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ENGLISH 
 
 SOCIAL REFORMERS 
 
 BY 
 
 H. DE B. GIBBINS, M.A., Litt.D. 
 
 UNIVERSITY (cOBDEn) PRIZEMAN IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 oxford; and author of "the industrial 
 history of england," etc., etc. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1902 
 

 : I 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The object of these few sketches is to elucidate the chief 
 influences for social and industrial reform that have been 
 active in England in the past, and, in one or two cases, to 
 show their relation to problems of the present. In writing 
 of the men from whom these influences proceeded, I have 
 tried to let them, where possible, speak for themselves. If, 
 therefore, it should seem that too large a portion of the text 
 in certain places is in inverted commas, it is because the 
 present writer recognizes that the words of the reformers he 
 quotes are much better than his own. 
 
 I feel also that, in several cases, the sketch I have given 
 of a reformer's life and thought is exceedingly inadequate. 
 In the case of Ruskin it is hopelessly so. Nevertheless, I 
 have tried to point out, without obtnisiveness, one thing 
 throughout this book : that s ocial reform of any k^'^^j t^ 
 
 Reflective, must proceed frnrnarW^P jp fhp inrlivi<ii]pl 
 
 Viimspif ^<t wpIi as, a Change i n his material environment. 
 
 H. DE B. G. 
 
 Nottingham^ 
 March, 1892 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 A FEW verbal changes have been made in the second 
 edition, but it is otherwise the same as the first. 
 
 H. DE B. G. 
 
 March , 1902 
 
 99458 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/englislisocialrefOOgibbricli 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 I. THE REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY I 
 
 (WILLIAM LANGLAND AND JOHN BALL) 
 
 II. SIR THOMAS MORE 27 
 
 III. WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE 65 
 
 1. JOHN WESLEY ... ... ... ... 75 
 
 2. WILLIAM WILBERFORCE ... ... ... 94 
 
 IV. THE FACTORY REFORMERS IO9 
 
 1. RICHARD OASTLER ... ... ... ... II9 
 
 2. LORD SHAFTESBURY ... ... ... ... I38 
 
 3. ROBERT OWEN ... ... ... I45 
 
 V. CHARLES KINGSLEY AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 SOCIALISTS 153 
 
 VI. CARLYLE AND RUSKIN 181 
 
 1. THOMAS CARLYLE ... ... ... ... ' 184 
 
 2. JOHN RUSKIN ... ... ... ... 204 
 
 RETROSPECT 224 
 
 INDEX 227 
 
 N.B. — Notes on authorities will be found at the end of every 
 
 section. 
 
ENGLISH SOCIAL REFORMERS 
 
 THE REFORMERS 
 OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Introductory 
 
 There have been many sudden changes and revolutions 
 in the development of English social and industrial history ; 
 for although the main current of evolution is generally 
 gradual it is also, at times, accentuated and hastened by 
 sudden rapids and cataracts in its course. History, after 
 all, is occasionally dramatic, and in the acts of the great 
 drama men pass across the stage, who stand out head and 
 shoulders above all their fellow-actors in the permanent 
 influence which they exercise upon the development of 
 their time. Among these great dramas, or revolutions in 
 our history, we have here to deal more especially with some 
 two or three only, which affected our social development. 
 They are the Peasants' Revolt of tne fourteenth century, 
 the Social Revolution of the sixteenth, and the Industrial 
 Revolution of the eighteenth. In each of these periods we 
 find one or two characters who either voiced audibly the 
 problems and difficulties of their day, or who, not content 
 
2 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 with being merely voices, aspired also to solve the questions 
 of which they spoke. The two men whom the troublous 
 times of the fourteenth century thus forced to speak and 
 to act were John Ball, a mad priest, and William Langland, 
 a poverty-stricken poet. 
 
 § I. Mediceval England and its troubles. 
 
 But before we see how these two men came to be 
 numbered among the social reformers of our country, we 
 must glance for a moment at the state of England in the 
 first half of the fourteenth century. Almost up to the 
 reign of Edward III. (1327 — 1377) the course of English 
 history was one of regular and steady development. There 
 had indeed been struggles and racial wars, but since the days 
 of William the Conqueror, Danes, Saxons, and Normans 
 had settled down peaceably together, and considerable pro- 
 gress had been made in our economic Hfe. Towns grew 
 up, and with them grew industry and wealth ; merchants 
 and artisans organized themselves in gilds ; ^ the sobering 
 influences of the Church and of Parliamentary government 
 were being felt ; the growth of the country as a social whole 
 was going on apace.^ But growth implies change, and 
 the industrial growth of the nation both in agriculture 
 and manufactures was sure to cause a disintegration of the 
 old, essentially local, institutions of former days, and of the 
 intimate relations between men of different classes which the 
 old system produced. The close personal union, for instance,^ 
 that existed between the lord of the manor and his villein 
 tenants was being rapidly broken up ; for the richer tenants 
 
 1 Cf. the dMihox's Industrial History of England, pp. 27 — 29. 
 
 2 Cunningham : Growth of English Industry and Comtnerct^ p. 
 334 sq. 
 
 « Industrial History of England^ pp. 40, and 68 sq. 
 
MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND AND ITS TROUBLES. 3 
 
 began to commute their servile services for money payments, 
 and the poorer to gain their living, not on their own land only, 
 but by working for others as regular wage-paid labourers. 
 But all such processes of disintegration became suddenly 
 accelerated by the dread effects of the Great. PI ague, the 
 ^lack Death of 1348 and subsequent years. This awful 
 scourge came upon England just as the people were rejoic- 
 ing over Edward IIL's victories in the war against France,^ 
 and most of all over the capture of Calais (1347). It 
 rolled gradually from the East right across Europe, and 
 reached England at the close of 1348. Its ravages were 
 more dreadful than any other plague of mediaeval times, in 
 so much that nearly half the population was destroyed. It 
 fell alike upon the dwellers in the towns, with their filthy 
 undrained streets, and upon the labourers working in the 
 open fields amid the fresh air and sunshine. " The fell 
 mortality came upon them, and the sudden and awful 
 cruelty of death winnowed them." 2 
 
 Ths L result was _iL .sudden ^and _comj)l£te._dism:ganization 
 oL,in dustria l life. The scarcity o f men, .was such that 
 labourers could command high wages, and tenants ob- 
 tained low rents from landowners, who were anxious 
 that their farms should not He utterly desolate, and who 
 were compelled to remit the traditional services. 3 It was 
 almost in vain that King and Parliament strove to 
 
 ^ Green : History of English People, i. 429. 
 
 2 Henry of Knighton's Chronicle, 2599. 
 
 ^ Those who had tenants " made abatements of the rent in order 
 that the tenants should not go away on account of the want of servants, 
 and the general dearness .... Likewise, those who received of their 
 tenants day work throughout the year had to give them more leisure and 
 remit such works, and either entirely to free them or give them an 
 easier tenure at a small rent." Knighton, 2599. 
 
4 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 make the labourers take the same wages as before the 
 Plague, and enacted dire penalties in the Statute of 
 Labourers (1350).! But still they attempted to do so, and 
 the landowners did their best to help them to tie down the 
 labourers to the soil again. 2 The class of free labourers 
 and tenants, who had commuted their services for money 
 payments, was attacked, and " the ingenuity of the lawyers 
 who were employed as stewards on each manor was exercised 
 in trying to restore to the landowners that customary labour 
 whose loss was now severely felt." 2 Former exemptions 
 and manumissions were often cancelled, and labour 
 services again demanded from the villeins. The result 
 was a gradual union of labourers and tenants of all classes 
 against the landowners, the beginnings of a social strife that 
 corresponds somewhat to the modern state of a " hostile 
 confrontation of labour and capital." Combinations and 
 confederacies of labourers became frequent,^ and the 
 struggle became more and more bitter. 
 
 The social troubles thus caused were in no way dimin- 
 ished by the successes of Edward III. and the Black 
 Prince in France, or even by the conclusion of peace at 
 Bretigny (1360). Indeed, as is obvious to any one who 
 considers how wars are paid for, military success, by the 
 financial burdens which it imposed upon the people, in 
 reality only made matters worse. Nor had the effects of the 
 Great Plague yet worn themselves out ; for there came a 
 second visitation in 1361, and yet a third in July and 
 September, 1369. Each visitation rendered labour scarcer 
 and labourers more bold in their demands; and on each 
 
 ^ Cunningham : English Industry ^ p. 306 sq. 
 
 * Green : History of English People^ i. 431, 432. 
 
 * Cunningham : p. 357. 
 
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND ITS TROUBLES. 5 
 
 occasion the repressive measures of Parliament and the 
 landowners brought the coming conflict of capital and 
 labour still nearer. Strikes and combinations of workmen 
 became frequent in towns, and there were formidable 
 gatherings of villeins and " fugitive serfs " in the country 
 districts.^ " The difficulties of the manorial lords would 
 be renewed with every subsequent visitation of the Plague, 
 and the pressure on the villeins to render actual service 
 would become more severe, until at last it resulted in the 
 general outbreak of the peasants in 1381." 
 
 The spirit of revolt which is thus evident among the 
 working-classes was encouraged and stimulated, indirectly 
 perhaps, but none the less certainly, by the teaching of 
 Wiklif and his followers, the ''poor priests." And, indeed, 
 we may almost reckon Wiklif as one of our social reformers, 
 though his work lay, of course, chiefly on the religious and 
 theological side of the great revolutionary movement of the 
 fourteenth century. The particular doctrine of his which 
 had most influence at this crisis was that which declared 
 that, just as it was lawful to withdraw tithes from priests 
 who lived in sin, so " servants and tenants may withdraw 
 their services and rents from their lords that Hve openly 
 a cursed life." 2 No doubt the order of wandering friars 
 that Wiklif founded may have gone further in their direct 
 teaching than did their great master ; but such doctrine as 
 that quoted must have greatly encouraged those who re- 
 belled against the undue exactions of their lords. These 
 priests spent their lives moving about among the "upland 
 
 ^ Cf. Henry of Knighton's Chronicle ^% above; and Cunningham,p.357. 
 
 ' Of lords and servants, in the English works of Wiklif, p. 229, where 
 he defends the poor priests from the charge of having spread such 
 notions. 
 
6 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 folk," as the country people were called, wearing only 
 coarse, brown, woollen garments, and won the confidence of 
 the peasants, whom they helped to combine in effective 
 trade unions (see the Statute i Rich. II. c. 6). They acted 
 as treasurers for the common funds of these unions, and as 
 messengers between those in different parts of the country, 
 having passwords and secret language of their own.^ Of their 
 preaching we shall have an example in the sermons of John 
 Ball. Suffice it here to say, that all these influences at 
 work among the "lower classes" of the kingdom could 
 not fail to have a revolutionary effect. We see the spirit of 
 the time most faithfully reflected in a literary form in the 
 writings of Willi am L arigland, the author of Piers the Plow- 
 man^ the poet who was to give expression to the longing of 
 the people for a social reformation. 
 
 § 2. Langland the Poet. 
 
 William Langland was essentially the poet of the people. 
 He came from their ranks and was one of them, being the 
 son of a freeman named Stacy de Roykaile, a tenant of 
 Lord le Spenser living at Shipton-under-Wychwood in 
 Oxfordshire.^ He is sometimes called " William W." /. e. 
 WiUiam of Wychwood, and, again, Robert Langland ; but it 
 is now certain that William was his real name. Born in 
 the midst of rural England, about 1332 a.d., he was put to 
 school to be educated, apparently, for the Church ; for it 
 appears from the opening lines of his poem ^ that he was 
 attached at one time to the monastery of Great Malvern, and 
 
 * See John Ball's message to the commons of Essex, quoted in Skeat's 
 preface to Piers the Plowman, p. xxvi, and Green's History^ i. p. 475. 
 
 2 Morley : First Sketch of English Literature^ p. 131. 
 
 3 Cf. the Prologus in Skeat's edition. 
 
LAN GLAND THE POET. 7 
 
 he became a clerk or scholar, under monastic teaching. 
 When he was thirty years of age, he wrote what is known 
 as the A-text ^ of his poem of Piers the Plowman, without 
 any thought of continuing or enlarging it. The Black 
 Death had already made deep impression upon him, for he 
 refers to the pestilences of 1348 and 1361 in his poem.^ 
 He describes this version as being partly written in May 
 whilst wandering on the Malvern Hills ; but probably not 
 long after this he went to London, where he lived in Corn- 
 hill, with his wife Kitte and his daughter Calote, for many 
 years. He seems to have had a hard life, for he speaks of 
 himself as earning a scanty living by the performance of 
 minor clerical duties, such as singing i\\Q placebo, dirige, and 
 " the seven psalms," for the good of men's souls, and he 
 often alludes to his extreme poverty. Being married, he 
 was, of course, only in minor orders, and thus could never 
 rise to any rank in the Church. His poverty made him 
 bitter and proud, and he hated, he tells us, to bow to the 
 gay lords and dames who rode, richly dressed in silver and 
 minivere, adown Cheapside.^ But perhaps it was well for 
 others that he was poor, for his world is the world of the 
 poor ; he tells of their life and labours, their toil and 
 hunger, their rude merriment and their helpless despair, till 
 the misery and even the narrow bitterness of their thought 
 is reflected in his verse. 
 
 In 1377 he began to expand his poem into the second 
 or B-text. The grief of the nation at the death of the Black 
 Prince, the troublous political events of 1377, and the dis- 
 satisfaction of the people with both Edward HL and the 
 
 ^ Cf. Skeat's Introduction. 
 
 ^ Piers, 5, 14, •* He preued that these pestilences were for pure sin." 
 
 3 PierSf Passus xv. 
 
8 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Duke of Lancaster, roused Langland once more to write. 
 Richard II., a mere boy, had just come to the throne, and 
 men felt that he was unable to cope with the troubles of 
 the day. "Woe to the land of which a boy is king," ran 
 an old text from Ecclesiasticus, and Langland appropriated 
 it for his new version. So he re-wrote and added to his 
 poem till he made it three times as long as before, weaving 
 in new thoughts, suggested by the events of the times in 
 which he lived. Once again, probably in 1380, or perhaps 
 later, he revised and added to his poem, completing what 
 is known as the third, or C-text, which contains, in all, a 
 prologue and twenty-two cantos, or passus, as Langland 
 calls them. The last trace of the poet himself is a reference, 
 in a later poem, to his being at Bristol in 1399, when he 
 was probably about sixty-seven years of age. Of his per- 
 sonal appearance, all we know is that he was tall enough to 
 be nicknamed " Longe Wille," but this fact, like nearly all 
 others about him, is only drawn from casual references in 
 his own verses. Poor and unknown, he is described by no 
 contemporary writer, he is only a voice calling to us from 
 the darkness of the past, telling us of the misery of the 
 people. Indeed, as has been well said, "every great 
 popular writer is, in a certain sense, a product of his country 
 and his age, a reflection of the intellect, the moral senti- 
 ment, and the prevailing social opinions of his time. The 
 author of Piers the Plowman no doubt embodied in a poetic 
 dress just what millions felt, and perhaps hundreds had 
 uttered in one fragmentary form or another. The Vision 
 of Piers the Plowman thus derives its interest partly from 
 its literary form, partly from the moral and social bear- 
 ings of its subject — the corruptions of the nobility, and 
 of the several departments of the Government, the vices 
 
THE TEACHING OF PIERS THE PLOWMAN. 9 
 
 of the clergy and the abuses of the Church —in short, from 
 its connexion with the actual life and opinion of its time, 
 into which it gives us a clearer insight than many a laboured 
 history." Moreover, this expression of what the people felt 
 reacted in a very marked manner upon the people them- 
 selves ; their thoughts were put into words, and the words 
 urged on thought till it found expression in action. The 
 Visivn secured *' a wide circulation among the commonalty 
 of the realm, and by formulating sentiments almost univers- 
 ally felt, though but dimly apprehended, it brought them 
 into distinct consciousness, and thus prepared the English 
 people for the reception of the seed which the labours of 
 Wiklif and his associates were already sowing among them."^ 
 That Langland's poem really had such an influence is 
 seen from the quotations made by John Ball and from the 
 various imitations of it which other popular writers made, 
 of which Piers the Flowfnan's Creed is the most famous. 
 Yet it cannot be said that Langland either recommended 
 or encouraged revolutionary ideas; perhaps he was even 
 astonished at the use which men like John Ball made of 
 his words. But his out-spoken utterances about those in 
 high places, were easily referred by an oppressed peasantry 
 to certain individual superiors whom they themselves knew ; 
 his exaltation of the poor Plowman was eagerly hailed by 
 villeins who were chafing under the yoke of their lords. 
 And thus many passages of his poem came to be uttered in 
 the mouths of the people as watchwords of insurrection. 
 
 § 3. The Teaching of ' Piers the Plowman^ 
 
 Let us now glance at the poem itself and see how certain 
 passages of it could be thus used. I cannot pretend to 
 
 ^ Marsh : Origin and History of the English Language^ p. 296. 
 
10 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 give a full outline of it ; my reader must try to read it for 
 himself. But we may take a general view of the work as 
 far as it concerns us in dealing with the question of social 
 reform. It opens with a Prologue, in which Langland let 
 his fancy fly far away from the noise of London to the quiet 
 of a May morning on the Malvern Hills. There he falls 
 asleep and dreams. In his dream the world and its people 
 are represented to him by a ** field full of folk," all busy in 
 their different spheres. Plowmen and spendthrifts, solitary 
 hermits and busy merchants, jesters and beggars, pilgrims, 
 priests, and friars are there, and among them a king. There 
 too are lawyers and burgesses, tradesmen and labourers, and 
 innkeepers touting for custom — a motley throng, sinful, 
 selfish, and foolish, busy with the cares of this world. 
 
 After this Prologue comes the first passus or canto of 
 the poem, which, with passus ii., iii., and iv., forms an 
 allegory concerning Falsehood, Flattery, and Lady Meed 
 or Bribery, and the marriage of Lady Meed to Falsehood. 
 With these first four passus we are not now immediately 
 concerned. The interest of the poem begins for us at 
 passus v., in which the dreamer awakes. But he does not 
 awake for long ; he soon falls asleep again, and has a second 
 dream, wherein he again sees the field full of folk, and 
 Reason preaching to the people, reminding them, by the 
 way, that the late visitations of the Black Death (1348-49) 
 are judgments of God. Many are affected by the sermon, 
 and make confession of their sins. Of these, the first is 
 Pride, the second Luxury or Lechery, the third Envy, the 
 fourth Wrath, the fifth Avarice, the sixth Gluttony, the 
 seventh Sloth. Robert the Robber also repents, and then 
 all set out to seek after Truth. 
 
 It is here that the poem reaches its full significance from 
 
THE TEACHING OF PIERS THE PLOWMAN, il 
 
 the point of view of social reform, by its elevation of the 
 common labouring man, Piers the Plowman, as the only 
 one who can lead them all and show them the way to 
 Truth. It must have had tremendous influence upon the 
 peasantry who heard the " poor priest " recite this part of 
 the vision, and who felt their class thus idealized and ex- 
 alted beyond all others. Still more influence had the 
 short digression with which passus vi. opens,, wherein the 
 seekers after Truth ask for a guide, and Piers says he will 
 show them, when he has ploughed his half-acre. While 
 doing this he gives certain advice to a knight in words 
 which show how people were beginning to regard the land- 
 owners and gentry, not as superiors merely, but as superiors 
 who held their superiority only because they performed 
 certain duties to those below them. This indeed was a new 
 and significant doctrine, when men said openly that property 
 and rank brought with them certain duties which must be 
 fulfilled ; a doctrine upon which it would do no harm to 
 insist more distinctly in our own day. Thus Piers speaks, 
 telling lords and ladies to help those who are below them 
 (pass. vi. 20) : 
 
 "And all manner of men that live through meat and drink, 
 Help them to work well, that win you your food." 
 
 The knight asks him to tell him what to do : 
 
 ** 'Teach me,' quoth the knight, 'and by Christ I will assay.' 
 • By Saint Paul,' quoth Perkyn^, * ye proffer you so fair : 
 I will swinki^ and sweat and sow for us both, 
 And other labours do for you all my life-time, 
 In covenant that you keep Holy Church and myself 
 From wasters and from wicked men that destroy this world j 
 And go and hunt hardily hares and foxes, 
 The boars and badgers that break down my hedges, 
 
 1 Piers. a Toil. 
 
r2 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 And go and tame the falcons to kill wild fowls, 
 For such come to my croft and crop my wheat.' " 
 
 The knight promises to do all this, and fulfil his duties. 
 
