Page:First impressions of England and its people.djvu/15

Rh managed their business much through the medium of individual influence, little personal interests carried the day, and monarchs and ministers bulked large in the forefront of the passing events: from the first American war till the rise of Napoleon, the hot political delirium raged wide among the masses, and even statesmen of the old school learned to recognize 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 influence. With the accession 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 ecclesiastical element than our ancestors of the sixteenth century. If there be less of personal adventure in the England of the present 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 moves 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; and that, on the sounding 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