PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY 427 



waged war upon the commercial spirit and utilitarianism in foreign 

 politics, his friend Tennyson effectively aiding him in the language 

 of poetry. The first work, however, in which the claims of a Greater 

 Britain were deliberately opposed to the adherents of Little England, 

 was Charles Dilke's Greater Britain (1st ed. 1867, new ed. 1890), 

 which exercised a deep and far-reaching influence on the public 

 opinion of England. The new spirit soon showed itself also in politics: 

 in direct opposition to the demands of the Little Englanders, Beacons- 

 field, when he came into office, endeavored to bring about a closer 

 union between England and India. It would appear that he had the 

 somewhat fantastic idea of winning Syria and Palestine for Eng- 

 land and of founding a continuous Oriental empire under English 

 control from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Bengal a scheme 

 with which he resumed a dream of Lord Byron's, whose ultimate 

 idea in going to Greece and sacrificing his fortune, his poetry, yea, 

 his life, to the cause of Greek rebellion was to lead the modern Greeks 

 through battle and victory to the border of India, and thus to be- 

 come a second, an English Alexander! Beaconsfield could not carry 

 out his ambitious plans, but he at 'least succeeded in persuading the 

 Queen to assume the title of Empress of India (1876), an event that 

 was in so far important as it was the first official manifestation of 

 the idea of a British Empire. 



The further development of the imperialistic movement in England 

 was principally influenced by historical events of extreme significance. 

 Up to 1860 England's command of the sea was practically uncon- 

 tested; after that date several new nations sprang up which before 

 had almost been des quantites negligeables for English foreign policy. 

 Germany and Italy were consolidated into national states of the 

 first order, and Germany particularly soon entered upon a very close 

 commercial competition with England, so that at the present day she 

 is her most dangerous rival. France recovered with an astounding 

 vitality from the blows which the war of 1870 had dealt her. In the 

 United States a field of almost unbounded possibilities for commercial 

 and industrial enterprise opened after the crisis of the Civil War, and 

 with the marvelous growth of their industries, the rapid increase of 

 their population and wealth, their national importance grew from 

 year to year and resulted in their abandonment of the traditional 

 Monroe policy and their first effective interference in European 

 politics on the occasion of the Spanish War. Russia built a navy and 

 made menacing progress in Asia toward the frontier of India. Lastly, 

 Japan, too. joined the number of the Great Powers and became 

 a serious rival of the European nations in the trade and commerce 

 of the far East. 



All those events which have taken place in the course of the last, 

 forty years could not but deeply impress the mind of the English 



