CHAPTER IX 
THE DAWN OF THE VICTORIAN ERA 
“ . . . A closer link 
Betwixt us and the crowning race 
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
On knowledge; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand 
Is Nature like an open book.” 
HE nineteenth century stands by itself, set apart 
from all the centuries of history which went before 
it by the rapid advance of natural science and its 
applications to practical ends. 
As the means of travel were perfected the motive which 
led to exploration changed, and while for the first thirty 
years of the century the aims of explorers were not dis- 
similar from those of Columbus and Magellan, during the 
last seventy years there were in the political sense no 
worlds left for the seafarer to conquer. The desirable 
temperate lands were all occupied or at least “ pegged 
out ” by European nations, and the great trade routes 
were fairly established and free from any national 
restrictions. 
The period of transition between 1830 and 1840 led 
to the establishment of the life and thought of to-day, 
to the manners and ideals which stamp this portion 
of history as an era requiring a name, and it is perhaps 
the last era in the history of the world to which the name 
of any sovereign will be entirely applicable. The era 
-Tennyson. 
