First Impressions Of England And Its People (1851) (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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Excerpt from First Impressions of England and Its People
Napoleon, the hot political delirium raged wide among the masses, and even statesmen of the old school learned to recog nise the people as a power. Now, such in effect has been the cycle of the last twenty years. The reign of George the Fourth was also that of personal and party in uence. With the 30' cession of William the political fever again broke out, and swept the country in a greatly more alterative and irresistible form than at first. And now, here, in the times of Victoria, are we scarce less decidedly enveloped in the still thickening ecclesi astical element than our ancestors of the sixteenth century. If there be less of personal adventure in the England of the pre sent day than in that of Queen Anne and the two first Georges, there is, as if to make amends, greatly more of incident in the history of the masses. It has been remarked by some students of the Apocalypse, that the course of the predicted events at first move slowly, as, one after one, six of the seven seals are opened that on the opening of the seventh seal, the progress is so considerably quickened that the seventh period proves as fertile in events - represented by the sounding of the seven trumpets -as the foregoing six taken together 3 and that on the sound ing of the seventh trumpet, so great is the further acceleration, that there is an amount of incident condensed in this seventh part of the seventh period, equal, as in the former case, to that of all the previous six parts in one. There are three cycles, it has been said, in the scheme - cycle within cycle the second comprised within a seventh portion of the first, and the third within a seventh portion of the second. Be this as it may, we may at least see something that exceedingly resembles it, in that actual economy of change and revolution manifested in English history for the last two centuries It would seem as if events.