490 THE REFORMATION. 



public now existed ; the invention of printing, which 

 a hundred years before would have been useless, spread 

 like fire over Europe, and reduced, by four-fifths, the 

 price of books. The writings of the classical geographers 

 inspired Prince Henry and Columbus. The New 

 World' was discovered ; the sea-route to India was 

 found. Cairo and Bagdhad, the great broker cities 

 between India and Europe, were ruined. As the In- 

 dian Ocean, at first the centre of the world, had yielded 

 to the Mediterranean, so now the basin of the Mediter- 

 ranean was deserted, and the Atlantic became supreme. 

 Italy decayed ; Spain and Portugal succeeded to the 

 throne. But those countries were ruined by religious 

 bigotry, and commercial monopolies. The trade of 

 Portugal did not belong to the country, but to the 

 court. The trade of Spain was also a monopoly shared 

 between the crown and certain cities of Castile. The 

 Dutch, the English, and the French, obtained free 

 access to the tropical world, and bought the spices of 

 the East with the silver of Peru. And then the great 

 movement for Liberty commenced. All people of the 

 Teutonic race ; the Germans, the Swiss, the Dutch, the 

 English, and the Scotch, the Danes and the Swedes 

 cast off the yoke of the Italian supremacy, and some 

 of the superstitions of the Italian creed. But now a 

 new kind of servitude arose. The kings reduced 

 the burghers of Europe to subjection. The constitu- 

 tional monarchies of the middle ages disappeared. 

 In England alone, owing to its insular position, a 

 standing army was not required for the protection of 

 the land. In England, therefore, the encroachments 

 of the Crown were resisted with success. Two Revo- 

 lutions established the sovereignty of an elected par- 

 liament, and saved England from the fate of France. 