 " * Yea, and yet a point,' quoth Piers, * I pray of you more : 
 Look that you injure no tenant, but keep truth, 
 And though you may amercy ^ him, let mercy be taxer. 
 And though poor men proffer you presents and gifts. 
 Take them not, lest peradventure you might not deserve it j 
 For you shall yield it again, at the end of years 
 In a full perilous place— Purgatory 'tis hight.' " 
 
 Of course in this passage Langland refers to the frequent 
 exactions, in the shape of fines, that the landowners were 
 now extorting from their villeins if they did not perform 
 enough labour for them. The ravages of the Plague had 
 made labour scarce, and landowners and others were 
 anxious that tenants should perform all their labour-dues 
 and services, even though these had been perhaps com- 
 muted. Fines for non-performance were very common, 
 and unjust men would seek to reclaim labour-dues, even 
 though they had been replaced by money-payment. Hence 
 Langland bids them be merciful. Then he proceeds : 
 
 ** And ill-treat not your bondmen, ^ that better you may speed. 
 Though he be thine underling here, yet it may well happen in 
 
 heaven 
 That he shall sit in a worthier place and with more bliss 
 Than thou : but do thou better, and live as you should. 
 For in charnel at church ^ churls be evil to know. 
 Or a knight from a knave there. Know this in thine heart. '* 
 
 Thus the duties of the upper classes are set plainly before 
 them, and the gospel of equality is openly preached. It is 
 
 1 Fine, amerce. ' Villeins. 
 
 * For in the charnel- house (when dead) it is hard to distinguish a 
 knight from a poor man. 
 
THE TEACHING OF PIERS THE PLOWMAN. 13 
 
 easy to see how, in the embittered state of popular feeHng, 
 such telling words would be taken up, and would pass into 
 watchwords among the villeins and labourers. Moreover 
 the gospel of Equality was coupled by Langland with the 
 gospel of Labour. The aim of Piers the Plowman is to 
 work, and to make all men work with him. So before 
 starting he makes his will, and sets all who come to him to 
 hard work. 
 
 ** Now are Perkin and his pilgrims to the plow faring, 
 To plow his half-acre many do help him. 
 Diggers and delvers digged up the balks, 
 Other workmen there were that worked full earnestly, 
 Each man in his manner set himself to work, 
 And some to please Perkin picked up the weeds." 
 
 But Langland does not only speak plainly to the upper 
 classes : he speaks equally plainly to the labourers, bidding 
 them work hard, and satirizing the idle and ** wasters " and 
 wage-earning labourers " that have no land to live on but 
 their hands," and who yet are only content with the finest 
 fare. He warns the labourer as he had warned the knight. 
 "On the eve of the great struggle between wealth and 
 labour, Langland stands alone in his fairness to both, in his 
 shrewd political and religious common sense." 
 
 After this part of the poem its interest for us grows less. 
 In passus vii. Truth sends Piers a bill of pardon for kings, 
 knights, bishops, and the labouring poor, and even for some 
 lawyers and merchants in a less degree. A priest disputes 
 the validity of Piers' pardon and wants to see it. The 
 dispute between him and Piers is so violent that the 
 dreamer awakes \ and the poem of Piers the Plowman 
 (properly so called) ends with a fine peroration on the small 
 value of the pope's pardons, and the superiority of a 
 
14 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 righteous life over a mere trust in Indulgences at the Last 
 Great Day. This is the end of the B-text, which was 
 written about 1377, that is only four years before the great 
 Peasant Revolt of 1381.^ 
 
 § 4. The Teaching of John Ball. 
 
 But already the first text of the poem had made its 
 influence felt. It is curious to note how it did so, in those 
 days when printing was not yet invented, and even the art 
 of writing was only the possession of a few. But there 
 can be little doubt that Langland's verses were repeated by 
 many a " poor priest," those followers of Wiklif who went 
 to and fro among the suffering peasantry of England, teach- 
 ing that all authority was "founded in grace," and sym- 
 pathizing with the needy and oppressed. It is quite certain 
 that many of the lines of Piers the Plowman were sufficiently 
 well known among the common people to be understood 
 as passwords in the messages of John Ball. And it is 
 equally certain that the preaching of John Ball derived a 
 good deal of its inspiration from Langland's poem. 
 
 Till the days of the Black Death, the whole mediaeval 
 system of social inequality, of lords and serfs, had passed 
 unquestioned, as being the natural and indeed divinely- 
 appointed order of the world. But the social convulsions 
 which that plague brought in its train soon began to shake 
 the foundations of this divine order. The voice of the 
 people was heard in the rude but energetic words of the 
 "proud priest of Kent," who spoke out so boldly in spite 
 of interdict and imprisonment. 
 
 John Ball began his preaching about 1360, and continued 
 
 1 Green, i. 442. The reader should refer, if possible in the original, 
 to the whole of passus vi. in Skeat's edition of the poem. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JOHN BALL. 15 
 
 it more or less, with intervals of imprisonment, for twenty 
 years. He went about chiefly in Kent, speaking in the 
 open air to audiences of peasants and yeomen in the 
 country churchyards, where the sight of the graves of noble 
 and serf lying side by side gave a terrible point to his 
 teaching of social equality, and to the warning words of 
 Piers the Plowman : — " For in charnel at church churls be 
 ill to know, or a knight from a knave there." And as he 
 preached, men looked around them thoughtfully, seeing that 
 in death and before God all are indeed equal. Thus spoke 
 John Ball, then, to the peasantry : — '* Good people, things 
 will never be well in England so long as there be villeins 
 and gentlefolk. By what right ^ are they whom we call 
 lords greater folk than we? On what grounds have they 
 deserved it ? Why do they hold us in serfage ? If we all 
 came of the same father and mother, of Adam and of Eve, 
 how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if 
 it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what 
 they spend in their pride ? They are clothed in velvet, and 
 warm in their furs and their ermines, while we are covered 
 with rags. They have wine and spices, and fine bread ; we 
 have only oat-cake and straw, and water to drink. They 
 have leisure and fine horses ; we have pain and labour, the 
 rain and the wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and 
 our toil that these men hold their estate." No wonder 
 that with words like these the hearts of the people were 
 roused, or that they resented the oppression of those who 
 wished to keep them in subjection and not to suffer them 
 to alleviate their lot. 
 
 ^ This recalls the teaching of Wiklif, quoted before. 
 
i6 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 § 5. The Lot of the Labourer, 
 
 For there seems to be little doubt that with the renewed 
 exactions of the lords of the manors after the Great Plague, 
 the lot of the labourer bound to the soil was very hard and 
 painful. We have more or less contemporary evidence of 
 it in the poem called Piers the Plowmaris Creed^ which was 
 an imitation of the original poem of Langland. Its author 
 is not known, but he certainly was a disciple of Wiklif, and 
 lived about the time of the peasants' rising. His work is 
 an additional proof of the extraordinary hold which Piers 
 the Plowman had upon the popular imagination. He writes 
 with a thorough sympathy for the hardships of the labourer, 
 and even though it is possible that he may have purposely 
 exaggerated the sufferings of the poor, there can be little 
 doubt, on comparing his verse with Langland's, that his 
 picture is substantially correct. This is his description of 
 the peasant of the fourteenth century : — 
 
 " Then turned I me forth and talked to myself 
 Of the falsehood of this folk, how faithless they were. 
 And as I went my way, weeping for sorrow, 
 I saw a poor man o'er the plough bending. 
 His coat was of a clout that cary was called. 
 His hood was full of holes and his hair sticking out, 
 His shoes were patched and clouted full thick : 
 His toes peeped out as he the ground trod, 
 His hose o'erhung his gaiters on every side, 
 All befouled with mud, as he the plough followed. 
 Two mittens had he, scanty, and made all of rags, 
 And the fingers were worn out and filled full of mud. 
 This wight was bemired in the mud almost to the ankle. 
 Four oxen were before him, that feeble had become, 
 One might reckon each rib, so rueful they were. 
 His wife walked by him with a long goad. 
 In a cutted skirt cutted full high, 
 
THE LOT OF THE LABOURER. 17 
 
 Wrapped in a winnowing-sheet to keep her from the weather, 
 
 Barefoot on the bare ice, so that the blood followed. 
 
 And at the field's end lay a little bowl, 
 
 And thereon lay a little child wrapped in rags, 
 
 And twain of two years old upon another side ; 
 
 And all of them sang a song that sorrow was to hear, 
 
 They cried all a cry, a sorrowful note. 
 
 And the poor man sighed sore, and said, ' Children, be still.' " 
 
 This gloomy picture of the labouring man was no doubt 
 true in many districts, in spite of the general alleviation of 
 wage-paid labour after the Plague of 1348. But probably 
 the wage-paid labourer who had " no land to live on but his 
 hands " was much better off than the villein here described, 
 who evidently worked his own land, and held it under a 
 lord who could exact labour-services from him in addition. 
 And in the long spell of severe weather in the winter and 
 spring, the lot of these small tenants was often very bitter. 
 Between one harvest and another, both food and work 
 were often scarce enough, as we learn from Langland's 
 pathetic summary of Piers the Plowman's stock of food. 
 
 " ' I have not a penny,' quoth Peres, 'pullets for to buy, 
 Neither geese nor pigs ; but two green cheeses, 
 A few curds and cream, and an oaten cake, 
 And two loaves of beans and bran baken for my children. 
 And yea, I say by my soul, I have no salt bacon, 
 Nor no cooked meat, by Christ, collops for to make. 
 But I have parsley and leeks and many cabbage-plants. 
 And eke a cow and a calf and a cart mare. 
 And by this livelihood we must live till Lammas time. 
 And by that I hope to have harvest in my croft.' " 
 
 Thus were all the elements of revolt ripening; poverty 
 and hunger and a feeling of savage wrath against the lords 
 who oppressed the people and heeded not their sufferings. 
 
 Meanwhile the state of the kingdom, instead of allaying, 
 
 c 
 
l8 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 merely increased the undercurrent of discontent among 
 the lower classes. The Statutes of Labourers, by their 
 endeavours to reduce the rates of wages to the old level of 
 the days before the Plague, or to keep the multitudes of 
 wandering labourers in search of work tied down to their 
 own particular localities, only succeeded in widening the 
 gulf and increasing the bitterness between rich and poor. 
 The Peace of Bretigny, by which Edward III. had gained 
 almost a third of the French kingdom, had covered the 
 King with glory, and stifled for a time the murmur of dis- 
 content. But since then many of Edward's conquests had 
 been lost ; the Plague had come again (1369) with renewed 
 devastations; the Parliament had unwisely (1376 and 1379) 
 sought to enforce the Statutes of Labourers still more strin- 
 gently ; the King himself was sinking into a premature old 
 age, the victim of his own profligacy and of the designing 
 ministers and avowed mistresses who surrounded him. He 
 had repudiated his debts and ruined thereby the Bardi of 
 Florence, the greatest banking firm of mediaeval Europe. 
 His debts and the expenses of his French wars had be- 
 come a fatal burden upon his own country. His continual 
 levies of tenths and fifteenths upon the produce of the 
 kingdom, especially upon wool, and his taxation of exports 
 and imports, were seriously draining the resources of the 
 nation. To meet the expenditure on war abroad, and on 
 luxury at the court, a poll-tax of a groat a head was ordained 
 among the last acts of the dying King, who passed away at 
 last in June 1377, robbed of his rings even on his death-bed 
 by his mistress, Alice Perrers. Meanwhile the barons, as was 
 commonly the case in mediaeval England, were constantly 
 quarrelling among themselves, and maintained small armies 
 of disorderly retainers in livery who must have been a sore 
 
THE MUTTERINGS OF A STORM. 19 
 
 burden upon the tenantry. Richard IT., who succeeded to 
 the throne, was a child of only eleven years of age. The 
 war with France was still going on, bringing continual 
 disasters and defeats to the English troops even on our 
 own shores ; ^ and at last, to meet its expenses, Parliament, 
 meeting at Northampton on November 5th, 1380, granted 
 the famous poll-tax which was the immediate cause of the 
 Peasants' Revolt. The tax was now made i2d. instead of 
 a groat (4^.), and was levied on every person above fifteen 
 years of age. It was in itself most unjust, for it demanded 
 a like sum both from those with large and small means; 
 for the provision that "the richer should aid the poorer 
 sort**' was little regarded. It was collected also in the 
 most odious manner ; for the troops, who had just returned 
 from France after the conclusion of peace in January 1381, 
 were clamorous for pay, and, to meet their demands, the 
 ministers borrowed a large sum from foreign merchants, 
 assigning them this tax in return, and allowing them to 
 appoint their own collectors. 
 
 § 6. The Mutterings of a Storm. 
 
 This new oppression brought the discontent of the people 
 to a climax. But this discontent had long been making 
 itself felt, and was only waiting for a definite opportunity to 
 burst forth into flame. As we saw (p. 6), the poorer villeins 
 and labourers had long since banded together in combina- 
 tions of a secret sort, and the " poor priests " of Wiklif, 
 the " begging friars," had long been wandering from village 
 to village, carrying the messages of the angry peasants to 
 
 ^ In July and August 1377, the French ravaged the Isle of Wight, 
 and burned Hastings and Rye, and in August 1380, they ravaged the 
 whole of the south coast. 
 
20 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 one another, and preaching social reform, if not social 
 equality. Quaint letters in rude rhyme passed through the 
 peasant ranks, and the voice of Piers the Plowman was 
 making itself heard. Here is an epistle from John Ball, 
 the very apostle of social reform, issued from his prison, 
 into which he had been thrown, to the people of Essex : 
 "John the Shepherd, sometime S. Mary's priest of York, 
 and now of Colchester," it ran, "greeteth well John 
 Nameless and John the Miller and John the Carter; and 
 biddeth them beware of guile in the town, and stand 
 together in God's name ; and he biddeth Peres the Plow- 
 man go to his work, and chastise well Hob the robber ; 
 and take with you John True-man and all his fellows and no 
 more ; and look sharp and go ahead (loke scharpe you to 
 on heved) and no more : 
 
 John the Miller hath ground small, small, small : 
 
 The King's Son of Heaven shall pay for all, 
 
 Beware or ye'U be woe. 
 
 Know your friend from your foe. 
 
 And do well and do better^ and flee sin, 
 
 Seek ye peace and hold therein. 
 
 And so biddeth John True-man ^ and all his fellows." 
 
 It will easily be seen that this letter conveys a message 
 clearly intelligible to those for whom it was meant, but of no 
 meaning to others; containing obscure references to Piers 
 the Plowman which the hearers or readers of it would know 
 well how to interpret. Another letter runs : 
 
 "John Ball 
 Greeteth you all : 
 
 ^ The Do-well and Do-better are names of characters which appear in 
 the later text of Piers. 
 
 " True-man is a reference to Langland's Tomme Trew-tonge {PierSf 
 iv. 17). 
 
THE STORM BREAKS OUT. 21 
 
 And doth for to understand 
 He hath rung your bell. 
 Now right and might ! 
 Will and skill ! 
 God speed every dele ^ ! '* 
 
 Such were the hidden messages and passwords that were 
 whispered from one villein to another, or carried by wander- 
 ing friars, throughout the length and breadth of the land, 
 till at length the storm broke, and all at once in Yorkshire 
 and Lancashire, in Suffolk and Essex, in Kent and in 
 Devon, north, west, east, and south, the peasantry of 
 England rose as one man against their masters. 
 
 § 7. The Storm breaks out. 
 
 The simultaneous n ature of the rising leaves us no doubt 
 that^ jt was preconcerted. The collectors of the poll-tax 
 seem to have been openly opposed first in Essex, and when 
 Sir Thomas Belknap, a judge, was sent to punish the 
 rioters, he was obliged to flee for his life. Almost at the 
 same time a workman, named Wat or Walter the Tyler, 
 killed a collector who, it is said, insulted his daughter. 
 
 According to documents in the Public Record Office, " a 
 cry was raised that no tenant should do service or custom 
 to the lords as they had aforetime done," ^ and immediately 
 bands of town workmen in some cases, and of rustics in 
 others, assembled together under the leadership of men 
 with assumed names, such as Jack the Miller and Jack 
 Straw. In Kent they burst open the gaols, seized William 
 de Septvanz the Sheriff, and compelled him to deliver up 
 the taxation rolls, which were promptly burnt. But these 
 acts were not the immediate object of the social reformers. 
 
 1 Part. 
 ^ Cf. Annals of England ^ p. 203. 
 
22 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 After releasing John Ball from Maidstone gaol, they pro- 
 ceeded, as all know, to London, demanding not merely the 
 abolition of the unjust poll-tax, but (what is significant as 
 showing the real nature of the rising) also the relief of the 
 rural population from the exactions of their lords. It is 
 significant also to note how many clergy were in the ranks 
 of the insurgents, for in indictments made after the rising ^ 
 we find the chaplain of one church, the sacristan of another, 
 and the clerk of a third, charged with heading mobs that 
 sacked stewards' houses and burnt court-rolls.=^ The mass 
 of peasants and others assembled at Blackheath on June 
 1 2th, 1 38 1, entered London the following day, then seized 
 the Tower, and murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury and 
 the King's Treasurer. On the 14th the men of Essex met 
 Richard at Mile End, and on the 15th the men of Kent 
 had a conference with him at Smithfield, when their chief 
 leader, Wat the Tyler, was slain by the Lord Mayor of 
 London. 
 
 The details of those meetings are almost too well known 
 to need repetition here. But the demands of the men of 
 Essex prove clearly the real origin of the movement. 
 " We will that you free us for ever, us and our lands," they 
 asked, "and that we be never named or held as villeins." — 
 '* I grant it," said the King, with regal diplomacy, and the 
 peasants believed him. He gave the same promise to the 
 men of Kent, and it was only after receiving his letters of 
 emancipation that the reformers returned to their homes, 
 though the rising was not yet entirely at an end, for one 
 party certainly remained in arms up to July ist. 
 
 ^ Cf. Annalsj p. 204. 
 ^ These were the records of the manorial courts held by the lords of 
 the manors. 
 
HOW VICTORY CAME AT LAST. 23 
 
 But the peasants learned very soon how vain a thing it 
 was to put their trust in princes. Within a fortnight (on 
 June 30th) Richard issued a proclamation that all tenants, 
 whether villeins or free, should render all accustomed services 
 as heretofore ; and on July 2nd he formally annulled the 
 charters of freedom, a step that was subsequently sanctioned 
 by Parliament when it met again on Nov. 5 th (5 Richard 
 II. c. 6). Commissions for the trial of offenders were quickly 
 issued (July loth) ; the judges, supported by strong forces, 
 made circuits, and it would seem that as many as 1,500 
 persons were executed by their orders.^ Everywhere the 
 peasants and their leaders were put down by the severest 
 measures. Richard marched through Kent and Essex with 
 an army of 40,000 men, ruthlessly punishing all resistance. 
 "Villeins you were," he cried as the men of Essex claimed 
 from him his own royal promise, "villeins you were and 
 villeins you are. In bondage you shall abide, and that not 
 your old bondage but a worse ! " At St. Alban's John Ball 
 was hanged on July 15th, and so too was another leader, one 
 Grind-cobbe as he was called. But as he died Grind-cobbe 
 uttered the words which, in spite of King and lords, at last 
 came true : " If I die I shall die for the cause of the 
 freedom we have won^ counting myself happy to end my 
 life by such a martyrdom." 
 
 § 8. How Victory came at last. 
 
 And, as a matter of fact, the peasants in reality gained 
 
 their point. They had to shed their own blood, but they 
 
 won in the end. The landowners in Parliament certainly 
 
 refused any notion of compromise at first; they even 
 
 1 Annais, p. 205 j Green (i. 485) says that in all 7000 insurgents 
 were executed. 
 
24 REFORMERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 prayed the King to ordain " that no bondman nor bond- 
 woman (/. e, no villein) shall place their children at school, 
 as had been done^ so as to advance their children in the 
 world by their going into the Church." ^ The poor priests, 
 unlicensed preachers, or " Lollards," were ordered to be 
 arrested or held in strong prison "until they justify them- 
 selves according to the law and reason of Holy Church " 
 (5 Richard II. st. 2, c. 5). But, after the first year or two, 
 all these efforts fortunately proved abortive. Villeinage 
 rapidly became practically extinct, and commutation of 
 labour-services for money-rents became more and more 
 common. Evidence of this is seen in the whole tone of 
 the writings of Fitzherbert, the author of a well-known 
 work " On Surveyinge" who about 1530, instead of regard- 
 ing the surviving instances of villeinage as quite the natural 
 thing, laments over its continuance as a disgrace to the 
 country — a marvellous change of attitude since the four- 
 teenth century.2 Almost the last case of survival occurred 
 under Elizabeth, who enfranchised the bondmen on royal 
 estates in 1574, though a few later notices of the custom 
 appear. No doubt some traces of the old order remained 
 for centuries; indeed it would have been strange if such 
 had not been the case. But, speaking broadly, the peasants 
 achieved their object ; the labours of John Ball, Tyler, and 
 Grind-cobbe were not altogether futile ; and the century 
 that followed the Great Revolt was, on the whole, one of 
 the most prosperous in the history of the English labourer.^ 
 
 Thus we have tried to tell the story of the days of 
 
 ^ Green, i. 487. ^ Cf. Cunningham, p. 360, who however thinks 
 
 villeinage did not die out so quickly. 
 2 Cf. my Industrial History, p. 79. 
 
