Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/199

 QUEEN VICTORIA 361 QUEEN VICTORIA By Donald Macleod, D.D. i (born 1819 1901) w ell do I remember the effect produced on the audience of students, of which I was then one, when Lord Macaulay delivered his Rectorial address in the University of Glasgow, and when, after giving such pictures as he alone could paint, of the character of the four centu- ries that had closed since the university had been founded each epoch presenting a scene of blood- shed and misgovernment he sketched the possi- ble future of the college, and anticipated the time when coming generations would tell how certain I contemplated changes had been accomplished J during the reign of " the Good Queen Victoria." The phrase was accentuated by an oratorical swing ; and when it was given, the tremendous burst of enthusiasm showed that they who lis- tened felt the great historian had chosen the right 'epithet, and that he intended it in the sense that, as some monarchs are called "Great" and some " Little," so for all time Victoria would be named " the Good Queen." This was said more than forty years ago, before Tennyson had fixed the " Household name," " Albert the Good," for "That star Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made One light together." The epoch in our history which is embraced between the years 1837 and 1887, is unparalleled. At no time in the history of the nation, or of the world, has there been such rapid and beneficent progress. We, who are citizens of " the old country," scarcely realize the extent of our dominion. The Roman Lm- pire was one-fourth its size ; all the Russias contain an eighth less ; it is sixteen times as large as France, and three times as large as the United States. The United Kingdom, with its colonies and dependencies, includes about one-fifth of the entire globe. The rapidity with which population has grown in some parts of our dominion may be measured by Australasia, which in 1837 had 134,059, and in 1885, 3,278,934, or twenty-three times as many more. When we turn from these figures to consider other fields of progress, we are still more amazed. It goes without saying that these last fifty years have seen the growth of railways