e woof and warp of preaching, was the great gift of the
movement to the teaching Church, and has now penetrated and possessed it
on a scale so general that it may be considered as pervading the whole
mass."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Lord Holland's _Memoirs of the Whig Party_, ii. p. 123.

[7] The property of Colonel Davies-Evans of Highmead.

[8] Written in 1897.

VII.

SOCIAL EQUALIZATION.

It was a characteristic saying of Talleyrand that no one could conceive
how pleasant life was capable of being who had not belonged to the
French aristocracy before the Revolution. There were, no doubt, in the
case of that great man's congeners some legal and constitutional
prerogatives which rendered their condition supremely enviable; but so
far as splendour, stateliness, and exclusive privilege are elements of a
pleasant life, he might have extended his remark to England. Similar
conditions of social existence here and in France were similarly and
simultaneously transformed by the same tremendous upheaval which marked
the final disappearance of the feudal spirit and the birth of the modern
world.

The old order passed away, and the face of human society was made new.
The law-abiding and temperate genius of the Anglo-Saxon race saved
England from the excesses, the horrors, and the dramatic incidents which
marked this period of transition in France; but though more quietly
effected, the change in England was not less marked, less momentous, or
less permanent than on the Continent. I have spoken in a former chapter
of the religious revival which was the most striking result in England
of the Revolution in France. To-day I shall say a word about another
result, or group of results, which may be summarized as Social
Equalization.

The barriers between ranks and classes were to a large extent broken
down. The prescriptive privileges of aristocracy were reduced. The
ceremoniousness of social demeanour was diminished. Great men were
content with less elaboration and display in their retinues, equipages,
and mode of living. Dress lost its richness of ornament and its
distinctive characteristics. Young men of fashion no longer bedizened
themselves in velvet, brocade, and gold lace. Knights of the Garter no
longer displayed the Blue Ribbon in Parliament. Officers no longer went
into society with uniform and sword. Bishops laid aside their wigs;
dignified clergy discarded the cassock. Coloured coats, silk stockings,
lace ruffles, a