^^€^>'^ ^ HOW VICTORY CAME AT LAST. 25 
 
 s' 
 
 f Langland and Ball, of Piers th e Plow man and the poor 
 ^ priest s. We have seen that Langland *^as one of tFe 
 earliest of our social reformers, slating the problem of the 
 imminent dangers that were arising in the fourteenth 
 centur}- from the antagonism of capital and labour, and 
 trying to point out in his rough verses the way of social 
 peace. At the same time we see the wilder and less 
 balanced spirit of John Ball not satisfied with mere 
 thought and speech, but urging liis fellows angrily on to 
 deeds as well. His teaching was wrong and one-sided; 
 yetTt contained the elements of social truth; for till the 
 rich recognize that a claim is justly made upon them by 
 the poor, and that property brings with it many duties as 
 well as many privileges, social reform, to say nothing of 
 social harmony, is utterly impossible. John Ball was an 
 enthusiast, violent and mistaken, but yet rousing our 
 sympathy by his evident earnestness and good faith ; Lang- 
 land a dreamer, whose words we read even now with a 
 strange feeling of fellowship and brotherhood amid the 
 difficulties of our own modern days. Both suffered for what 
 they believed, for the former was hangeH'as a felon, and 
 theTaffer condemned to a life of bitter pove rty and sorrow, 
 and to an obscure and unrecorded death. Yet both hold 
 honoured places among the great names of those who have 
 fought and suffered for the weak and oppressed. 
 
NOTES ON AUTHORITIES. 
 
 1. W. Cunningham : The Growth of English Industry and 
 
 Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages (Cambridge 
 University Press; 1890 edition). Referred to as Cunning- 
 ham, p. 360, &c., &c. Pages 340 to 365 are especially 
 useful for this section. 
 
 2. The Annals of England, from Contemporary Writers, the 
 
 Rolls of Parliament, and other Public Records (Oxford and 
 London, James Parker ; library edition, 1876). The reigns 
 of Edward III. and Richard II. are chiefly used here. 
 Referred to as Afinals, p. 200, &c. 
 
 3. J. R. Green ; History of the English People, in four 
 
 volumes (1877 edition ; Macmillan, London). In this 
 section, vol I. book VI. chapter 3, is especially useful. 
 Referred to as Green, i. p. 441, &c. 
 
 4. W. W. Skeat : Piers the Plowman (Oxford; Clarendon 
 
 Press, 1869), especially the Introduction. 
 
 5. J. E. T. Rogers : Six Centuries of Work and Wages 
 
 (Stereotyped edition : Sonnenschein, London, 1889), 
 especially pp. 251 — 273. 
 
 6. H. de B. Gibbins : The Industrial History of Engla?id 
 
 (London ; Methuen, 1891 edition), especially pp. 67—80. 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 § I. Social changes since the Peasants^ Revolt. 
 
 Barely a century intervenes between the death of John 
 Ball and William Langland, and the birth of Thomas More ; 
 but it is a century that sees the death of an old order and 
 the birth of a new. The Peasants' Revolt could only have 
 occurred in the Middle Ages, in th^ state of society peculiar 
 to that time ; but the life of More was passed in an age 
 that saw the breaking up of mediaevalism, and the in- 
 auguration of what people are pleased to call the modern 
 spirit. The problems which the new age had to face were 
 of course in their essential features the same as occur in 
 all ages ; for they arose from the innate selfishness of man, 
 and from the eternal contrast of rich and poor. But the 
 form in which they appeared was different ; and to under- 
 stand them aright we must look at the different social and 
 ^^ industrial factors that had lately come into operation. 
 t> ^^jThe Peasants' Revolt; as we stated above, succeeded, on 
 the whole, in materially improving the condition of labour. 
 It tended to hasten the abolition uf serfdom; to create a 
 free class of tenants who paid their rents in money, and not 
 in labour, and who found that they thus had to pay a com- 
 paratively small and less onerous fixed amount; and to 
 
30 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 produce a class, not only of free tenant-farmers, or yeomen, 
 but of free labourers and artisans who found themselves in 
 a fairly prosperous condition. Indeed the fifteenth century 
 has been called the " Golden Age " of the English labourer, 
 and, without designating it by so optimistic a term as this, 
 we may fairly say that, in spite of many drawbacks, the lot 
 of the working-classes was no harder than, if so hard as, 
 that of their descendants to-day.^ Food was certainly 
 plentiful and cheap ; wages were good ; work was generally 
 regular and easy to get ; the hours of labour were certainly 
 not excessive. But a new iiidustiy-was being rapidly intro- 
 duced into the rural districts that was destined to produce, 
 at any rate upon the agricultural population, the most 
 disastrous effects. This industry was sheep:iJai!ipii2g- 
 
 The extension of sheep-farming was due to the continuous 
 growth of English manufactures of woollen cloth, more 
 especially since the days of Edward III. In the early 
 Middle Ages the English had been far excelled as cloth 
 manufacturers by the Flemish weavers. Flanders was the 
 great manufacturing district of Europe, and Englishmen, 
 instead of working up their supplies of wool themselves, 
 used to sell it to the Flemish. But gradually manufactures 
 improved in England, and Edward III. gave them a con- 
 siderable impetus by inviting various Flemings, among them 
 John Kemp,2 to come and settle in our island in order to 
 encourage and teach English cloth-makers. 
 
 The result was that not only were large quantities of wool 
 still exported to Flanders, but continually larger quantities 
 had to be raised for our own home consumption, and thus 
 
 1 Cf. the author's Industrial History, pp. 79, 80 ; but also Cunning- 
 ham, pp. 347-49- 
 
 * Cf. Industrial History^ p. 53, and Cunningham, p. 282. 
 
CHANGES SINCE THE PEASANTS' REVOLT. 31 
 
 it became an extremely profitable occupation to grow wool. 
 Moreover sheep-farming is an industry that requires but 
 few labourers, and thus commended itself to those land- 
 owners who did not wish to pay more than they could 
 help in wages. Hence, soon after the Plague of 1348 and 
 the Revolt of 1381, we find a tendency among large agri- 
 culturists to use more and more of their land as pasture for 
 sheep, and less for arable purposes. Unfortunately, as a 
 consequence of this, the agricultural population, or that part 
 of it which depended on wages, was very much distressed, 
 and actually began to decrease, men being forced to seek 
 employment in the towns to such an extent, that the 
 Government attempted to prevent them from doing so by 
 statutes.^ The landowners, however, did not trouble them- 
 selves about the distress of the rural population ; they rather 
 increased it by their policy of turning arable land into 
 pasture, and pulling down all buildings thereon except those 
 necessary for sheep. So at least we gather from the com- 
 plaints of the tenants of Chesterton, near Cambridge, in 
 1414: "And also, they saiden, that there was made great 
 waste of housing in the same manor of Chesterton, that is 
 to say of halls and of chambers, and of other houses of ofiice 
 that were necessary in the same manor, and none housing 
 left standing thereonne, but if it were a sheepcote or a berne, 
 or a swinesty, and a few houses beside to putte in bestes." ^ 
 Moreover the landowners of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries now wanted more land for their sheep-farms, and 
 consequently began making extensive enclosu res "upon 
 other men's commons," ^ to such an extent that serious 
 
 ^ E.g. Acts of I and 9, Richard II. (1377 and 1385), 4 Henry VII. 
 {1489), and Cunningham, p. 362. 
 2 Rot. Pari. IV. 606. 3 Cunningham, p. 474 and p. 399. 
 
32 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 risings of the peasantry often occurred, as e.g. in Norfolk in 
 1549, where the insurrection was headed by Ket. But we 
 shall hear more about enclosing from the words of Thomas 
 More himself. 
 
 But, besides this, or rather as a consequence of it, the 
 old "mediaeval manorial system, with all the social environ- 
 ment which it entailed, was rapidly dying out. It depended 
 upon personal relationship between lord and tenant, between 
 master and servant ; but now that the villeins had shown, 
 by their revolt, that these services were distasteful to them, 
 and their lords had discovered, in sheep-farming, that such 
 services were no longer so necessary, the system that rested 
 on such a basis was bound to decay. Both parties, almost 
 unconsciously, and by the mere force of circumstances, 
 drifted into the modern relationships of employer and 
 employed, in which the " cash-nexus " is the sole bond of 
 union. Moreover foreign commerce, not only in wool, but 
 in all other commodities, was becoming more and more 
 important and absorbing; the mercantile class and the 
 mercantile spirit were rapidly increasing; industrial com- 
 petition — a previously unknown factor — was beginning to 
 operate as a new force in economic life. Even in commerce 
 and industry the new life created by the Renaissance was 
 arousing a keener and more eager spirit in all classes of 
 men, and with this fresh life there came also fresh problems, 
 
 § 2. The Renaissance, aftd the Discoveries of the East 
 and West. 
 
 For, in considering the influences that affected the views 
 of Thomas More, we must give even a more prominent 
 place to the spirit of the Renaissance than to the industrial 
 and economic questions of his time, important as these 
 
THE RENAISSANCE. 33 
 
 latter were. It is indeed doubtful whether More would 
 have regarded these questions as he did, had it not been 
 for the Renaissance spirit that was in him. It is the 
 Renaissance spirit that gives to his Utopi a its wide 
 range of speculation, and its equally wide range of human 
 sympathies, its perception of the injustice of social contrasts 
 and of the possibilities of a full, human life from which so 
 many by their poverty and social position are debarred.^ 
 And consider for a moment how wonderful that sudden 
 awakening of the Renaissance was, how miraculous it must 
 have seemed to the more thoughtful minds of that day. A 
 few years saw the discovery of two new worlds, the Far 
 East and the Far West — the former indeed half known, but 
 practically unapproachable ; the latter almost unsuspected. 
 At the same moment the buried treasures of Greek life and 
 thought were brought to Western Europe by fugitives from 
 Constantinople, and the means of rapidly disseminating 
 thoughts of every kind was found in the printing-press. ^ 
 Foreign scholars flocked over to Italy to learn from the 
 Greeks and the Florentines the new language, which was 
 yet so ancient, that opened up a fresh world of thought. 
 Among these scholars, Grocyn, a fellow of New College, 
 Oxford, was perhaps the first Englishman who studied 
 under a Greek exile (one Chancondylas) ; and the lectures 
 on Greek which he delivered on his return to Oxford in 
 
 ^ Cf. Utopia, pp. 99, loo, 163. 
 
 2 The following dates show more clearly than anything else the sud- 
 denness of these great discoveries : — Fall of Constantinople and conse- 
 quent flight of learned Greeks to Italy, and revival of Greek learning in 
 the West, 1453; Caxton the printer settles in England, 1476; Columbus 
 discovers West Indies, 1492 ; Cabot discovers America, 1497 ; di Gama 
 discovers sea route to India and Far East, 1498 ; Colet and Erasmus at 
 Oxford, 1499. 
 
34 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 1 49 1, mark a new period in the history of English thought 
 and culture. This revival of letters took, from the first, a 
 special tone in England, a tone more religious than in Italy, 
 and yet more practical, more realistic in its bearing upon 
 political and social questions. The religious side of the 
 Renaissance is seen, perhaps, most strongly in John Colet 
 (1466 — 1 5 19), Dean of St. Paul's, and the founder of St. 
 Paul's school, who looked upon Greek as "the key by 
 which he could unlock the Gospels and the New Testament," 
 wherein he hoped to "find a new religious standing-ground." 
 The social and economic results of the Renaissance, which 
 here concern us most, are seen in Sir Thomas More, but 
 tinged, nevertheless, in him also with the glow of new 
 religious feeling. The political side is seen in Erasmus, 
 who wrote The Christian Prince^ and was the Privy Coun- 
 cillor of Prince Charles of the Netherlands, afterwards the 
 Emperor Charles V. ; but in Erasmus, as in More, the 
 religious note, first struck by Dean Colet, is ever prominent. 
 These three great men, each reformers in their own way, 
 have become known to us as the "Oxford Reformers," 
 because for some years they lived and worked together at 
 Oxford, More having gone up as an undergraduate in 1497, 
 Erasmus coming from the Netherlands in 1499, ^^^d both 
 being friends and pupils of Colet, who was lecturing there. 
 
 § 3. More's early life. 
 
 Such were the influences and circumstances with which 
 More as a young man was surrounded. But it is now time 
 to learn something of his life and work. He was born in 
 1478, being thus some twelve years younger than Lily and 
 Colet, and thirty-six younger than Grocyn, the first teacher 
 of Greek in England. Thomas More was the son of Sir 
 
MORE'S EARLY LIFE. 35 
 
 John More, a Knight and Justice of the King's Bench, of 
 whom it is related that he was married three times, in spite 
 of his favourite remark that "marriage was like dipping 
 one's hand into a bag in which there were twenty snakes 
 and one eel, for it was twenty to one that you caught not 
 the eel." The Justice was a Londoner, and dwelt in the 
 heart of the city, and there, too, his son Thomas was born, 
 in Milk Street. The boy was sent to school at St. Anthony's, 
 in Threadneedle Street, which was then supposed to be the 
 best school in London, in the days before Greek was taught 
 even in the Universities. 
 
 ( After leaving school More was placed — as was the custom 
 in those days — in the household of a distinguished man, J 
 where he served as a page, this position being intended to 
 give him an insight into the society of men of rank and in- 
 fluence, and, as it were, to complete his education. Whilst 
 in this position, youths used to wear the livery of the person 
 to whose household they were attached, though having it 
 made of more costly materials than the dresses of mere 
 servants, and being attached more closely and personally to 
 their patron. The great man under whose protection young 
 More was placed was Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor, the counsellor and friend 
 of Henry VIL, and a person for whom a young man could 
 hardly fail to have immense admiration and respect. More 
 speaks of him in the Utopia in a manner which shows us how 
 deeply and sincerely the youth was attached to his patron : 
 " a man not less venerable for his wisdom and virtues than 
 for the high character he bore. He was of middle stature, 
 not broken with age ; his looks begat reverence rather than 
 fear ; his conversation was easy, but serious and grave ; he 
 sometimes took pleasure to try the force of them that came 
 
36 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 to him as suitors on business by speaking sharply, though 
 decently, to them, and by that he discovered their spirit 
 and presence of mind, with which he was much delighted 
 (when it did not grow up to impudence), as bearing a great 
 resemblance to his own temper; and he looked on such 
 persons as the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both grace- 
 fully and weightily, had a vast understanding, and a pro- 
 digious memory. The King depended much on his counsels, 
 and the Government seemed to be chiefly supported by 
 him, and, having passed through many traverses of fortune, 
 he had with great cost acquired a vast stock of wisdom, 
 which is not soon lost when it is purchased so dear." ^ 
 
 In this last sentence. More gives, as it were, a complete 
 summary of the Cardinal's life ; for Morton, when More was 
 in his household, was an old man of seventy or eighty years 
 of age, and had had half a century of political experience. 
 Vice-Chancellor of Oxford in 1446, he had distinguished 
 himself, as was then permissible, both in the Law and in the 
 Church, having been Master of the Rolls in 1472, and Bishop 
 of Ely in 1479. Richard III. had imprisoned him in the 
 Tower, but had afterwards released him, and transferred 
 him to the custody of the Duke of Buckingham. But 
 Morton remained a dangerous foe to Richard, and, crossing 
 to Flanders for safety, became actively engaged in the cause 
 of him who afterwards became Henry VII. In return, this 
 king, soon after his accession, made him Lord Chancellor 
 of England and Archbishop of Canterbury (i486), and the 
 distinguished scholar, lawyer, ecclesiastic, and statesman, 
 remained always one of Henry's most trusted advisers. 
 The society of a man like this was in itself a liberal edu- 
 cation, and to it More owed much of that keen political 
 ^ Utopia, p. 60. 
 
MORE AT OXFORD AND LONDON. 37 
 
 insight which is so distinct a feature of his writing. That 
 the Cardinal, on his side, very soon perceived, with the 
 intuition of a man of vast experience of men and affairs, 
 the genius of his young retainer, is seen from his remark as 
 he sat at meat one day: "Whoever liveth to try it, shall 
 see this child here waiting at table prove a notable and rare 
 man." 
 
 § 4. More at Oxford and London. 
 
 In early youth More showed that gay and versatile wit 
 which is so characteristic of his literary style, and which did 
 not desert him even on the scaffold. When, at Christmas 
 time, a Latin play was acted, the boy could step in among 
 the players at will, and extemporize a comic part. Kindly 
 old Dean Colet used to say smiling : " There is but one wit 
 in England, and that is young Thomas More." But more 
 than his wit, his affectionate and gentle nature endeared 
 him alike to his elders and his contemporaries. Writing 
 of him when they had met at Oxford, Erasmus said : 
 " Whenever did Nature mould a character more gentle, 
 endearing, and happy than Thomas More's?" 
 
 As he grew up, he was sent at nineteen years of age by 
 his patron Morton to Oxford, where he entered Canterbury 
 College, now a part of Christ Church. There he came 
 under the influence of the great Greek scholars Linacre, 
 Grocyn, and Colet — Colet, of whom Erasmus said : " When 
 I listen to him, it seems to me hke listening to Plato him- 
 self." And, like Plato, Colet made ardent disciples. 
 Students burdened by scholastic arguments came to him, 
 and were told "to keep to the Bible and the Apostles' 
 Creed, letting divines, if they like, dispute about the rest," 
 and so learned from him that true religion of humanity, 
 
38 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 which is love to God and to one's neighbour, and alone can 
 give men a new power and ruling motive in life.^ Among 
 his most eager disciples were More and Erasmus, the second 
 then only a poor student, longing to learn Greek, but too 
 poor to go as far as Italy for that purpose, yet finding in 
 England what he sought. " I have found in Oxford," he 
 wrote, "so much polish and learning, that now I hardly 
 care about going to Italy at all, save for the sake of having 
 been there." For the Oxford of that day was, as it has 
 often been since, the home of a new Movement — the move- 
 ment of freedom and reform that was implied in the " new 
 learning." It was in Oxford that More caught the inspir- 
 ation of the old Greek philosopher and seer, and, impelled 
 by the dream of Plato, felt the thrill of the new hopes and 
 life of an ideal commonwealth. 
 
 But More's residence in Oxford did not last long. His 
 friend Erasmus left England for France on his way for 
 Italy, and More returned to London,^where " he was then, 
 for the study of the law of the realm, put to an Inn of the 
 Chancery, called New Inn, where for his time he very well 
 prospered." ^ This was in 1499, and the next year his patron 
 Archbishop Morton died. Although no longer having the 
 kindly help and counsel of the great statesman, and having 
 but "a very small allowance," More worked his way steadily 
 up to the bar, going from New Inn to Lincoln's Inn, and 
 became very popular in the city, being made an under- 
 sheriff of London soon after he was " called." At the early 
 age of twenty-one he got into Parliament, and when barely 
 twenty-five openly opposed in the House the proposal of 
 Henry VII. for a subsidy on account of the marriage portion 
 
 * Cf. Seebohm's Protestant Revolution, pp. 74—80. 
 ^ Roper's Life ; Lumby's edition, p. 6. 
 
MORE AT OXFORD AND LONDON. 39 
 
 of his daughter Margaret, who was to be married to James 
 IV. of Scotland. It was chiefly owing to his opposition 
 that Parliament refused to grant what the King demanded, 
 and Henry was told, to his wrath and astonishment, that 
 " a beardless boy has disappointed the King's purpose." 
 The result naturally was that the daring young member 
 fell under the King's severe displeasure; his father was 
 fined upon a legal pretext, to show the royal wrath ; and 
 Thomas More himself found it best to retire into private 
 life. 
 
 Vexed and disappointed at royal injustice, and having 
 always been of a religious disposition, he now had serious 
 thoughts of becoming a monk and going into a cloister. 
 He even tried upon himself for some time the experiment 
 of religious discipline ; ^ wore the regulation hair-shirt, took 
 a log for his pillow, and whipped himself as a penance every 
 Friday. But under the wise influence of Colet — now in 
 London, and Dean of St. Paul's — whose religion was of a 
 broader cast than mere monasticism, he decided to marry 
 and wait for better days, while practising quietly at the bar. 
 His wife 2 was the eldest daughter of John Colt, of New 
 Hall, Essex ; and it is curious to observe that More would 
 have preferred her younger sister, but married the elder 
 "that he might not subject her to the discredit of being 
 passed over." His London life was brightened by the 
 presence of the old Oxford circle, whom various causes had 
 led back to the capital ; and when Erasmus came back to 
 
 ^ Roper tells us that "he gave himself to devotion and prayer in the 
 Charterhouse of London, religiously living there without vow about four 
 years, until he resorted to the house of one Mr. Colte, a gentleman of 
 Essex. " Lumby's edition, p. 6. 
 
 ^ This first wife died in 1511 or 15 12, and in 15 15 More married 
 again, his second wife being Alice Middleton, a widow. 
 
40 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 England again in 1505 he found Dean Colet, More, Grocyn, 
 Linacre, and Lily all living in London. 
 
