gets from it not only Landor's classic style,
but--what is well worth while--a better picture of Greece in the days of
its greatness than can be obtained from many historical volumes.

SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM. This period extends from the war with
the colonies, following the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, to the
accession of Victoria in 1837, both limits being very indefinite, as will
be seen by a glance at the Chronology following. During the first part of
the period especially, England was in a continual turmoil, produced by
political and economic agitation at home, and by the long wars that covered
two continents and the wide sea between them. The mighty changes resulting
from these two causes have given this period the name of the Age of
Revolution. The storm center of all the turmoil at home and abroad was the
French Revolution, which had a profound influence on the life and
literature of all Europe. On the Continent the overthrow of Napoleon at
Waterloo (1815) apparently checked the progress of liberty, which had
started with the French Revolution,[233] but in England the case was
reversed. The agitation for popular liberty, which at one time threatened a
revolution, went steadily forward till it resulted in the final triumph of
democracy, in the Reform Bill of 1832, and in a number of exceedingly
important reforms, such as the extension of manhood suffrage, the removal
of the last unjust restrictions against Catholics, the establishment of a
national system of schools, followed by a rapid increase in popular
education, and the abolition of slavery in all English colonies (1833). To
this we must add the changes produced by the discovery of steam and the
invention of machinery, which rapidly changed England from an agricultural
to a manufacturing nation, introduced the factory system, and caused this
period to be known as the Age of Industrial Revolution.

The literature of the age is largely poetical in form, and almost entirely
romantic in spirit. For, as we have noted, the triumph of democracy in
government is generally accompanied by the triumph of romanticism in
literature. At first the literature, as shown especially in the early work
of Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley, reflected the turmoil of the age and the
wild hopes of an ideal democracy occasioned by the French Revolution. Later
the extravagant enthusiasm subsided, and English writers produced so much
excellent literature that the age