A COMPARISON OF ELIZABETHAN WITH 

 VICTORIAN POETRY 



ENGLISH literature, under the Tudors and the first king of 

 the house of Stuart, owed much of its unexampled richness 

 to a felicitous combination of circumstances. Feudalism had 

 received a mortal wound in the Wars of the Roses, and was 

 dying. The people came to knowledge of itself, and acquired 

 solidity during the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and 

 Elizabeth. Englishmen were brought into the fellowship of 

 European nations through Wolsey's audacious diplomacy. 

 They began to feel their force as an important factor, which 

 had henceforth to be reckoned with in peace or war. Grave 

 perils attended the formation of Great Britain into a separate 

 and self-sustaining integer of Europe ; nor was it until the 

 Protectorate that these islands made their full weight recog- 

 nised. None of the perils, however, which shook England 

 during the period of consolidation, sufficed to disturb the 

 equilibrium of government and social order. On the other 

 hand, they stimulated patriotism, and braced the nation with 

 a sense of its own dignity. Our final rupture with Rome, 

 after the trials of Queen Mary's reign were over, satisfied the 

 opinion of a large majority. Our collision with Spain, in the 

 crisis marked by the Armada, took a turn which filled the 

 population with reverent and religious enthusiasm. These 

 two decisive passages in English history promoted the pride 

 of the race, and inspired it with serious ardour. Instead of 

 weakening the Crown or the Church, they had the effect of 

 rendering both necessary to the nation. Then, when Scotland 

 was united to England and Ireland, at the accession of James, 



