Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/30

 io REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 41 loins was contending the reactionary old English spirit which had gathered strength under Mary, the single good result of her reign. Grass lands were again brown- ing under tillage, farm-houses were re-built, and the small yeomen fostered into life again ; but a vague un- rest prevailed everywhere. Elizabeth's prospects dur- ing her first years were so precarious that no one felt confident for the future ; and the energy of the country hung distracted, with no clear perception what to do or in what direction to turn.. The problem for statesmen was to discern among the new tendencies of the nation how much was sound and healthy, how much must be taken up into the con- stitution of the State before the disturbed elements set- tled into form again. A revolution had passed over England of which the religious change was only a single feature. New avenues of thought were opening on all sides with the growth of knowledge ; and as the discoveries of Columbus and Copernicus made their way into men's minds, they found themselves, not in any metaphor, but in plain and literal prose, in a new heaven and a new earth. How to send the fresh blood permeating healthily through the veins, how to prevent it from wasting itself in anarchy and revolution these were the large questions which Elizabeth's ministers had to solve. In this as in all else Cecil was the presiding spirit. Everywhere among the State papers of these years Cecil's pen is ever visible, Cecil's mind predominant. In the records of the daily meetings of the council