarism of your tariff. It seems

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