 Here then More lived quietly amid that circle of friends 
 who have left so deep an impress upon English life and 
 thought. He was fast becoming a busy and popular lawyer, 
 and had a large and prosperous practice, although he re- 
 fused (it is said) to plead for cases which he thought unjust, 
 or to take fees from widows, orphans, or poor men. Al- 
 though not in favour at court, he was a man of many 
 friends and great influence in a quiet way ; and when 
 Henry VII. died (1509) he speedily rose into prominence 
 in the court of Henry VIII. 
 
 The accession of this young prince seemed, indeed, to 
 the Oxford students like the beginning of a new and happier 
 epoch. He was young, and, like most young princes, popular, 
 and, like most popular people, rich. The condemnation of 
 his father's extortionate favourites, Empson and Dudley, made 
 people hope (as it proved in vain) that no further exac- 
 tions would be required of them. Having plenty of money 
 left him by his careful, if avaricious, father, he easily obtained 
 a reputation for generosity and open-handedness. He was, 
 moreover, a scholar of some attainments, and, certainly at 
 first, neglected neither study nor the business of Govern- 
 ment, in spite of his love of pleasure. In fact, he seemed 
 well fitted to become a great and useful king. As we said, 
 his accession filled the " Oxford students " with the highest 
 hopes, for he was known to be a friend of the "new learn- 
 ing." ^ He made Colet, the Dean of St. Paul's, court- 
 preacher; Thomas More was again made under-sheriff of 
 London (1509), and, a few years later, was drawn even against 
 his will into the court (15 18); Erasmus, the friend of the 
 * Cf. Seebohm : Protestant Revolution, pp. 81, 82. 
 
MORE AT OXFORD AND LONDON. 41 
 
 two Oxford men, even though a foreign scholar, was re- 
 called from Rome to England, and made a professor at 
 Cambridge. 
 
 Not many years had passed, however, before the hopes 
 of the Oxford reformers began to be deceived. Henry 
 VIII. was eager for military glory, and very soon (15 12) 
 involved himself in the Continental war that arose between 
 " the Holy League " (including the Pope, the King of 
 Spain, and the Emperor) and Louis XII. of France.^ He 
 revived the ancient, but groundless, English claim to the 
 Duchy of Guienne, and invaded the territories of Louis. 
 He did very little good, and spent a great deal of money, 
 and very soon afterwards (15 14) changed sides, and helped 
 France to recover from Spain the very provinces he himself 
 had helped the Spanish king to conquer. Now these wars, 
 carried on solely to gratify the personal ambition of those 
 concerned in them, and burdening the people with vast 
 expenses,^ were very distasteful to the Oxford Reformers, 
 and they used all their influence to stop them. Colet 
 preached against them, Erasmus wrote letters to foreign 
 princes and ecclesiastics against them. More plainly told 
 the King that he was opposed to the conquest of France, 
 and hated war. Nevertheless, it was just at this time that 
 both More and Erasmus were called into the service 
 of princes in active political life, the former to that of 
 Henry VIII., and Erasmus to that of Prince Charles of the 
 Netherlands. And so Thomas More became the servant 
 of Henry, when peace had been made with France, asking 
 only that he should be allowed to " first look to God, and 
 after Him to the King." 
 
 1 Cf. Seebohm, p. 86. 
 2 Ibid. 89, 90. 
 
42 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 § 5. The ' Christian Prince ' of Erasmus^ and Mor^s 
 ♦ Utopia,' 
 
 And now, at last, we come to the publication of More's 
 great work on social reform. Both he and his friend 
 Erasmus, upon entering royal service, wrote, as it were, a 
 short statement of their views on social and political 
 subjects; one of these was the Utopia^ the other The 
 Christian Prince. Both of them were inspired by the 
 breath of the new learning, the new views of life that are 
 the ideal of modern civilization, that ideal which Mr. 
 Seebohm has so concisely defined as "the art of living 
 together in civil society and of securing the common weal 
 of the people." In this spirit Erasmus in The Christian 
 Prince urged that the actions of kings should be guided 
 by the " Golden Rule " — that they should never enter into 
 any war that could possibly be avoided, but that the good 
 of their people should be their sole object, for a king's title 
 to the throne depended upon the people's choice; that 
 kings should aim at taxing their people as little as possible, 
 and that the necessaries of life and those in common use 
 among the poorest classes should not be taxed at all, but 
 rather the luxuries of the rich. In fact, the keynote of the 
 whole is, that the object of nations and governments should 
 not be the glory of one or the happiness of a few, but the 
 common weal of the people as a whole. 
 
 It is just the same view of life that More urges so strongly 
 in his UtQpia, which we must now consider in more detail. 
 It was w ritten in the years 1515-16^;^ when Thomas More, 
 
 * It must be remembered that the Utopia was written in Latin, and 
 first printed, not in England, but at Louvain, late in 15 16, under the 
 editorship of Erasmus, Giles, and other of More's Flemish friends. 
 Then it was revised by More, and printed by Frobenius at Basle, 
 
ERASMUS, AND MORE'S 'UTOPIA/ 43 
 
 just^ knighted (15 14), was about thirty-seven years of age. 
 In those years More had twice been sent on an embassy 
 with Cuthbert Tunstal to confer with Charles, the Prince of 
 the Netherlands before mentioned, and also Archduke of 
 Austria, soon to be Charles V., the Emperor. He stayed 
 both in Brussels and Antwerp, living in the former town 
 with Erasmus, and in the latter forming a friendship with 
 Peter Giles, secretary to the Antwerp municipality, and "a 
 man of great honour and of a good rank, though less than 
 he deserves ; for," says More, '* I do not know if there is to 
 be found anywhere a more learned and a better-bred young 
 man," and " not perhaps above one or two that is in all 
 respects so perfect a friend." 
 
 " Coming home from Mass one day," he continues, ** I saw 
 him (Giles) by accident talking with a stranger, who seemed 
 past the flower of his age ; his face was tanned, he had a 
 long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, 
 so that by his looks and habit I concluded he was a 
 seaman." This stranger was introduced to him as Raphael 
 Hythloday,2 a man who was "not ignorant of the Latin 
 tongue, but is eminently learned in the Greek," and who had 
 sailed to the Far West with the great explorer Americus 
 Vesputius or Amerigo Vespucci ; and who after a gooBT deal 
 of preliminary discourse gives him a full and detailed account 
 of the land of Utopia. 
 
 Now, we can-Sge-at-4h€— e^tset-irom thesft incidental 
 
 November 15 18. Also reprinted in Paris and Vienna. But it did not 
 appear in English till translated by Ralph Robinson in 155 1 after 
 More's death. Morley, p. 229. 
 
 ^ According to Mark Pattison, Encycl. Britt. 
 
 ^ From Greek words meaning " knowing in trifles " : (J50Xoc and 
 
44 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 allusions how closely ihe^w}iQ\e^^ch£mQ^.J^^-^ 
 identiEed^hh_^e_tw^^ 
 
 and the New World, and with the inspiration resulting there- 
 from. Raphael Hythloday, the narrator, the hero, as it 
 were, of More's story, is a disciple of the new learning, a 
 lover of Greek, and thus (it is understood) acquainted with 
 the great Utopia of classical lore, the Republic of Plato. 
 And indeed the Platonic influence is seen in innumerable 
 little touches throughout his tale.^ 
 
 Then, again, see how he is identified with the opening-up 
 of the New World, and all that this then implied, all the 
 hopes and aspirations and enthusiasms which glorify the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century as no other age has since 
 been glorified. They have been disappointed, it is true, 
 and the disappointment has been cruel ; but was it not 
 almost worth while for the world to have had them once ? 
 But when Raphael sailed away to the west with Vespucci, 
 these hopes were still fresh, and the Utopia is instinct with 
 their life and inspiration. It is but the sequel, as it were, to 
 a long series of lesser discoveries. The two Cabots had 
 reached the unknown continent in 1497, on the coast of 
 Labrador; Columbus had reached it in 1498, at Trinidad; 
 Vespucci had made his first expedition there in 1499 ^"^^ 
 his second in 1500 ; he had sailed forth twice more (1501 
 and 1503), in the service of the King of Portugal, to 
 complete his explorations, and had died only a very few 
 years before the Utopia was written. 
 
 § 6. The Introduction to the ' Utopia.' State of England. 
 
 And so it was natural that More and Giles, two eager 
 students of the new learning, should willingly talk with 
 1 E.g. Utopia, pp. 75, 83, 84, 85. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE * UTOPIA.' 45 
 
 Hythloday the Greek scholar and experienced traveller, and 
 should be eager to learn not only his wondrous tales of far- 
 off lands, but also his views — as a man of the world who 
 had seen much of life — upon the governments of the day. 
 Hence a very important part of Mora's book is found in 
 the introductory chapters containing an account of the 
 discussion between these three men. Most important of 
 all, for our purpose, are the allusions to the state of England 
 at that time, for these allusions supply us with the neces- 
 sary picture of social life at that day, and show us how 
 much some of the reforms afterwards explained were 
 needed then. The introduction forms a gloomy commen- 
 tary upon the ideal state of Utopia. We are introduced 
 in it to Hythloday's experiences on his supposed visit 
 to England in 1496, and to a conversation in which he 
 took part when dining with More's old patron, Cardinal 
 Morton. 
 
 Some one at table was praising the strict execution of 
 justice when "thieves were hanged so fast that there were 
 sometimes twenty on one gibbet," whereupon Hythloday 
 remarked that "it were much better to make such good 
 provisions by which every man might be put in a method 
 how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of 
 stealing." For, he says, the rich were oppressing and 
 starving the poor so that they forced them either to beg or 
 steal. "There is a great number of noblemen among you 
 that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other 
 men's labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise 
 their revenues, they pare to the quick." Then, too, there 
 was another cause of extreme poverty in England, besides 
 the exactions of noble landowners, and that was their 
 practice of sheep- farming, and the evils resulting from what 
 
46 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 was apparently an innocent mercantile pursuit. The desire 
 of gain made them cruel and rapacious. 
 
 "There is another cause (of poverty) more peculiar to 
 England," says Hythloday in this conversation. 
 
 " ♦ What is that?' said the Cardinal. 
 
 " * The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep, 
 which are naturally mild and easily kept in order, may be 
 said to devour men, and unpeople not only villages but 
 towns. The nobility and gentry, and even those good men, 
 the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their farms 
 yielded, nor thi7iking it enough that they, living at their ease^ 
 do no good to the public^ resolve to do it hurt instead of good. 
 They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and 
 towns, reserving only the churches that they may lodge 
 their sheep in them. For when an insatiable wretch, who 
 is a plague to his country, resolves to inclose many thousands 
 of acres of ground, the owners as well as the tenants are 
 turned out of their possessions by tricks, or by main force, 
 or being wearied out with ill-usage they are forced to sell 
 them. By which means those miserable people (both men 
 and women, married and unmarried, old and young), with 
 their poor but numerous families — since agriculture requires 
 many hands— are all forced to change their seats, not 
 knowing whither to go. And they must sell for almost 
 nothing their household stuff, which could not bring them 
 much money, even though they might stay for a buyer. 
 When that little money is at an end (for it will soon be 
 spent), what is left them to do, but either to steal and so be 
 hanged — God knows how justly ! — or to go about and beg ? 
 And if they do this they are put in prison as idle vaga- 
 bonds, while they would willingly work, but can find none 
 that would hire them; for there is no more occasion for^ 
 
STATE OF ENGLAND. 47 
 
 agricultural labour, to which they have been bred, when 
 there is no arable land left.' " ^ 
 
 It is worth while, to complete this picture of pauperism, 
 to give one concrete example of what was going on in all 
 parts of the country. The example is the manor of Stretton 
 Baskerville^ in Warwickshire, belonging to one Twyford. 
 ** Thomas Twyford, having begun the depopulation thereof 
 in 4 Henry VII., by decaying four messuages and three 
 cottages whereunto 160 acres of arable land belonged, sold 
 it to Henry Smith, gentleman. Which Henry, following 
 that example, in 9 Henry VIII. enclosed 640 acres of land 
 more, whereby twelve messuages and four cottages fell to ruin; 
 and eighty persons there inhabiting, being employed about 
 tillage and husbandry, were constrained to depart thence 
 and live miserably. By means whereof the church grew 
 to such ruine, that it was of no other use than for the 
 shelter of cattle, being with the churchyard wretchedly 
 profaned, to the evil example of others, as are the words of 
 the Inquisition." 
 
 Such were the causes of pauperism upon which Hythloday 
 commented, and to them he adds the growing luxury of the 
 rich. "Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you to set 
 forward your poverty and misery ; for there is excessive 
 vanity in apparel and great cost in diet." But this, he 
 thinks, could be remedied. Stop these enclosures, he 
 says : '* restrain those engrossings of the rich ; let agriculture 
 be set up again and the manufacture of wool be regulated," 
 and let not " your people be ill-educated and their manners 
 
 ^ Utopia, pp. 64, 65. Compare with this Cunningham, pp. 434 and 
 468—481. 
 
 ^ Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, p. 36, quoted in Cunning- 
 ham, p. 399. 
 
48 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 be corrupted from their infancy." But, as he says else- 
 where, " to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely 
 own that as long as there is any property, and while money 
 is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a 
 nation can be governed either justly or happily." ^ 
 
 § 7. The description of Utopia. Agriculture and Trade. 
 
 It is exactly in this communistic spirit that Plato, from 
 whose Republic so much of the Utopia is drawn, suggests 
 the abolition of private property, and forbids altogether the 
 use of money. But before commenting further upon the 
 spirit of the work, let us glance at the second book, and 
 see how the commonwealth of Utopia was governed. At 
 the very outset we have a description of the country itself, 
 which is divided among fifty-four cities. But city life is 
 not allowed to predominate at the expense of rural life, 
 for every one is trained to know something of agriculture, 
 and thus receives what we are just beginning to see is 
 very needful to-day, a sound agricultural education. This 
 feature was of course introduced by More as a protest 
 against the decay of agriculture in his time, as compared 
 with pastoral industry. He does not, however, dwell long 
 upon this point, but goes on to speak about the towns more 
 particularly — how carefully and beautifully they are laid 
 out : " the streets are twenty feet broad ; there lie gardens 
 behind all their houses; and they cultivate their gardens 
 with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, 
 and flowers in them ; and all is so well ordered and finely 
 kept, that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both 
 so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. So that he who 
 
 1 Utopia, p. 85. 
 
THE DESCRIPTION OF 'UTOPIA.' 49 
 
 founded their town seems to have taken care of nothing 
 more than of their gardens." 
 
 Leaving this dehghtful rus in urbe^ Hythloday speaks 
 next about the magistrates — how thirty famiUes choose every 
 year a Syphogrant or Philarch, and over every ten of these 
 is an Archphilarch, while at the head of the State is a 
 Prince, who is prince for Hfe, " unless he is removed upon 
 suspicion of some design to enslave the people." 
 
 We hear next about their trades and manner of life, and 
 this constitutes for us an important section, as showing 
 More in the light of a social reformer. First of all in- 
 dustries comes agriculture, ** which is so universally under- 
 stood among them that no person, either man or woman, 
 is ignorant of it ; they are instructed in it from their child- 
 hood partly by what they learn at school, and partly by 
 practice." More certainly understood a point which is 
 commonly forgotten among modern nations (and especially 
 England) eager to develope manufacturing industries \ 
 namely, that a steady home market is more valuable than 
 a foreign one, and that of home markets the steadiest is 
 afforded by a prosperous agricultural class. 
 
 But "besides agriculture, which is so common to them 
 all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies 
 himself, such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, 
 smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there is no sort of 
 work that is in great esteem among them." And now 
 comes the great social reform that lies at the root of all 
 the other reforms of which the Utopia treats — the reform 
 of idleness. Moreover, this reform is particularly interesting 
 to us to-day, because it deals at the same time with the 
 limitation of the hours of labour. " The chief, and almost 
 the only, business of the Syphogrants is to take care that no 
 
 £ 
 
so SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade 
 diligently : yet they do not wear themselves out with con- 
 tinued toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts 
 of burden (which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is 
 everywhere the common course of Hfe among all mechanics 
 except the Utopians), but they, dividing the day and night 
 into twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three 
 of which are before dinner and three after. Then they sup, 
 and at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed and 
 sleep eight hours." n 
 
 § 8. The Six-Hours Day/ 
 
 Now of course More knew that such a radical reform 
 as a Six-Hours Working Day would meet with violent 
 opposition, not only from those who were interested in 
 maintaining the longest hours for labour, but also from 
 those who honestly believed (as many do to-day) that such 
 a hmitation would have disastrous effects upon industry. 
 So he promptly meets all objections. "Now the time 
 appointed for labour is to be narrowly examined; other- 
 wise you may imagine that since there are only six hours 
 appointed for work, they may fall under a scarcity of 
 necessary provisions. But it is so far from being true 
 that this time is not sufficient for supplying them with 
 plenty of all things (either necessary or convenient), that 
 it is rather too much. And this you will easily apprehend 
 if you consider how great a part of all other nations is 
 quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the 
 half of mankind ; ^ and if some few women are diligent their 
 
 1 The phenomenon of female competition in the labour market was 
 miknown in the sixteenth century ; and More seems to forget that 
 house-work is an important item. 
 
THE SIX-HOURS DAY. 51 
 
 husbands are idle. Then, consider the great company of 
 idle priests; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that 
 have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentle- 
 men, together with their families made up of idle persons, 
 that are kept more for show than use. Add to these all 
 those strong and lusty beggars, that go about pretending 
 some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the 
 whole account, you will find that the number of those, 
 by whose labours mankind is supplied, is much less than 
 you perhaps imagined." ^ As a matter of fact to-day, barely 
 one quarter of the population are engaged in production of 
 any kind, whether of necessaries or luxuries. 
 
 ^ The following figures are a striking confirmation of More's state- 
 ment. They are reproduced from an analysis of the census for 1881 
 (for England and Wales only) made by my friend Mr. Thomas lUing- 
 worth of Bradford, Yorks, and privately printed by him. 
 
 1. Producers, i. e. persons engaged in agriculture, in all 
 kinds of manufacturing industries, in mines, buildings, 
 furniture-making, &c., &c 5,838,644 
 
 2. Dealers, Exchangers, and Distributors, i. e. all shop- 
 keepers, merchants, dealers in animals, or in drinks, or 
 
 food, &c., &c. 1,548,301 
 
 3. Persons engaged in conveyance of men, goods, and 
 messages, and in maintenance of roads 709,615 
 
 4. Professional class: clerical, legal, music, miscel- 
 laneous ; also bankers and accountants 444,577 
 
 5. Government Service, \ozi\.zxi^Xi'OL\XovisX 229,172 
 
 6. Z>^;«^,y^2V servants, &c., &c 1,803,810 
 
 7. Indefinite 613,445 
 
 8. Unoccupied or non-productive class — persons returned 
 by property, rank, and not by occupation, young children, 
 
 and old people over sixty-five years of age ... ... 14,786,875 
 
 Total 25,974,439 
 The ratio of producers is only i to 4*44 of the population. 
 
52 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 But More would even cut down employment in mere 
 luxuries, for he says immediately : " Then consider how few 
 of those who work are employed in labours of real service ; 
 for we who measure all things by money give rise to many 
 trades, that are both vain and superfluous and serve only to 
 support riot and luxury. For if those who work were em- 
 ployed only in such things as the conveniences of life require, 
 there would be such an abundance of them that the prices of 
 them would so sink, that tradesmen could not be maintained 
 by their gains ; if all those who labour about useless things 
 were set to more profitable employments, and if all they 
 that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness (every one 
 of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that 
 are at work) were forced to labour, you may easily imagine 
 that a small proportion of time would serve for doing all 
 that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, 
 especially while pleasure is kept within due bounds." 
 
 No doubt the advocates of an Eight-Hour Day will 
 eagerly fasten upon these words of More's, and we cannot 
 blame them for so doing. Still more eagerly, no doubt, 
 will they welcome the following argument in favour of the 
 supposition that the working-classes (of to-day) will utilize 
 the leisure time gained by shorter work for self-improvement 
 and general culture :l'* And sometimes a mechanic, that so 
 employs his leisure nours, as to make a considerable ad- 
 vancement in learning, is eased from being a tradesman and 
 ranked among their learned men. Out of these they choose 
 their ambassadors, their priests, their magistrates, and the 
 Prince himself." Was Thomas More in his witty way 
 casting a prophetic glance into the future, and foretelling 
 the combined effects of the Eight Hours Bill and the 
 University Extension Movement? \ 
 
OVER-POPULATION. 53 
 
 Finally, as to that much misused shibboleth, the " dignity 
 of labour." Does More say anything very grand about it? 
 I do not think he does, though he shows a distinct advance 
 upon Plato, in whose eyes work, at any rate manual work, 
 was only despised and disliked. More ennobles manual 
 work, because it is the common duty of all; but he does 
 not talk nonsense about the " dignity " connected therewith, 
 looking upon it rather as a necessary means to a far higher 
 end — the culture of the mind. For " the magistrates never 
 engage the people in unnecessary labour, since the chief 
 end of the constitution is to regulate labour by the 
 necessities of the public, and to allow all the people as 
 much time as is necessary for the improvement of their 
 minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists^ 
 
 § 9. Over- Population and the Land Question. 
 
