Britain's One Utopia 



Self builds a "castle in Spain" for its own pleasure; 

 wisdom and benevolence an Utopia for all, — dreaming the ideal 

 of a society where wrong can find no harbourage, want no 

 entry, oppressive distinctions of "caste" or possession be 

 unknown. 



That brave old Englishman, Thomas More — afterwards, 

 unhappily for his head — Lord High Chancellor of England — 

 wrote out, in fair Latin, — in his chambers in the City of 

 London, over three centuries ago — his idea of an Utopia, 

 which, since then, modest as are its requirements, has yet 

 found no practical illustration, even among the many seats 

 of the great colonizing race of mankind. 



Utopias take form and color from the particular people 

 by whom they are conceived. In Captain Cook's sailor 

 account of the Polynesian Islands of the Pacific — the islands 

 of the blessed — where, amid a delicious clime, Nature is at 

 all charges for life, — one can scarce conceive of a more perfect 

 state. But the aggressive fire and " Berseker " rage of the 

 children of the northern seas would gird at so supine a lot : 

 fashion from the soft occasion matter more astringent for their 

 rough palates. 



The primitive history of all the colonies that faced the 

 Atlantic — when the new-found continent first felt the abiding 

 foot of the stranger — from Oglethorpe to Acadia, reveals, 

 alas ! no Utopia, a transplant of elder habitudes, where the 

 rancor of race, caste and rule was found to be too ingrained 

 to yield to even the softening influence of such a sylvan para- 

 dise as Virginia. It remained for a later time, — the earlier 

 half of the present century, amid every severity of climate, 

 and under conditions without precedent, and incapable of 



