V

(1763-1788)

I now come to the generation which preceded the outbreak of the French
Revolution. Social and political movements are beginning to show
themselves in something of their modern form, and suggest most
interesting problems for the speculative historian. At the same time, if
we confine ourselves to the purely literary region, it is on the whole a
period of stagnation. Johnson is the acknowledged dictator, and Johnson,
the 'last of the Tories,' upholds the artistic canons of Dryden and
Pope, though no successor arises to produce new works at all comparable
with theirs. The school, still ostensibly dominant, has lost its power
of stimulating genius; and as yet no new school has arisen to take its
place. Wordsworth and Coleridge and Scott were still at college, and
Byron in the nursery, at the end of the period. There is a kind of
literary interregnum, though not a corresponding stagnation of
speculative and political energy.

Looking, in the first place, at the active world, the great fact of the
time is the series of changes to which we give the name of the
industrial revolution. The growth of commercial and manufacturing
enterprise which had been going on quietly and continuously had been
suddenly accelerated. Glasgow and Liverpool and Manchester and
Birmingham were becoming great towns, and the factory system was being
developed, profoundly modifying the old relation of the industrial
classes. England was beginning to aim at commercial supremacy, and
politics were to be more than ever dominated by the interests of the
'moneyed man,' or, as we now call them, 'capitalists.' Essentially
connected with these changes is another characteristic development.
Social problems were arising. The growth of the manufactory system and
the accumulation of masses of town population, for example, forced
attention to the problem of pauperism, and many attempts of various
kinds were being made to deal with it. The same circumstances were
beginning to rouse an interest in education; it had suddenly struck
people that on Sundays, at least, children might be taught their
letters so far as to enable them to spell out their Bible. The
inadequacy of the police and prison systems to meet the new requirements
roused the zeal of many, and led to some reforms. As the British Empire
extended we began to become sensible of certain correlative duties; the
impeachment of Warren Hastings showed that we had scruples about
treating Ind