 And now we come to two more questions that cannot 
 fail to interest us deeply when we consider their bearing in 
 modern life — the question of over-population and of land. 
 We believe, in regard to the first, that More was the first 
 to recognize that the question is not one of the quantity, 
 but of the locality of population. For it is impossible that 
 (W^/'-population can occur in the world generally. It never 
 has occurred before, though we have had thousands of 
 years in which to see its effects. What has occurred has 
 been the over-population of a district, and the consequent 
 shifting of centres of population from one country to another, 
 and this has been going on ever since the world began. 
 More was wise enough not to advocate any precautionary 
 measures against mere increase : but points out the simple 
 remedy of transference — not emigration in the modern sense 
 — from one locality to another. "They supply cities that 
 
54 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 do not increase so fast, from others that breed faster." It 
 is not till there is a '•'general increase over the whole island" 
 that emigration is resorted to, but " then they draw a number 
 of their citizens out of the several towns and send them 
 over to the neighbouring continent." The modern system 
 of emigration, under which the best and strongest are 
 induced to go away beyond seas, while the weak, unhealthy, 
 and criminal are left behind, would have repelled him at 
 once by its absurdity. Nor does the modern system of 
 landownership find much favour in More's eyes. Speaking 
 of a nation refusing to admit immigrants from Utopia, and 
 the consequent possibility of war arising from such refusal, 
 he remarks : "For they account it a very just cause of war 
 for a nation to hinder others from possessing a part of that 
 soil of which they make no use, but which is suffered to lie 
 idle and uncultivated ; since every man has by the law of 
 nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is 
 necessary for his subsistence." 
 
 Such are the main points that attract our attention on the 
 social side of the Utopia. There are, of course, many other 
 points of interest, such as the contempt of gold and jewels, 
 the treatment of slaves, and so forth. There is a suggestive 
 passage about the Utopian moral philosophy which places, 
 **if not the whole, yet the chief part of a man's happiness 
 in pleasure ; and, what may seem more strange, they make 
 use of arguments even from religion, for the support of that 
 opinion so indulgent to pleasure." But the word pleasure 
 is used in a high moral and aesthetical sense here, and 
 different sorts of pleasures are expressly distinguished,^ and 
 
 1 Utopia, p. 122. 
 
THE INJUSTICE OF OUR SOCIETY. 55 
 
 in fact, " this is their notion of pleasure ; they think that 
 no man's reason can carry him to a truer idea of them, 
 unless some discovery from Heaven should inspire him 
 with sublimer notions." The remainder of the book is 
 taken up with an account of their slaves, marriage customs, 
 justice, law, military discipline, and religion, the details of 
 which can best be seen by the reader himself at his leisure. 
 Though these subjects take up a large portion of the latter 
 half of the work, they are hardly for us so profoundly interest- 
 ing as the concluding passages,^ in which the accent of the 
 true social reformer rings out clear and unmistakably. 
 
 § 10. The Injustice of our Society. 
 
 " Thus I have described to you, as particularly as I could, 
 the constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not 
 only think the best in the world, but indeed the only 
 commonwealth that truly deserves the name. In all other 
 places it is evident that, while people talk of a commonwealth, 
 every man only seeks his own wealth ; but there, where no 
 man has any property, all men zealously pursue the good of 
 the public. ... In other commonwealths every man knows 
 that unless he provides for himself, how flourishing soever 
 the commonwealth may be, he must die of hunger, so that 
 he sees the necessity of preferring his own concerns to the 
 public." And, in truth, does it not seem extraordinary that 
 in a modern state, how flourishing soever it may be in 
 nominal wealth, many men do literally die of hunger or 
 live out a life of miserable half-starvation in the midst of 
 plenty, nay even of "over-production"? But the cause 
 of that again is touched upon immediately by More, in a 
 fine passage upon the unequal distribution of toil and 
 
 * Utopia^ p, 162, sqq. 
 
$6 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 reward, and upon the injustice of the whole received 
 system. " I would gladly hear any man compare the 
 justice that is among the Utopians with that of all other 
 nations, among whom may I perish if I see anything 
 that looks either like justice or equity. For what justice 
 is there in this, that a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, 
 or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or 
 at best is employed in things that are of no use to the 
 public, should live in great luxury and splendour upon what 
 is so ill acquired ; and a mean man — a carter, a smith, or a 
 ploughman — that works harder even than the beasts them- 
 selves, and is employed in labours so necessary that no 
 commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can 
 only earn so poor a livelihood, and must lead so miserable 
 a life that the condition of the beasts is much better than 
 theirs? For as the beasts do not work so constantly, so 
 they feed almost as well and with more pleasure, and have 
 no anxiety about what is to come; while these men are 
 depressed by a barren and fruitless employment, and tor- 
 mented with the apprehensions of want in their old age ; 
 since that which they get by their daily labour does but 
 maintain them at present, and is consumed as fast as it 
 comes in, and there is no overplus left to lay up for old age." 
 These words might apply to the more unfortunate of the 
 working classes to-day. And yet the labourer of to-day is far 
 better off than his predecessors of fifty years ago, though not 
 better off than those of the last century, while below the or- 
 dinary ranks of labour there are the thousands of paupers, of 
 sweaters' victims, of agricultural labourers whose plight is 
 even worse than More depicted. More wrote more than 
 three hundred years ago, and the world of labour has not be- 
 
MORE AS A SOCIAL REFORMER. 57 
 
 come much happier since then. His words are as true to-day 
 as ever for many, though not by any means all among them. 
 For it is still true that " after the public has reaped all the 
 advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed 
 with age, sickness, and want, all their labours and the good 
 they have done is forgotten, and all the recompense given 
 them is that they are left to die in great misery." And is it 
 not still true that " the richer sort are often endeavouring to 
 bring the hire of labourers lower " ? though it must be said 
 that they do not attempt to do so, as More accused them 
 then, by making laws directly for that purpose. 
 
 It may not be true again, as More declares almost pas- 
 sionately, that governments are merely " a conspiracy of the 
 rich," to oppress the poor and get as much work out of 
 them as possible; but it is inevitable that the poor man 
 should have very Httle voice in the management of affairs, 
 and that inequality of conditions cannot be rectified by law. 
 But More, true social reformer as he was, hardly hoped that 
 things could be otherwise, nor probably would he have seen 
 any reason to-day to alter the closing words of his essay : 
 "There are many things," he says with a mournful accent, 
 "that I rather wish than expect to see followed in our 
 governments." 
 
 § II. More as a Social Reformer. 
 
 These are the last words of the Utopia. More was too 
 wise to expect much, if any, result from a merely literary 
 effort like his own ; for, being so wise, he knew how little 
 literature influences life. He was a social reformer at 
 heart; but he did not attempt, knowing how hopeless in 
 Henry Vni.'s reign such an attempt would be, to carry 
 out his schemes into practice. All he could do was to 
 
58 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 state the problems of his time as he saw them ; and surely 
 that in itself was worth doing. 
 
 Merely to have stated and examined the problems was 
 something ; but the author of the Utopia went further, and 
 tried to give a solution of them, or, at least, to hold up an 
 ideal to which man might look, and looking, gain fresh 
 hopes. Social injustice, religious intolerance, political 
 tyranny were rampant when he wrote ; but the spirit of the 
 new learning was shedding light upon the dark places of 
 the earth, and, guided by it, Thomas More tried half 
 fancifully, half earnestly, but quite sympathetically, as Plato 
 had done so many centuries before, to put before the world 
 a beautiful dream, yet something which might be more than 
 a dream if man would only have it so. 
 
 His Utopia has been called (by a socialist), " the first 
 monument of modern Socialism." That is true ; for it has 
 the keynote of the New Era running through it unmis- 
 takably. But of course it bears the marks of the period 
 in which it was written. It occupies, as it were, a position 
 intermediate between Plato and St. Simon, sharing the 
 beautiful ideahsm of the ancient, and indicating the " organ- 
 ized industry" of the modern. "The philosophy of the 
 eighteenth century was revolutionary ; that of the nineteenth 
 must be the work of organization," says St. Simon ; and the 
 organization of society for common social happiness is what 
 the Utopia foreshadowed. It is an advance on Plato, 
 because the aristocratic communion of the Republic has 
 given way to a commonwealth of equals, a " people's state," 
 in which the government is elective, though social arrange- 
 ments are still a matter of state regulation. Communism, 
 however, is still there, being in fact a result of the Christian 
 influence so prominent in More's thought in all departments 
 
THE 'UTOPIA' AND ITS AUTHOR. 59 
 
 of life. But it is a Christian Communism, for he agreed with 
 his friend Erasmus, who declared that " the true Christian 
 should regard his property as the common property of ail," 
 for " Christian charity knows nothing of private property." 
 We have, in fact, in the Utopia, a Christian version of 
 Plato's Republic, adapted to the new social order, a version 
 in which the ancient and modern forms of thought are seen 
 to coalesce. 
 
 § 1 2. The ' Utopia ' and its Author. His rise and fall. 
 The publication of the Utopia marked out More as one 
 of the foremost leaders of the new learning in Europe. 
 Printed and published, as it was, on the Continent, and 
 being written in Latin, then an almost universal language 
 among the cultured, the book escaped the insularity and 
 insignificance that might have been its fate if it had come 
 out only in England. Even the personality of its author — 
 the friend of Erasmus and other leading scholars of the 
 day, who had frequently crossed the Channel as a political 
 emissary — was fairly familiar to many of his more dis- 
 tinguished readers. And for us there remains Holbein's 
 portrait of him.i *' The keen, irregular face, the gray 
 restless eye, the thin mobile lips, the tumbled brown hair, 
 the careless gait and dress, as they remain stamped on the 
 canvas of Holbein, picture the inner soul of the man, his 
 vivacity, his restless all-devouring intellect, his keen and 
 ever-restless wit, the kindly half-sad humour that drew its 
 strange veil of laughter and tears over tl^.e deep tender 
 reverence of the soul within." 
 
 After the publication of the Utopia, though not in conse- 
 
 1 Green, II, 97. It is a pity that the description just quoted is spoiled 
 by the double adjectives that precede nearly every noun. 
 
6o . SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 quence of it, More's rise was rapid and successful. He 
 
 had indeed been knighted in 15 14, and sworn a member 
 
 of the Privy Council. He was, as we saw, repeatedly sent 
 
 on missions to the Low Countries, and was for some time 
 
 stationed at Calais as agent for the negotiations carried on 
 
 by Wolsey with the court of France. In 15 19 he had to 
 
 resign his private practice at the bar for political work, 
 
 being made Treasurer of the Exchequer in 152 1, and 
 
 Speaker of the Parliament in 1523. But in this Parliament 
 
 an incident occurred which drew down upon More's head 
 
 the jealousy of the great Cardinal Wolsey, for owing to 
 
 More's influence a money grant required by the Cardinal 
 
 was refused. Nevertheless, More retained the favour of 
 
 Henry VHL, who, in 1525, made him Chancellor of the 
 
 Duchy of Lancaster, and spared no pains to attach him to 
 
 the court. But More knew only too well the value of the 
 
 favour of princes, especially of such a prince as Henry ; and, 
 
 when his son-in-law Roper congratulated him on the King's 
 
 visits to his house at Chelsea, he remarked merely — " I find 
 
 his Grace my very good lord indeed ; and I believe he doth 
 
 as regularly favour me as any subject within this realm. 
 
 Howbeit, son Roper, I may tell thee I have no cause to be 
 
 proud thereof, for if my head would win him a castle in 
 
 France, it should not fail to go." Henry VIH., however, 
 
 seemed bent on favouring him, and when a successor had 
 
 to be found for Wolsey in 1529, More was made Lord 
 
 Chancellor. This post he filled with singular rectitude, 
 
 honesty, and ability, in a time when it was customary for 
 
 judges to take bribes from suitors, and he held it for four 
 
 years. 
 
 But now came the burning question of Henry's divorce 
 from Catherine of Aragon in order that he might marry Anne 
 
THE 'UTOPIA' AND ITS AUTHOR. 6i 
 
 Boleyn. We need not here go into the details of it ; 
 suffice it to say that More found himself at variance with 
 the King, and wisely asked leave to resign the Great Seal. 
 His resignation was accepted on May loth, 1532. The 
 loss of office, unaccompanied by the promised royal bounty, 
 made More a poor man. Indeed his income did not reach 
 more than ;£"ioo a year, and his poverty became so 
 notorious, that the clergy in convocation offered him a 
 present of ;£30oo. But this he peremptorily refused, and 
 contented himself with reducing his establishment and 
 living in a quieter way. Yet his home life remained as 
 happy and as beautiful as ever, even in these comparatively 
 reduced circumstances, and Erasmus has given us a 
 charming picture of his household at Chelsea. '* More has 
 built near London, upon the Thames, a modest yet com- 
 modious mansion. There he lives surrounded by his 
 numerous family, including his wife, his son, and his son's 
 wife, his three daughters and their husbands, with eleven 
 grandchildren. There is not any man living so affectionate 
 to his grandchildren as he, and he loveth his old wife as if 
 she were a girl of fifteen. Such is the excellence of his 
 disposition that whatsoever happeneth that could not be 
 helped, he is as cheerful and as well pleased as though the 
 best thing possible had been done. In More's house you 
 would say that Plato's Academy was revived again ; only, 
 whereas in the Academy the discussions turned upon 
 geometry and the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is 
 a veritable school of Christian religion. In it is none, man 
 or woman, but readeth or studieth the liberal arts ; yet is 
 their chief care of piety. There is never any seen idle ; 
 the head of the house governs it, not by a lofty carriage 
 and oft rebukes, but by gentleness and amiable manners. 
 
62 SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 Every member is busy in his place, performing his duty 
 with alacrity, nor is sober mirth wanting." 
 
 § 13. The King's Revenge. 
 
 But this quiet and homely life was not to last much 
 longer. More was too great a man to be ignored, and 
 when he dared to refuse the King's direct invitation to be 
 present at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, he was at once 
 marked out for royal vengeance. His enemies were 
 instigated to attack him, and he was even summoned before 
 the Privy Council to answer a charge of taking bribes. 
 Of course this attempted charge failed utterly. Then a bill 
 was brought before Parliament accusing a certain nun, 
 Elizabeth Barton, of seditious language, and implicating 
 More and Fisher as her accomplices. But this second 
 attempt also failed utterly as far as the charge of treason 
 was concerned ; and so the question of the King's marriage 
 was brought up once again. But nothing could make 
 More approve of this union, and though the charge was for 
 the time dropped, he knew well that his doom was at hand. 
 ** What is postponed is not dropped, Meg," he said sadly in 
 answer to his daughter's congratulations on this second 
 escape from the toils of the law and the King; and his 
 words were soon proved to be only too true. The Act of 
 Supremacy was passed in 1534, and More was sent for to 
 Lambeth to take the oath declaring the King to be head of 
 the Church. He refused, and was thrown into the Tower, 
 where he was kept in close confinement for more than a 
 year. Then he was brought to a mock trial, and by 
 the false witness of Rich, the solicitor-general, was con- 
 demned to death. Within a week he was executed, on the 
 7th of July, 1535, and his head was fixed on London Bridge. 
 
THE KING'S REVENGE. 63 
 
 His last moments are thus described by his son-in-law, 
 Roper, in language so chaste and touching that I can do 
 no better than simply reproduce it here.^ 
 
 " And so he was brought by Master Lieutenant out of 
 the Tower, and from thence led towards the place of exe- 
 cution, where, going up the scaffold, which was so weak 
 that it was ready to fall, he said to Master Lieutenant — ' I 
 pray you, I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up, 
 and for my coming down let me shift for myself.' Then 
 desired he all the people thereabouts to pray for him, and 
 to bear witness with him that he should then suffer death 
 in and for the faith of the Holy Catholic Church. Which 
 done, he kneeled down, and after his prayers said, he 
 turned to the executioner, and with a cheerful countenance 
 spake unto him — * Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not 
 afraid to do thine office, my neck is very short. Take 
 heed therefore thou strike not awry for saving thine 
 honesty.* So passed Sir Thomas More out of this world 
 to God, upon the very same day in which himself had most 
 desired. Soon after whose death came intelligence thereof 
 to the Emperor Charles; whereupon he sent for Sir 
 Thomas Eliote, our English ambassador, and said unto 
 him — *My Lord Ambassador, we understand that the 
 King your master hath put his faithful servant and grave 
 wise counsellor, Sir Thomas More, to death.' Whereunto 
 Sir Thomas Eliote answered that he understood nothing 
 thereof. 'Well,' said the Emperor, *it is very true, and 
 this will we say, that if we had been master of such a 
 servant, of whose doings ourselves have had these many years 
 no small experience, we would rather have lost the best city in 
 our dominions than have lost such a worthy counsellor.' " 
 ^ The Life of Sir Thomas More^ P- 55- Lumby's edition. 
 
NOTES ON AUTHORITIES. 
 
 1. The Utopia : the English translation thereof made by Raphe 
 
 Robinson ; second edition, 1556. 
 
 2. The Life of Si?' Thomas More, written by his son-in-law, 
 
 William Roper; Hearne's edition, 1716. 
 Both the above are edited, in one volume, by J. Rawson 
 Lumby, D.D. (Cambridge: University Press : 1880), and form 
 the best original account of M ore's life, and the best version of 
 the Utopia. Referred to here as Lumbfs Edition, p. 32. 
 
 3. Ideal Commonwealths : containing the Utopia and other similar 
 
 books : edited by Henry Morley, LL.D. (London: Rout- 
 ledge : Morley' s Universal Library). The Utopia occupies 
 pp. 53—167 in this volume, and as it is so easily accessible 
 the references in my text allude always to this copy, unless 
 otherwise stated. The other books in Ideal Common- 
 wealths should be carefully read. 
 
 4. A First Sketch of English Literature : by Henry Morley 
 
 (London : Cassell : fifth edition) : especially pp. 222 — 242, 
 for a general sketch of the literature of the period. 
 
 5. Sir Thomas More: article by Mark Pattison in the Ency- 
 
 clopcedia Britannica, for a general account of More's life. 
 
 6. The Era of the Protestant Revolution : by F. Seebohm : 
 
 especially pp. 74 — 94 and 167 — 184, and the same author's 
 The Oxford Reformers — Colet, Ei'asmus, and More, 
 passim. 
 
 7 and 8. Green's History (vol. H.), and Cunningham's English 
 Industry^ as before, should be read for the general his- 
 torical and economic events of the period of More's life. 
 

 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 ,H^-' 
 
 I. JOHN WESLEY. ^^^ 
 
 § I. The Eighteenth Century.^ 
 
 Little more than a century and a half again intervenes 
 between the death of More and the birth of Wesley, but it 
 was a century that saw the death of mediaevalism and the 
 birth of the modern spirit, whether for better or worse. We 
 have seen the first awakening of the modern spirit in the 
 Utopia^ and we can trace it throughout the f^rppt; di^p^i^f ^g 
 which agitated the seventeenth century. These disputes 
 were not, as in the former two periods of which we have 
 spoken, questions of social or economic so much as of 
 religious and political interest. The attitude of religious 
 freedom of thought and political freedom of action so 
 noticeable in the Utopia had developed into the impatience 
 of an Established Church, and the struggle against an 
 absolute monarchy, that occupied the makers of English 
 history in the days of the Stuarts. These struggles had in 
 their natural course divided Englishmen, more or less 
 broadly, into two great parties — the Whigs and the Tories 
 — of whom the first represented the desire for political 
 freedom and government by Parliament, not by a monarch, 
 
68 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 while the second recalled the old mediaeval belief (however 
 modified it might be) that constitutional and social arrange- 
 ments are not matters of expediency so much as part of a 
 divinely-constituted order. The Whigs believed in Parlia- 
 ment as representing, not the wisdom of the nation as a whole, 
 but the concentrated wisdom of its leaders. They did not 
 perhaps believe so much in the freedom of the citizen to 
 act, speak, and believe as he pleased, as in the expediency 
 of consulting the leaders of the nation in governing the 
 nation, and in the expediency of tolerating modes of 
 thought (as in Nonconformity) to which opposition might 
 be dangerous, or at least unadvisable. /The Tories had, 
 during the days of the Civil Wars, upheld stoutly the theory 
 of the divine right of the king to rule, and of a visible 
 adhesion to Christian principles implied in an Established 
 Church. But, unfortunately for their theories, the Stuarts 
 whom they succeeded in restoring showed that the ruler by 
 divine right might be hostile to the national religion, and 
 the Tories had to make their choice. They had to bow to 
 expediency, and renounce their king in the Revolution of 
 1688./ From this renunciation of principles they never 
 really recovered, and it was emphasized still more when in 
 1 7 14 they had to adopt the Whig principles of expediency 
 once again in accepting a foreign Hanoverian king, who 
 did not even pretend either to care for his new kingdom, 
 or to understand its language and ideas. 
 
 Now such an unhappy conflict of ideals as this, a conflict 
 between adherence to a rightful king and a divinely-instituted 
 church, could not fail to have a disastrous effect, not only 
 upon the ideal which had been given up, but upon that 
 which had triumphed. And so it was in this case. For a 
 time the power of high thought and devoted work was lost 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 69 
 
 among the Tory^^party; who, after all, represented quite 
 half the nation. No Inn^p^ hpjng a\)]^ to follo w their 
 political^ principljgs^lEey- rPRsed to cure for their religious 
 
 ideal. Pn]ifiral-.dea4ne&s sepmed to ransp rpligiong Hpray ; 
 the great questions of the seventeenth century no longer 
 agitated men's thoughts or spurred them to noble actions ; 
 the heroic figures of the great struggle between King and 
 People had departed, and nothing seemed left but to 
 acquiesce in the course of history and to let events have 
 their way. 
 
 To this state of feeling we may not unnaturally ascribe 
 the lack of elevation, the dullness, coarseness, and brutality 
 that seem to characterize the eighteenth century, in spite 
 of a veneer of literary polish and the glamour of an artificial 
 culture. And the fairly general material prosperity that is 
 characteristic of this century, influenced by no great mental 
 or moral stimulus, served only to accentuate the coarse 
 content and merely sensual happiness of the nation at 
 large. It is not that the eighteenth century was particularly 
 worse than ages before or after it, for all ages are very much 
 the same, and we can always make out a period to be a 
 slough of sin and vice if we only look at certain features 
 of it. It would be perfectly easy, for instance, if we only 
 looked in modern London at the side of life depicted in 
 classical Rome by Juvenal or Petronius Arbiter, to prove 
 that the nineteenth century a.d. was little, if at all, better 
 than the first. There is hardly a vice or crime of Rome 
 that could not easily be paralleled from the records of 
 the law courts, and the appearance of the streets, in our 
 own capital. And the law courts and the streets are only 
 the surface of society ; its depths are in all ages remarkably 
 alike. Noj it is jnot t hat the ei ghteenth century,.was extra- 
 
70 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 ordinarily brutal or se nsual, but that it was so extraordin- 
 arily lacking on, the. -moraj^ j^ligiouvand _sentiraental side 
 oiJife, Or, to put the matter in another way, it may be 
 said that, whereas to-day we have any amount of senti- 
 ment, good and bad, wise and foolish, in daily life, coupled 
 with almost as much vice and folly as in the previous 
 century, in the reign of the first two Georges the vice and 
 folly were unrelieved by any sentiment. As for the force 
 of religion, which really seems to be a factor in modern 
 life, even if it be of a somewhat gushing type, it was 
 practically dead under the early Hanoverians. The royal 
 example was not calculated to revive it, even though the 
 bare form was preserved. It was the custom, certainly, to 
 have prayers said daily in the palace ; but they were per- 
 formed by two parsons in a room next to the Queen's 
 dressing-room while she was at her toilet, the door being open 
 only " enough for those parsons to think we may hear, and 
 shut enough that we may not hear quite so much — those 
 creatures pray so loud we cannot hear one's self speak." i 
 As for the kings, George I. and George II. alike, their 
 profligacy was so notorious that they did not care to conceal 
 it. The first had shut up his wife in the lonely Castle of 
 Ahlden on the Liineburger Haide, thirty miles from Han- 
 over, and lived among his mistresses in uninterrupted 
 pleasures. The second was on good terms with his Queen, 
 but only because she allowed him to detail the beauties of 
 his favourites into her diplomatically unoffended ears, for 
 she cared so litde for him herself that even her daughter 
 could remark openly, upon the retirement of Lady Suffolk, 
 
 1 Cf. "The Death of Lord Hervey," a dramatic sketch included in 
 Hervey's memoirs, and quoted by Mrs. Oliphant in her Historical 
 SketcJies, p. 31. 
 
RELIGION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 71 
 
 one of the numerous royal flames : " I wish with all my 
 heart that he (the King) would take somebody else, that 
 mamma might be a little relieved from the ennui of seeing 
 him always in her room." 
 
 § 2. Religion and Social Life. 
 
 In religion, the force of Puritanism had long been spent, 
 and no longer had any hold upon the mass of the people. 
 Even the Archbishop of Canterbury said in his charge of 
 1738 (the year, by the way, when Wesley first began itinerant 
 preaching), "An open and professed disregard to religion 
 is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, a dis- 
 tinguishing character of the present age. This evil is grown 
 to a great height in the metropolis of the nation ; is daily 
 spread through every part of it ; and, bad in itself as this 
 can be, must of necessity bring all others after it. Indeed 
 it has already brought in such dissoluteness and contempt 
 of principle in the highest part of the world, and such 
 profligate intemperance and fearlessness of committing crimes 
 in the lower, as must, if this torrent of impiety stop not, 
 become absolutely fatal. And God knows, far from stopping, 
 it receives from the ill design of some persons, and the 
 inconsiderateness of others, a continual increase. Christi- 
 anity is now ridiculed and railed at with very little reserve, 
 and the teachers of it without any at all." Indeed, "the 
 teachers of it," at any rate the domestic clergy, had sunk 
 extraordinarily low. The chaplain was thought a fit mate 
 for a lady's-maid, ate only at the second table, and was 
 expected to lend a hand to carry his patron to bed at night, 
 after the wine bottles had been emptied, while turning a con- 
 veniently deaf ear to the blasphemy and oaths, which flowed 
 
72 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 in those days as freely as the wine.^ In fact, Christianity, 
 in spirit and in deed, was practically ignored, and in his 
 preface to the Analogy (1736) Bishop Butler wrote : " It is 
 come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many 
 persons that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry, 
 but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious." 
 
 The mass of the people, then, was untouched by religious 
 feeling. That in itself does not mean very much, for we 
 doubt whether the mass of the people to-day is touched by 
 it to any great extent But in the last century the whole 
 mind of the people was coarse and brutal. ^ Immorali ty, 
 of course, exists among us to-day, but in that age it existed 
 in a^aYmore^open and unblushing form. The profli gacy of 
 jhe.JLing.aiLd Ms Coiiillset^ rest of 
 
 the nation easily followed. The polished Chesterfield 
 writing, strange though it may seem, with real paternal 
 devotion to his son in Paris, gives his eighteen-year-old 
 pupil direct and unhesitating injunctions as to the choice of 
 his mistresses. In fact, he concludes, " the gallantry of 
 high life, though not strictly justifiable, carries at least no 
 external marks of infamy about it ; neither the heart nor 
 the constitution is corrupted by it ; and manners possibly 
 are wiproved." This, however, is not remarkable at a time 
 when the King himself was sulking like an extremely ill- 
 bred bear because he had to leave his favourite mistress, 
 Madame von Walmoden (afterwards Countess of Yarmouth), 
 in Hanover, while he returned for the winter to England, or 
 when the Queen was calmly advised by Walpole to supply 
 her royal husband with a fresh mistress. Lady Tankerville, 
 " a safe fool," to balance, during his stay in this country, 
 the attractions of the German concubine. 
 
 * Cf. Oliphant's Historical Sketches^ and Thackeray's Esmond. 
 
RELIGION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 73 
 
 Besides gallant profligacy, gambling was then, as now, one 
 of the chief amusements of the higher circles of society. 
 Lecky tells us that ''Chief Justice Kenyon in 1796 de- 
 livered a charge in which he dwelt upon the scandalous 
 gambling of faro which was carried on at the houses of 
 some ladies in high society. He threatened to send them 
 to the pillory if they were convicted before him. In the 
 following year Lady Buckinghamshire and two other ladies 
 of position were, in fact, condemned, not indeed to the 
 pillory, but to pay ;£^o each for illegal gambling. It was 
 proved that they had gaming parties by rotation in each 
 other's houses and sat gambling till three or four in the 
 morning." 1 Of course, the nineteenth century is by no 
 means blameless in this respect, but at least the Government 
 does not now, as was the case then, encourage a taste for 
 gambling by multiplying public lotteries. From the same 
 author we catch another glimpse of the fashionable amuse- 
 ments of the day, of which Victor Hugo has given a 
 picturesque account in his novel, L'komme qui rit. A club 
 of young men of the upper classes, called " the Mohawks," 
 used to sally forth every night into the streets of London, 
 in order to hunt the passers-by, to torture and to outrage 
 them. '* Maidservants, as they opened their masters' doors, 
 were waylaid, beaten, and their faces cut. Matrons, enclosed 
 in barrels, were rolled down steep and stony inclines. Watch- 
 men were unmercifully beaten, and their noses slit." In 
 fact the outrages upon the female portion of the community 
 committed by the members of the Mohawks and other 
 clubs were such as will not, in the present age, bear de- 
 scription, and we doubt whether the Indian tribe from 
 which this club in especial took its name would have 
 * Lecky, History of England in the \%th Century^ vol. IV. 
 
74 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 surpassed them in inflicting wanton indignities. These 
 things went on in the middle of London itself: in the 
 country the roads were equally unsafe owing to the attacks 
 of highwaymen. Horace Walpole, writing in 1751, remarks : 
 "one is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one were 
 going to battle." 
 
 Such being the amusements of the upper classes, it can 
 hardly be expected that those of the lower were much 
 better. The habits of gambling and drinking were fast 
 attaining most evil proportions, especially in the case 
 of gin-drinking. In 1684 only 500,000 gallons of gin 
 were distilled. Thirty years later the annual amount, 
 without anything like a proportionate increase of population, 
 had increased to 2,000,000. Twenty years more, and it 
 rose to 5,000,000 gallons; and in 1749 it was calculated 
 that there were 17,000 private gin-shops in London alone. 
 The brutal sports of bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and cock- 
 fighting formed the delight of all classes. In fact, there 
 was all the brutality of the nineteenth century^ — perhaps 
 more — with none of its redeeming features. Love of art 
 or literature, as such, there was none in the middle and 
 lower classes ; morals and religion were almost a dead 
 letter ; and, to sum up, there was a general lack of any 
 elevated or noble sentiment. 
 
 ^ We must not forget the numerous brutal sports — such as fox- 
 hunting, pigeon-shooting, and prize-fighting — 'which still flourish among 
 us to-day ; nor should we omit the records of the police-courts in cases 
 of wife-beating and cruelty to children and animals, — only a small 
 proportion of which ever become known, — in comparing the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries. 
 
THE EPWORTH PARSONAGE. 75 
 
 § 3. The Epworth Parsonage. 
 
 This is, at least, the dark side of the eighteenth century, 
 though that it was all as dark as this it would be ridiculous 
 to assert. There must have been more than one parsonage 
 besides Epworth to afford a picture of pure, simple, and 
 God-fearing lives. But Epworth is the one which has been 
 handed down, as it were, as fully and completely as possible, 
 as the example of the home of an eighteenth-century 
 parish priest. So to Epworth we will turn to discover the 
 influences and surroundings among which grew up the great 
 reformer of the eighteenth century. This parish is rather an 
 isolated one, for it is cut off from its proper diocese, that of 
 Lincoln, by the river Trent, and there were few neighbours 
 with whom the Wesleys could associate on terms of social 
 equality. But these circumstances caused the home influences 
 of Epworth Rectory to impress themselves all the more 
 strongly on John Wesley in his earlier years. He was born on 
 June 17th (O. S.), 1703, his father being the rector of the 
 parish, an office he filled from 1696 to 1735. While yet a boy 
 two events occurred, which, it is certain, left a very decided 
 mark upon his subsequent thought. The first was the burning 
 of the Rectory when the boy was six years old (1709), and 
 when he was almost burned to death before he was rescued. 
 It is not unnatural to connect this event with his sincere 
 belief in the reality of hell-fire expressed in his sermons and 
 revivalist addresses, or with his own proposed epitaph on 
 himself as "a Brand plucked from the Burning." The 
 second event of note was the occurrence of mysterious and 
 hitherto unexplained noises of what would be now vulgarly 
 called a " spiritualistic " character in the rector's house in 
 the winter of 17 15-16. It is probable that these curious 
 
76 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 noises were responsible for much of Wesley's readiness to 
 believe in witchcraft, in the sortes biblicae, in possession by 
 evil spirits, 1 and so forth. He quite believed, for instance, 
 that the elements were controlled for the convenience of his 
 work, and that the miracle of the sun in the valley of 
 Ajalon was constantly repeated in a different form for his 
 own benefit. "The wind kept off the rain while I was 
 preaching. As soon as I ended, it began," ^ he writes, 
 quite believing that the wind and rain were controlled 
 on his behalf, and "incidents of the same kind I have 
 seen abundance of times." 
 
 But, besides these purely external events, we must 
 specially notice the influence of his mother, who, more 
 than any one else, is responsible for the development of 
 Methodism ; for it was from her teaching that John Wesley 
 gained those ideas of method, of order and careful religious 
 habits, the sense of an over-ruling Providence in human 
 affairs, and of the supreme, all-important influence of 
 religion in daily life, that afterwards so characterized his 
 work. Mrs. Wesley used, for instance, to hold serious 
 weekly conversations with each of her children separately, 
 and these, no doubt, suggested to John the idea of the 
 class-meeting. His views on education, carried afterwards 
 into practice at Kingsvvood school, were similarly based on 
 his mother's methods of instruction. In fact, in few men 
 has the maternal influence been so strongly and clearly 
 marked in later life as in the case of John Wesley. 
 
 ^ Cf. his remark upon the case of a woman who was troubled with 
 fits : '* The plain case is, she is tormented by an evil spirit ; yea, try 
 all your drugs over and over, but at length it will plainly appear : 
 'This kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting.'" Cf. Canon 
 Overton's Wesley^ p. i8i. 
 
 2 Journal^ June 2, 1758, and cf. Overton's Wesley^ p. 182. 
 
'A FELLOW OF LINCOLN.' 77 
 
 § 4. ^^ A Fellow of Lincoln'^ 
 
 As the boy grew older he was sent, early in the year 
 1 7 14, to school at the Charterhouse, London, then under 
 the head-mastership of Dr. Thomas Walker, while his two 
 brothers were at Westminster school, Samuel as usher, and 
 Charles as a scholar. Here he seems to have made good 
 progress, and then proceeded in 1720 to Christ Church, 
 Oxford, aided by a school exhibition of ;£"4o per annum, 
 then a fairly considerable sum. He was, however, con- 
 stantly in monetary difficulties at college, probably owing 
 to no fault of his own ; yet lived a pleasant undergraduate 
 life, being "gay and sprightly, with a turn for wit and 
 humour."^ He was ordained deacon in September 1725, 
 by the Bishop of Oxford (his ordination as priest taking 
 place in 1728), and on March 17th, 1726, he was elected, 
 chiefly, though not entirely, by influence, a Fellow of Lincoln 
 College. This event was a source of great pride both to 
 himself and his father, who wrote to him with genuine 
 emotion : *' What will be my own fate before the summer is 
 over, God only knows — sed passi graciosa. Wherever I am, 
 my Jack is FeUow of Lincoln." And " sometime Fellow of 
 Lincoln " is the designation by which Wesley describes him- 
 self in the title-page of all his works. 
 
 His life for some years now became that of a conscientious 
 college-tutor, varied by helping his father (1727-29) in 
 his parochial duties at Epworth. And at Oxford, especially 
 in the years 1729 to 1735, begins for us the main interest of 
 his work. For here were the foundations of Methodism 
 first laid, and here did Wesley's work as a social and re- 
 ligious reformer begin. As is well known, John and his 
 
 * See his contemporary Badcock : cf. Overton's Wesley^ p. 1 1, 
 
78 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 brother Charles (then a student of Christ Church), together 
 with George Whitefield, then a Pembroke man, and other 
 members of the University, formed themselves into a 
 society, or church -guild as we might call it, for mutual 
 edification, carefully keeping the fasts and festivals of the 
 Church, communicating frequently, giving away all they 
 could in charity, and visiting the sick and poor. They 
 were all staunch High Churchmen. What most concerns 
 us to notice is that they began practical work with the 
 prisoners in Oxford Castle, visiting and comforting them in 
 their confinement, helping the unfortunate debtors locked up 
 in Bocardo, and paying for the education of poor children.^ 
 
 § 5. ^ Reformer by Accident. 
 
 Now, although I have included JohnJWesley among our 
 English Social Reformers, it ought to be clearly stated that 
 he was so only by accident, not by design. He was first 
 and foremost ^ Tfil'si«^nfT r^f>^rmpr^ a nd a ll his^actions sprang 
 from a desjre fo r religious reyi xal rnfhpr thnn ^c\r gp^al amp- 
 liofation. This muclTis evident from his own testimony as 
 to the origin of the Methodist Movement at Oxford, on lay- 
 ing the foundation of "the new chapel, near the City Road, 
 London," on April 21st, 1777. "In the year 1725 a young 
 student at Oxford was much affected by reading Kempis' 
 Christian Pattern, and Bishop Taylor's Rules of Holy 
 Living and Dying. He formed an earnest desire to live 
 according to these rules, and to flee from the wrath to 
 come. ... In the year 1729 he found one that had the 
 same desire." Then others joined them, and the little 
 
 1 These three points are prominent in the social programme of re- 
 formers like the Church Army and the Salvationists, and are termed 
 the prison mission, poor man's bank, and free or assisted education. 
 
A REFORMER BY ACCIDENT. 79 
 
 society thus formed used to sit " two evenings together, 
 and, in a while, six evenings in the week, spending that 
 time in reading the Scriptures, and provoking one another 
 to love and good works. . . . They were all orthodox on 
 every point. . . . They had no conception of anything 
 that would follow. Indeed, they took no thought for the 
 morrow, desiring only to live to-day." These are Wesley's 
 own words, and show quite clearly how he thought. It has 
 been said that the Methodist Movement in its inception, 
 like that of the Salvation Army in its latest state of develop- 
 ment, was essentially humanitarian. This is a great mistake. 
 Like Salvationism, Methodism was purely religious in its 
 origin. The social and humanitarian results followed later, 
 not because Wesley's thoughts naturally turned in that 
 direction, but that he considered " good works," such as 
 visiting prisoners, the sick, and the poor, a part of a Christian's 
 duty, just as much as (but probably only as much as) 
 regular communion and frequent prayer. 
 
 At the same time, it is well to put the social-reform 
 aspect of Wesley's work prominently forward, because, as 
 a rule, his religious side only has been emphasized. The 
 following " questions," which the Wesleys drew up for the 
 sake of friends and opponents alike, show how much the 
 humanitarian spirit breathed through their religious work : 
 
 1. Whether it does not concern all men, of all conditions, 
 to imitate as much as they can Him who went about doing 
 good ? 
 
 2. Whether all Christians are not concerned in that com- 
 mand — While we have time, let us do good unto all men ? 
 
 3. Whether we shall not be more happy hereafter, the 
 more good we do now ? 
 
 4. Whether we can be happy at all hereafter, unless we 
 
8o WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 have, according to our power, " fed the hungry, clothed the 
 naked, visited those that are sick and in prison," and [here 
 speaks the religious, not the social reformer] made all these 
 actions subservient to a higher purpose, even the saving of 
 souls from death ? 
 
 5. Whether, upon the considerations above mentioned, we 
 may not try to do good to those that are hungry, naked, or 
 sick? In particular, whether, if we know any necessitous 
 family, we may not give them a little food, clothes, or physic, 
 as they want ? 
 
 6. Whether we may not contribute, what little we are able, 
 towards having their children clothed and taught to read ? 
 
 7. Whether we may not try to do good to those that are in 
 prison ? and in particular whether we may not release such 
 well-disposed persons as remain in prison for small sums ? 
 
 8. Whether we may not lend smaller sums to those that are 
 of any trade, that they may procure themselves tools and 
 materials to work with ? 
 
 Such are some of the questions which Wesley found it 
 necessary to draw up, less to encourage his friends than to 
 combat his enemies. For the proceedings of the Metho- 
 dists,^ as they were contemptuously called, aroused in that 
 cold and coarse age a spirit of angry remonstrance. Jeers 
 and ridicule were freely bestowed upon them by men who 
 were themselves preparing for ordination. But Wesley 
 and his friends heeded them not. John Wesley himself 
 earnestly took up charitable and private study, devoting 
 much time to the history of the Primitive Church, to which 
 
 , ^ John Wesley says the name was bestowed in allusion to a set of 
 physicians who flourished at Rome about the reign of Nero. Charles 
 
 \ Wesley says it was because of their strict conformity to Church and 
 University rules, and generally methodical mode of life. 
 
WORKS, AND A NEW FAITH. 8i 
 
 it is curious to note how much he owed in his Methodist 
 institutions.^ He was much impressed also with the 
 writings and occasional society of William Law, the non- 
 juror, and author of the Serious Call and Christian Per- 
 fection. Visits were made to Law at Putney, and he was 
 looked upon by Wesley as " a sort of oracle." 
 
 § 6. IVorks, and a new Faith. 
 
 But a total change of life and work was now in store for 
 John Wesley. His father had died in 1735, ^^^ when 
 John, on his death, went up to London to present the late 
 Rector of Epworth's volume on Job to the Queen, he met 
 with some of the trustees of the colony of Georgia, who 
 had a Httle time before (1732) acquired a charter for found- 
 ing a settlement in North America. The real promoter of 
 the colony was James Edward Oglethorpe, an Oxford man, 
 an M.P., and a general in the army. He was one of the 
 foremost philanthropists of the day, taking special interest 
 in the relief of unfortunate debtors and in prison reform. 
 The new colonists were, in fact, to be composed largely of 
 unfortunate debtors, who would thus have a fresh chance in 
 Ufe. v^'^esley was introduced to General Oglethorpe as a 
 most suitable man to accompany the emigrants and to preach 
 the Gospel to the settlers and to the Indians in and near 
 Georgia. Wesley himself seems to have been fired with 
 missionary enthusiasm chiefly for the Indians,-_not for the 
 settlers, and finally accompanied the party as a missionary 
 sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
 with a stipend of £,^0 a year. The vessel reached Georgia 
 on February 5th, 1736. 
 
 As all know, the visit to Georgia was not the most 
 ^ Cf. Canon Overton's Wesley ^ pp. 30, 33, and 121— 135. 
 
 G 
 
82 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 successful incident in Wesley's career. He did not preach 
 the gospel to the Indians, for he found enough work to do 
 among the settlers. His work was not a failure, though it 
 seemed so to himself, but on the other hand it was not a 
 success. The Georgia episode in his history is remarkable 
 chiefly for its bringing him into contact with some Mora- 
 vians there, by whose teaching and life he was much 
 impressed. When he left Georgia, amid a storm of ill- 
 feeling and complaints from the settlers, owing to his 
 action in regard to Mrs. WilHamson,^ some Moravian 
 visitors to London were almost the first people he met in 
 England ; one of these, Peter Bbhler, he met several times, 
 both in London and at Oxford, and his influence on Wesley 
 was remarkable. Good Christian and Churchman though he 
 was, Wesley now felt he had not " faith " : he was " uncon- 
 verted," and "on Sunday the 5th [of March, 1738]," he 
 says, " I was clearly convinced of unbelief." Knowing as 
 vee do his previous life, this sounds very extraordinary ; but 
 it was evidently real — at least to Wesley. But he was in a 
 very curious emotional and spiritual state, and continued 
 thus for two months. Suddenly, one evening, the now 
 famous May 24th, 1738, at a religious meeting in Aldersgate 
 Street, " when a person read Luther's preface to the Epistle 
 to the Romans, which teaches what justifying faith is ... . 
 I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in 
 Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and a7t assurance was 
 given me that He had taken away my sins." In fact John 
 Wesley was " instantaneously converted." Yet it was 
 several months before he " found peace," for, even during 
 
 1 This incident can be read at length in any life of Wesley. It does 
 not concern us very much, except as the cause of his return to England. 
 Wesley was always unfortunate in his relations to women. 
 
THE METHODIST SOCIETIES. 83 
 
 the next year, he says he is not a Christian in the true 
 sense. But the greatest event of his life had now happened, 
 and his distinct and special work had now begun. A visit 
 to the Moravian communities at Marienborn and Herrnhut, 
 in Germany, confirmed and soothed his mind, and then 
 commenced (1738) that continual journeying and preaching 
 throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles, 
 that was to last for more than half a century, and was to 
 produce one of the greatest religious revivals of any church. 
 
 § 7. The Methodist Societies. 
 
 From this time forward the organization of Methodist 
 '* Societies " became Wesley's chief practical work. Yet 
 they were, in one sense, no new thing. In fact, in all the 
 institutions of this great man, it is strange to remark how 
 few there were that originated from himself Many of them 
 were copied from the Primitive Church ; some were sug- 
 gested by friends ; some were modifications of agencies 
 already in existence. "The Religious Societies," for in- 
 stance, had been a conspicuous feature of the stricter and 
 more devout Church life in the times of Wesley's father, in 
 the seventeenth century. And the fact that they existed, as 
 they exist to-day, in the eighteenth-century Church, surely 
 shows that that Church was not as dead as people have 
 sometimes imagined it was. In his earlier Journals John 
 Wesley frequently speaks of " going to a Society " without 
 any further explanation, evidently knowing that every one 
 would understand what was meant. And now, too, the 
 United Societies of the new Methodism were only continu- 
 ations of his Oxford Society, for John Wesley himself says 
 plainly : " The first rise of Methodism was in November, 
 1729, when four of us met together at Oxford; the second 
 
84 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 was at Savannah in April, 1736, when twenty or thirty 
 persons met at my house; the last was at London, when 
 forty or fifty of us agreed to meet together every Wednesday 
 evening, in order to free conversation, begun and ended 
 with singing and prayer." ^ This London Society met in 
 Fetter Lane, which may be looked upon as the Methodist 
 Mecca. But it soon split up (1739), and another was 
 formed, with its head-quarters in the Foundry, Windmill 
 Street, near Finsbury Square. It met in what was merely 
 a shed-like building, containing a room for the meeting of 
 classes, and a school-room, while overhead were John 
 Wesley's own little rooms, his only home for many years. 
 On July 23rd, 1740, "our little company met at the 
 Foundry instead of Fetter Lane," and from that time 
 forward the.Methodist movement spread rapidly, the earlier 
 societies being formed, besides London, in Bristol, Kings- 
 wood, and Newcastle-on-Tyne. The founder's own de- 
 finition of such a society was merely '' a company of men 
 having the form, and seeking the power of godliness, united 
 in order to pray together, to receive the word of exhortation, 
 and to watch over one another in love, that they may help 
 each other to work out their salvation." 
 
 Now it is noticeable that Wesley began his work by 
 means of these societies, not by open-air preaching. To 
 the latter form of exhortation he was, owing to his strong 
 adhesion to Church forms and ceremonies, at first positively 
 averse. He was led into field-preaching by the example 
 and persuasion of his great contemporary religious reformer 
 George Whitefield. Yet he did not like it. In his Journal 
 of March 31st, 1739, he writes — ''Reached Bristol and met 
 Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarce reconcile myself at 
 ^ Ecclesiastical History, iv. 175. 
 
WESLEY'S SOCIAL REFORMS. 85 
 
 first to this strange way of preaching in fields, of which 
 he set me an example on Sunday, having been all my 
 life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating 
 to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving 
 of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church." 
 But he soon changed his views, and most of his work 
 henceforth was done in the open air. 
 
 The mere outlines of this work are sufficient to make one 
 gasp with astonishment. Commencing not until he was 
 thirty-six years of age, he went to and fro preaching and 
 teaching for half a century. In this time he travelled 
 225,000 miles, or between 4,000 and 5,000 miles a year, 
 in a coach or on horseback; he preached more than 
 40,000 sermons to congregations of all numbers from twenty 
 to twenty thousand; he organized and superintended 
 hundreds of societies in every part of the kingdom ; and 
 yet found time to write and publish a mass of literature 
 of extraordinary volume and range of thought.^ 
 
 § 8. Wes/efs Social Reforms. 
 
 But it is time now to turn from the religious to the social 
 side of Wesley's work. The fruits of Wesley's teaching 
 were, of course, not felt very early in his career. It was 
 not till the religious factor had impressed men's souls that 
 social results began to follow. There was not, indeed, 
 opportunity for social upheavals such as resulted from the 
 teaching of John Ball ; nor was there any need for such, for 
 the population was enjoying a very fair standard of comfort 
 during the middle of last century.^ The average wages 
 of agricultural labourers were from ten to eleven shillings 
 
 * Cf. the list on pp. 171— 178 of Overton's Wesley. 
 
 * Cf. ray Industrial History ^ pp. 148 — 150. 
 
86 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 a week, which at that time would procure a far greater 
 supply of food than now. House rents were very low; 
 a plot of land with a cottage was the rule, not the excep- 
 tion j the artisan used to supplement his wages by working 
 on his own land round his dwelling; and the domestic 
 system of industry afforded constant and (generally) regular 
 employment for all members of the family at their own 
 homes. Whatever may have been the evils of eighteenth- 
 century life, the evils of mixed labour in large factories 
 and towns, of overcrowded dwellings, and of "sweated" 
 labour were not among them. \No, Wesley's hearers did 
 not require any consolation as to their material condition. 
 But they were given to coarseness, brutality, smuggling, 
 bribery, and similar vices," against which he steadily set 
 his face. He aimed at making his hearers and followers 
 good citizens as well as good Christians. ( He spoke out 
 boldly against smuggling : " What has a thief to do with 
 religion ? " ^ he asked. " A smuggler is a thief of the first 
 order, a highwayman or pickpocket of tlie worst sort."^ 
 He actively interfered to prevent bribery and other mal- 
 practices at the St. Ives election in July, 1747.^ He 
 protested vigorously against the negro slave-trade, "that 
 execrable sum of all villanies," as he called it. But, not 
 satisfied with words only, he promoted in practice several 
 institutions which have in our own days been revived, 
 independently, by bodies like the Church Army and the 
 Salvation Army. Thus we see him in one case actively 
 engaged in starting relief work for the unemployed ; in 
 another organizing systematically the gifts of food and 
 
 * To the Bristol Societies in 1764. 
 
 2 A Word to a Smuggler^ 1 767. 
 
 3 Journal ^ July 1st, 1747. 
 
WESLEY'S SOCIAL REFORMS. 87 
 
 clothing for the poor; or, again, starting a "poor man's 
 bank," or a medical dispensary. In the Journal for 
 November 3rd, 1740, for example, we find the following 
 entry : " We distributed, as every one had need, among 
 the numerous poor of our Society, the clothes of several 
 kinds which many who could spare them had brought for 
 that purpose. Tuesday^ 2^th: After several methods pro- 
 posed for employing those who were out of business, we 
 determined to make a trial of one which several of our 
 brethren recommended to us. Our aim was, with as little 
 expense as possible, to keep them at once from want and 
 from idleness; in order to do which we took twelve of 
 the poorest, and a teacher, into the Society room, where 
 they were employed for four months, till spring came on, 
 in spinning and carding of cotton. And the design 
 answered : they were employed and maintained with very 
 little more than the produce of their own labour." Next 
 year we find him arranging for the relief of the poor in 
 a different way: '•''Thursday^ May ph^ 1741: I reminded 
 the United Society that many of our brethren and sisters 
 had not needful food; many were destitute of convenient 
 clothing ; many were out of business, and that without their 
 own fault ; and many sick and ready to perish ; that I had 
 done what in me lay to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, 
 to employ the poor, and to visit the sick ; but I was not 
 alone sufficient for these things, and therefore desired all 
 whose hearts were as my heart — (i) To bring what clothes 
 each could spare, to be distributed among those that wanted 
 most. (2) To give weekly a penny, or what they could 
 afford, for the relief of the poor and sick. My design, 
 I told them, is to employ, for the present, all the women 
 who are out of business, and desire it, in knitting. To 
 
88 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 these we will first give the common price for what work 
 they do, and then add according as they need. Twelve 
 persons are appointed to inspect these, and to visit and 
 provide things needful for the sick. Each of these is to 
 visit all the sick within their district, every other day ; and 
 to meet on Tuesday evening to give an account of what 
 they have done, and what can be done farther." 
 
 The idea of the poor man's loan-bank is thus formulated : 
 *■'' Sunday^ Ja?iuary iph, 1748: I made a public collection 
 towards a lending-stock for the poor. Our rule is to lend 
 only 20s. at once, which is repaid weekly within three 
 months. I began this about a year and a half ago : 
 thirty pounds sixteen shillings were then collected; and 
 out of this, no less than two hundred and fifty-five persons 
 have been relieved in eighteen months." In those eighteenth- 
 century days there were no casual wards for the relief of 
 the wandering poor, but in many places the Methodist 
 societies, under Wesley's direction, made a practice of 
 assisting strangers from funds collected among themselves 
 for this purpose. And as for prisoners, Wesley, from the 
 beginning of his career at Oxford to the end, believed 
 strongly in prison-missions. Of the state of the prisons 
 in those days, the following extract gives a vivid but gloomy 
 picture. ^^ Saturday ^ February -^rd^ 1753: I visited one 
 in the Marshalsea prison, a nursery of all manner of 
 wickedness. Oh! shame to man that there should be 
 such a place, such a picture of hell upon earth ! ... On 
 Friday and Saturday I visited as many more as I could. 
 Some I found in their cells underground; others in their 
 garrets, half-starved both with cold and hunger added to 
 weakness and pain. But I found not one of them un- 
 employed who was able to crawl about the room. So 
 
HALF A CENTURY'S WORK. 89 
 
 wickedly, devilishly false is that common objection: *They 
 are poor only because they are idle ! ' If you saw these 
 things with your own eyes, could you lay out money in 
 ornaments or superfluities?" Indeed, the reformer and 
 preacher himself was so persuaded of the wickedness of 
 "ornaments and superfluities" that he spoke very strong 
 words upon the subject of money as the root of all evil. 
 "The designedly procuring more of this world's goods," 
 he says, in one sermon, "than will supply the plain 
 necessaries of life (not delicacies, not superfluities), the 
 labouring after a larger measure of worldly substance, a 
 larger measure of gold and silver, the laying up more than 
 these ends require, is expressly and absolutely forbidden." 
 And again : " Hoard nothing, lay up no treasure in earth, 
 but give all you can — that is, all you have. I defy all the 
 men upon earth, yea, all the angels in heaven, to find any 
 other way of extracting poison from riches." 
 
 § 9. Half a Century's Work. 
 
 Such was the social teaching and practice of this great 
 man; and so he taught and preached and acted for half 
 a century. But of course his social reforms were only 
 incidents in the great religious revival which he set on 
 foot. That revival was not allowed to proceed without 
 some measure of persecution, though this was by no means 
 so severe as some have wished to make out. On the part 
 of the Church, its clergy and bishops, there was, indeed, 
 more apathy than persecution. But within five weeks of 
 his return from Germany in 1738, he was called upon to 
 see the Bishop of London (Dr. Gibson) to answer various 
 complaints about his preaching. Yet he was not treated 
 unkindly by the Bishop; what Wesley had to find fault 
 
90 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 with was rather the lack of guidance and distinct advice 
 which a prelate in Dr. Gibson's position might have given 
 him. However, the clergy were not so lenient, and by the 
 close of 1738 John Wesley was " almost universally excluded 
 from the pulpits of the Established Church," ^ though it 
 must be admitted that having only been ordained to a 
 Fellowship he could hardly expect to be allowed to preach 
 in whatever diocese he wished without the consent of its 
 Bishop. And the extraordinary and revolting physical 
 phenomena, such as fits and convulsions,^ which so 
 frequently resulted among his hearers from his excitable 
 preaching could hardly commend it to the staid dignitaries 
 of the Church, especially to a man like Bishop Butler, with 
 whom Wesley had an interesting interview in 1739. Butler, 
 with his calm and scholarly mind, had but little sympathy 
 with sensational enthusiasm. *'Sir," said he to John Wesley 
 severely, "the pretending to extraordinary revelation and 
 gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing — a very horrid 
 thing." He even asked Wesley "to go hence" out of 
 his diocese. 
 
 But Church apathy was preferable to mob violence ; and 
 from this last John Wesley was on several occasions in 
 great danger of his Hfe. It broke out first in Bristol and 
 London, in his early career, but was there stopped by the 
 magistrates. It reached its climax among the colliers of 
 Staffordshire in the summer of 1743, and in Walsall and 
 Wednesbury in that year he narrowly escaped death at their y 
 hands. In other places also he often carried his life, as it 
 
 ^ Cf. Wesley's Farther Appeal^ p. 113, and Ovei-ton's Wesley, pp. 
 94—96. 
 
 2 Cf. in ihe Journal, April 26th, 1739, the extraordinary scenes at 
 Newgate, Bristol. 
 
WESLEY'S CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE. 91 
 
 were, in his hands, but his cool courage — for he always 
 made a point of facing a mob— always brought him 
 triumphantly out of danger. But, after all, he hardly ever 
 met with any more violent opposition than the Salvation 
 Army has encountered in our own day. 
 
 More serious dangers for the real cause of Methodism 
 were to be feared from internal dissensions among his own 
 followers. From first to last he had many trials of this 
 nature, and the Methodist cause has been greatly hindered 
 by the more formidable divergencies which have created so 
 many various bodies among the followers of Wesley at the 
 present time. One of the most serious divergencies from 
 a trusted friend occurred in the case of George Whitefield, 
 and turned upon the question of Calvinistic doctrine. As 
 this is not a theological work it is unnecessary to go into 
 the details of the controversy. All we need say, is that 
 George Whitefield's views on Calvinism were not Wesley's, 
 for Wesley believed that such doctrine would hinder the 
 spread of Christian holiness among the mass of the people. 
 But although a temporary alienation between these two 
 great founders of Methodism took place, the dispute was 
 finally arranged by the help of Charles Wesley, and the 
 three leaders— the Wesleys and Whitefield — became *' a 
 threefold cord which could not be broken." Nor was it 
 broken except by death, and when Whitefield passed away 
 in 1770, it was John Wesley who preached his funeral sermon. 
 
 § 10. Wesley s Character and Influence. 
 
 In this controversy, as indeed throughout his whole life, 
 we see once more the signs of that singular sweetness of 
 disposition and gentleness of character which are the main 
 characteristics of the religious reformer. True, in spite of 
 
92 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 his gentleness, John Wesley had a will of his own, a will 
 that made itself felt very forcibly at times ; insomuch that 
 to this day he has been frequently accused of autocracy 
 and obstinacy. But autocracy is the very essence of a real 
 leader of men, and this charge may be suffered to remain 
 unanswered. What strikes us even more than his power of 
 commanding obedience, is the open simplicity of his nature 
 and his pleasant humour, evident to his contemporaries in 
 his daily walk and conversation, and to readers of to-day in 
 those Journals that call back to us very vividly the picture 
 of a frank and trusting nature, of a man as precise and 
 exact in his religious organization as in his neat clerical 
 attire, and in his courteous manners ; stern and commanding 
 when sternness and strength of will were necessary, yet at 
 ordinary times genial and kindly, even humorous, both in 
 his speech and writings, and at all times serenely happy in 
 the consciousness of performing his Master's work. 
 
 Of that work, it has been well said, Methodism itself is 
 one of the least significant results. True, at his death in 
 1 791 his followers were counted by the thousand, and 
 to-day are counted by the million. But even they were 
 the least result of the Methodist revival.^ For its effects 
 were felt far and wide in other directions. The Church of 
 England awoke once more from its apathy and sloth, and 
 its clergy roused themselves from lifelessness and contempt 
 to a practical religious energy of which we still feel the 
 force. And in the nation at large appeared a new moral 
 enthusiasm which, rigid and pedantic though it often 
 seemed, was still healthy in social tone, and whose power 
 was seen in the partial disappearance of the open pro- 
 fligacy which disgraced the early Georgian era. Philan- 
 » Cf. Green, IV. 149. 
 
WESLEY'S CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE. 93 
 
 thropy, and social reform generally, received a fresh stimulus 
 among the mass of the nation, a stimulus whose effects 
 were afterwards seen in an amelioration of our penal code, 
 more humanity in our prison life, and a feeling of indignation 
 against negro slavery. Wesley helped also, we believe, very 
 largely the growth of the national consciousness of the 
 English people, by giving men something more to think 
 about than their own individual aims and their own 
 individual life. Especially was this the case among the 
 poorer people, and it is curious to note how many leaders 
 of the working classes have sprung from the ranks of 
 Methodism. 1 For nearly half a century, John Wesley was, 
 as Mr. Stead has put it in his curious way, a highly- vitalized 
 human shuttlecock, constantly flying backwards and forwards 
 in the national loom, and weaving together into one organic 
 whole the isolated and widely-scattered communities which 
 made up the English people. And the noblest result of 
 his work, unconscious though it may have been, was the 
 stimulus he gave to all the noble and humane impulses of 
 his time to work together patiently and hopefully for the 
 relief of human misery and degradation in all its forms. 
 
 To the last Wesley worked on unremittingly. In one 
 passage of his diary, when he was preparing at a friend's 
 house for a meeting of the Conference, he wrote bravely : 
 " How willingly could I spend the residue of a busy life in 
 this delightful retirement ! But, * Man was not born in 
 shades to lie ! ' Up and be doing. Labour on, till 
 ' Death sings a requiem to the parting soul.' " 
 
 And so he laboured on, labouring not in vain, till the 
 end came quietly, on March 2nd, 1791, and at last he was 
 able to rest. 
 
 ^ Several of the labour M.P.'s and Mr. Joseph Arch, for instance. 
 
94 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 11. WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 
 
 § I. Boyhood and College Days. 
 
 The last letter that John Wesley wrote (February 24th, 
 1 791) was addressed to the man who had determined to 
 root out negro slavery, at any rate as far as England was 
 concerned. "Go on," said the dying preacher, "go on in 
 the name of God and in the power of His might, till even 
 American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall 
 vanish away before it." And thus it will not be inopportune 
 to join to our sketch of Wesley's work a short resum'e of 
 that of William Wilberforce, who himself was a sincere 
 admirer of both John and Charles Wesley, and their personal 
 acquaintance. There is little doubt that Wilberforce was 
 much strengthened in his crusade against negro slavery by 
 the sympathy, not only of the Wesleys and men like them, 
 but also of many people in all ranks of life, who, perhaps, 
 but for the stimulus of the Methodist revival, would have 
 treated the whole question with indifference. And Wilber- 
 force himself, though not a Methodist in name, was really 
 of the same religious and moral mould. He was essentially 
 a religious man ; like Wesley he could point definitely to 
 a certain epoch of his life as the period of his conversion ; 
 like Wesley he had all the enthusiasm and earnestness of a 
 religious rather than a social reformer. But a social 
 reformer he was, nevertheless, and that too, unlike Wesley, 
 consciously and purposely. 
 
 His position in society and his mental talents gave him 
 from the first considerable advantages in influencing his 
 fellows. Born in August 1759, he was the son of a wealthy 
 merchant of Hull, the descendant of an ancient and honour- 
 
POLITICAL LIFE. 95 
 
 able Yorkshire family. By the death of a grandfather and 
 an uncle, he found himself, while yet an undergraduate at 
 Cambridge (to which University he went up in 1776), the 
 possessor of a considerable fortune ; and although the 
 combined temptations of youth and wealth were sufficiently 
 strong ^ to prevent him distinguishing himself academically 
 as highly as he might have done, he became a good classic, 
 and did well in his examinations. Yet Cambridge in the 
 last quarter of the eighteenth century was not a very 
 encouraging alma mater to one like Wilberforce, as regards 
 academic studies. Speaking of the Fellows of his college 
 (St. John's), he says himself : " But those with whom I was 
 intimate did not act towards me the part of Christians, or 
 even of honest men. Their object seemed to be, to make 
 and keep me idle. If ever I appeared studious they would 
 say to me : ' Why in the world should a man of your fortune 
 trouble himself with fagging?' While my companions 
 were reading hard and attending lectures, card-parties and 
 idle amusements consumed my time. The tutors would 
 often say within my hearing that they were mere saps, but 
 that I did all by talent. This was poison to a mind con- 
 stituted like mine." Is it not to his eternal credit that the 
 poison had so little after effect upon his character ? 
 
 § 2. Political Life. 
 
 Before he had left the University, Wilberforce had deter- 
 mined to enter Parliament, more for his own pleasure, as 
 is generally the case, than from any desire to serve his 
 
 ^ He was at one time addicted to gambling, losing ;i^ioo in a night 
 on one occasion. His winning £600 one night from some men who 
 could ill afiford it, was the cause of his giving up play altogether. Cf. 
 Life, p. 8. 
 
96 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 country. He aspired to represent his native town of Hull, 
 as a dissolution was shortly expected. Whilst in London, 
 waiting for the dissolution, he constantly frequented the 
 gallery of the House of Commons, and there met Mr. Pitt, 
 "then serving a like apprenticeship to public business." 
 By September the dissolution had come, and Wilberforce 
 found himself back again in Hull, in the wild excitement of 
 a hotly-contested election, and that at a time when election 
 tactics were a great deal more violent than now. He was 
 fortunate enough to come out head of the poll, with over a 
 thousand votes, thus having as many as his two opponents 
 — Lord Robert Manners and David Hartley — together. 
 The election cost him, according to the pleasant custom of 
 those old days, between ;^8ooo and ;j^90oo, but his success 
 shed a considerable lustre upon this formal entry into 
 public life, especially as he was only twenty-one years of 
 age. 
 
 He came to London and entered at once into the 
 fashionable society of the capital, a constant frequenter of 
 the most noted drawing-rooms and clubs, the friend of nearly 
 all the most brilliant wits and politicians of the day. He 
 became especially intimate with Pitt, then a young man like 
 himself, who had become (1781) member for Appleby. 
 Wilberforce was an independent politician, but though atten- 
 tive to public business, he did not hasten to join in the 
 debates.^ He was an opponent to the War of American Inde- 
 pendence. But in spite of his independence and slowness to 
 speak, an ambitious political career could easily have been 
 his, had he so wished. In July 1782 Pitt took office with 
 the Shelburne Ministry, and Wilberforce was asked to 
 second the Address at the meeting of Parliament in 
 1 Cf. Life, p. 9. 
 
CONVERSION AND ITS RESULTS. 97 
 
 December. Pitt was becoming more and more powerful as 
 a rising politician, and his intimacy with Wilberforce — for he 
 was constantly at Wilberforce's house at Wimbledon at this 
 time, and took a continental tour with him in 1785 — would 
 have been of inestimable advantage to the young member 
 for Hull. And for a time it seemed as if politics would 
 claim him entirely. Pitt became Prime Minister in 
 November 1783, and Wilberforce eagerly supported him, 
 still as an independent member. Then in 1784 occurred 
 Wilberforce's tremendous success in winning the election 
 for the county membership of Yorkshire. He had gone to 
 York to make a speech in condemnation of the coalition 
 ministry ; before his speech was ended there arose a mighty 
 shout in the castle yard : '* We'll have this man for our 
 county member ! " And despite the tremendous influence 
 of the Whig nobility of the district, and his own youth and 
 want of county connexions, Wilberforce found himself 
 suddenly a county member, without even a contest. His 
 popularity had become so overwhelming that his opponents 
 refused to go to the poll ! Thus, before he was twenty- 
 five he had made his mark in politics and done his party 
 a signal service, for it was this great triumph in Yorkshire 
 that contributed in no small degree to the success of Pitt's 
 ministry throughout the country. 
 
 § 3. Conversion and its Results. 
 
 But something occurred which changed altogether the 
 course of his life. He passed through a religious crisis 
 something like that through which John Wesley had passed 
 after his acquaintance with the Moravians. This religious 
 change in Wilberforce's life may be said to date more or less 
 from the years 1784 and 1785, during which he took a 
 
 H 
 
98 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 continental tour, including Nice and Spa, with the Rev. 
 Isaac Milner, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, a rough York- 
 shire clergyman of a curious philosophical turn, but a man 
 of genuine piety and of deep religious feeling. Like 
 Wesley, Wilberforce discovered that he was not a Christian. 
 ** In the true sense of the word, I was not a Christian. I 
 laughed, I sang, I was apparently gay and happy ; but the 
 thought would steal across me — What madness is all this ! 
 to continue easy in a state in which a sudden call out of 
 the world would consign me to everlasting misery, and that 
 when eternal happiness is within my grasp." ^ On the loth 
 of November 1785, he returned to his villa at Wimbledon, 
 and "was much alone; and the more he reflected, the 
 deeper became his new impressions." He commenced a 
 private journal, with the view of making himself ** humble 
 and watchful." ^ He was evidently in the same state as 
 was Wesley just before that memorable evening in Alders- 
 gate Street. Wilberforce, however, could not point so 
 clearly to any definite day of " conversion," but a distinct 
 religious landmark in his life was his first reception of the 
 Holy Eucharist on Good Friday, April 14th, 1786. From 
 this Easter onwards there is a tone of settled peace and 
 calm about him, and a strong resolution to do God's work. 
 ** By degrees the promises and offers of the Gospel produced 
 in me something of a settled peace of conscience. I 
 devoted myself for whatever might be the term of my 
 future life to the service of my God and Saviour, and with 
 many infirmities and deficiencies, through His help, I 
 continue until this day." ^ 
 
 He soon found plenty of work to do. Deserting politics, 
 
 * Life, p. 39. ^ His own Journal , Nov. 2ist, 1785. 
 
 3 Written towards the close of his life. 
 
TWO GREAT TASKS. 99 
 
 except for philanthropic purposes, and giving up even his 
 villa at Wimbledon as a needless luxury, he busied himself in 
 the formation of a Society for the Reformation of Manners, 
 "to resist the spread of open immorality." He visited 
 several bishops in order to induce them to become members 
 of his association, and got the Duke of Montagu, and after 
 his death Lord Bathurst and Bishop Porteus, to preside 
 over its meetings ; and before its dissolution it had obtained 
 many valuable Acts of Parliament, and greatly checked 
 the spread of blasphemous and indecent publications,-^ 
 
 This took place in 1787, and in the autumn of that year 
 he began to prepare seriously for his great work, the aboHtion 
 of the slave-trade. As early as the year 1780, he had been 
 interested more particularly in West Indian slavery, and in 
 November 1783 had had a very important conversation 
 with the Rev. James Ramsay, the author of an essay on 
 slavery that attracted much attention. He now felt called 
 upon by God to fight against this disgraceful trade. " God 
 has set before me," he says,^ "two great objects — the sup- 
 pression of the slave-trade, and the reformation of manners." 
 Truly these were herculean tasks. Who could find to-day a 
 reformer able to deal simultaneously with slavery and immor- 
 ality, two evils which exist as sadly and as surely in England 
 to-day as they existed in the America and England of the 
 last century ? For it should never be forgotten that negro 
 slavery is only one form, and by no means the worst, of a 
 slavery which is bound to exist more or less in every 
 civihzed country under certain conditions of industry. And 
 it was certainly paralleled by horrors practised upon children 
 in England in the present century. People nowadays are 
 
 1 Life, p. 52. 
 ^ Journal , October 28th, 1787 
 
lOO WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 far too fond of crying out, Nous avons changi tout cela f and 
 of abusing the evils of the eighteenth century, as if that was 
 a particularly wicked, and this a particularly virtuous age. 
 As a matter of fact, both are much on the same level. 
 
 § 4. The Slave- Trade and Granville Sharp. 
 
 But, of course, the slave-trade had to be abolished. It 
 was a disgrace to civilization, though some civilized countries 
 then did not hold the same views as we do now. It began, 
 as far as English traders are concerned, with Sir John 
 Hawkins' venture in 1562, though the Portuguese had been 
 engaged in it more than a hundred years before that (1442). 
 The trade was comparatively trifling till the sixteenth century, 
 for the West Indies and America had not till then been 
 much developed by Europeans, and the native Indians had 
 been used as slaves by their conquerors the Spaniards. As 
 these Indians were nearly exterminated, owing to the cruelty 
 of their toil and the merciless rapacity of their masters, it 
 was found necessary to introduce the sturdier negroes to 
 supply their place. The trade between the West Coast of 
 Africa and the American continent and islands increased 
 very rapidly, so that between the years 1680 and 1700 some 
 300,000 negroes, it is said, were exported from Africa by 
 English merchants, and, from 1700 to 1786, 610,000 Africans 
 were imported into Jamaica alone. Into the horrors of the 
 passage between Africa and the West Indies I will not go ; 
 they have been sufficiently described by many writers. Nor 
 will I discuss the question of the treatment of slaves by 
 their English masters, except in so far as to remark that it 
 was probably no worse than that which they would have 
 received from their black brethren in Africa, and very often 
 not so bad as the treatment of white children in English 
 
THE SLAVE-TRADE. loi 
 
 factories.^ However, it was perhaps as well that slavery 
 should be abolished, and certainly desirable that the slave- 
 trade from Africa should be stopped. But it should be 
 admitted that many good men in previous times saw no 
 harm in it, just as many really estimable persons of to-day 
 cheerfully buy "sweated" clothes, matches, and confec- 
 tionery, and regard with complacency the extraordinary 
 leniency of the law towards torturers of children and wife- 
 beaters, seeing no harm in the social opinion which allows 
 these enormities to continue. 
 
 But in the last century, as has been well remarked, it 
 required no little fortitude to undertake the cause of the 
 negro race. Burke had shrunk from engaging in it from 
 the conviction of its hopelessness, and the harassing failures 
 in store for Wilberforce would have discouraged any man 
 whose exertions were not sustained by the highest principle. 
 Yet Wilberforce was not alone. There was already in 
 existence a Society " for the abolition of Negro Slavery," 
 formed in London May 22nd, 1787, whose president was 
 the celebrated Granville Sharp, already known as the author 
 of a stirring pamphlet on *' The Injustice and Dangerous 
 Tendency of tolerating Slavery in England'' It was Granville 
 Sharp, too, who had generously and valiantly brought 
 forward the case of the negro Somerset, a victim of cruel 
 oppression and desertion. The slave Somerset had been 
 brought to London by his master, but on falling ill was at 
 once turned out of doors into the streets by his heartless 
 owner. He was thus found by Sharp, sick unto death and 
 destitute, and was taken to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 
 Being fortunately restored to health, he was placed in a 
 situation as a servant by his benefactor. Suddenly, quite 
 ^ Cf. the facts given in my remarks on Richard Oastler. 
 
102 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 two years after being turned out to die in the streets, he 
 was reclaimed by his former master, and sent by him to 
 prison as a " runaway." Granville Sharp took up his case, 
 and brought it before the Lord Mayor, who ordered the 
 slave to be released. But in defiance of this decision his 
 original owner seized Somerset again before the very eyes of 
 Sharp and the Lord Mayor, and insisted upon his legal 
 claim to his "property." Sharp then brought an action 
 for technical assault, and after another trial, the case was 
 referred as a question of law to twelve judges. At length, 
 after being long argued, it was declared (May 1772) by the 
 unanimous decision of the judges, that by the law of 
 England a slave, as soon as he sets foot on English territory, 
 becomes free. 
 
 § 5. Wilberforce' s Work. 
 
 Most of the members who formed the nucleus of Granville 
 Sharp's society were Quakers. Backed up by them, and by 
 the help of Sharp and Thomas Clarkson, Wilberforce for 
 twenty years continued the great struggle in the cause of 
 humanity. His efforts were indefatigable, but he had need 
 of all his resources. Year after year, in Parliament and 
 out of Parliament, he carried on the contest, now seeking 
 to stir the sentiments of the humane and religious, now 
 working slowly and wearily through the mazes of Parlia- 
 mentary opposition. His speeches in the house were 
 admirable, supported as they were by masses of the most 
 carefully collected evidence. Outside its walls he became, 
 as it were, all things to all men, conciliating, both by conver- 
 sation and correspondence, the leading men of all parties to 
 his one great ideal. The press was used to its fullest extent 
 by himself and his friends; pamphlets and letters and appeals 
 
INFLUENCE OF CONTEMPORARY EVENTS. 103 
 
 poured forth upon the apathetic masses of the people, till at 
 length the seed that had been so widely sown began to bear 
 a little fruit. 
 
 But much opposition met him in his difficult path. The 
 negroes themselves seemed to fight against him. Apart 
 from the very natural general revulsion against new ideas of 
 liberty produced by certain excesses in the French Revo- 
 lution, there was a particular feeling of distrust against the 
 black races, on account of the rebellion of the slaves in 
 St. Domingo, which led many good people to associate 
 abolition of slavery with a general upheaval of society. It 
 is said that the St. Domingo affair alone delayed Wilber- 
 force's cause for seven years. Meanwhile, his own physical 
 strength seemed as if it would fail him. An attack of 
 disease in the digestive organs in 1788 was followed by 
 great prostration and general weakness. Writing at York 
 on New Year's Day 1790, he exclaims almost heartbroken : 
 "At thirty and a half, I am in constitution sixty." A 
 weakness of the eyes also contributed to render his noble 
 work more and more difficult. Yet, in spite of all this, he 
 published in January 1807, after ten years of unremitting 
 labour, a book upon the slave-trade, just at the time when the 
 question was being discussed in the House of Lords. The 
 effect was tremendous. The Abolition Bill passed the 
 Lords, and "its passage through the Commons was one 
 continued triumph for the author." 
 
 § 6. Influence of Cofitemporary Events. 
 
 In the hasty words of the above paragraph has been 
 sketched the work of half a lifetime, for it would be im- 
 possible in a brief sketch like this to detail the weary 
 labours, the slow advances, the sharp recoils and renewed 
 
104 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 advances of the great movement which Wilberforce sustained 
 and guided. Below is given an abstract of the chief points 
 in the progress of the aboHtion movement,^ but during the 
 whole period of the abolitionist agitation many other stirring 
 events were engaging the public mind, and diverting the 
 national attention from the negroes and their wrongs. It 
 was the time when England was engaged in her long twenty 
 years' struggle against France and Napoleon, the master of 
 France — a struggle that meant war unto the death, and that 
 even now, nearly a hundred years afterwards, fills us with 
 amazement and exulting admiration for the bravery dis- 
 played by our forefathers in fighting against such fearful 
 odds. It was the time, too, when English industry was 
 passing through the throes of the new birth of the Industrial 
 Revolution, which, in regard to permanent and far-reaching 
 effects, was at least as epoch-making as the political Revo- 
 lution in France, for it has transformed with an almost 
 absolute completeness the face of modern European states, 
 and has brought into play factors which cause mere politics 
 to pale into insignificance beside them. Then again it was 
 
 * 1787, Association for the abolition of slavery formed ; 1789, Wilber- 
 force, Fox, and Burke in Parliament support resolutions against the 
 slave-trade; 1791, Wilberforce's motion, in the House of Commons, 
 for abolition of the slave-trade, though supported by Pitt and Fox, was 
 rejected by 163 votes to 88 ; in 1792 a Bill for the abolition passes the 
 Commons, but is postponed by the Lords ; 1804, Wilberforce's Abo- 
 lition Bill passed again by the Commons, but thrown out by the Lords ; 
 1806, resolutions in favour of abolition proposed by Fox and Grenville 
 in the Commons, and carried ; 1807, the Act for the abolition of the 
 slave-trade is finally passed. It was not, however, till August 1833 
 that the Act for the Emancipation of Slaves passed the Lords and be- 
 came law ; and the total abolition, not only of the s\a,ye-irade, but of 
 slavery itself, took effect in our colonies on August 1st, 1834, when 
 ;^20,cx)0,cxx) compensation was paid to the slave-owners. 
 
THE CROWN OF VICTORY. 105 
 
 the time when the seeds of Parliamentary Reform — with all 
 that this concise and cold title implies— had begun to 
 germinate and sprout forth into life ; ^hen mobs of starving 
 workmen clamoured on the one hand for the destruction of 
 new machinery that seemed to be snatching from them their 
 very chances of life, and, on the other hand, demanded in 
 voices that daily grew louder and louder more equal repre- 
 sentation of their class in the government of the kingdom. ' 
 Is it to be wondered that, amid forces and passions such 
 as these, the cause of the negro made but slow progress ? 
 Rather is it to the eternal credit of the English people that 
 at such a season of peril and of change it could yet spare 
 something more than a moment to the cause of a foreign 
 and inferior race. And by a strange irony of fate, during 
 all this troublous and changeful period, there was growing 
 up in the mills and factories created by the new Industrial 
 Revolution a slavery of white children as appalling and as 
 disastrous as the slavery that Wilberforce was attempting to 
 destroy. Of this we shall speak in discussing the work of 
 the following reformers, Oastler and Shaftesbury. Here 
 we must hasten on to the successful close of Wilberforce's 
 labour in the cause of the blacks. 
 
 § 7. The Crown of Victory. 
 
 As we said above, the year 1807 was the year of Wilber- 
 force's victory. But as yet it was only partial. The trade 
 in slaves had been abolished, but the institution resulting 
 from and fed by that trade still existed and flourished. 
 Years more were required to bring about the absolute 
 abolition of black slavery in English dominions. Slaves 
 could still be kept and worked, though they could not be 
 imported amid the horrors of the former ** Middle Passage " j 
 
io6 WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 and other countries than England could still connive at the 
 traffic in negro flesh. So from 1807 to 1833 Wilberforce 
 worked as unremittingly as before in the new attempt to 
 do away with slave-holding altogether. He overlooked 
 no factor that could serve his purpose. The overthrow of 
 Napoleon in 18 14, the Congress of Vienna and the visit of 
 the Allied Sovereigns to London in the same year, the final 
 blow of Waterloo in 181 5 — all were turned by him to useful 
 account. He visited personally the Czar of Russia and the 
 King of Prussia when they were in England, and besought 
 their aid. The Iron Duke himself, the ill-fated Lord 
 Castlereagh, the wily diplomatist M. de Talleyrand, and 
 many another great minister of the day, were all in turn 
 approached, exhorted, and entreated. But now his health 
 began to fail. In 1825 he had reluctantly to retire from 
 Parliament, after very nearly half a century of public life. 
 Mr. Fowell Buxton took his place as "the member for 
 abolition," and the great reformer himself spent what 
 remained to him of life in comparative rest and retirement 
 — " an affectionate, cheerful, benevolent and devout old 
 man," devoting as he had done through life much of his 
 time and most of his income to acts of private and un- 
 ostentatious charity. But though the worker had retired, 
 his work was still going on, and just before his death the 
 Bill for the Abolition of Slavery was read a second time. 
 *' Thank God," he exclaimed, " that I should have lived to 
 witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty 
 milHons sterling for the abolition of slavery." This was on 
 Friday, July 26th, 1833. On the following Monday Wilber- 
 force passed away, a warrior rejoicing in his last and greatest 
 victory. The nation honoured him and itself by granting 
 him a public funeral in Westminster Abbey. " Biography," 
 
THE CROWN OF VICTORY. 107 
 
 says Sir James Stephen, "must be parsimonious of her 
 honours ; yet, even in the age of Burke and Mirabeau, of 
 Napoleon and Wellington, of Goethe and of Walter Scott, 
 she could not have justly refused them to one who, by paths 
 till then untrodden, reached a social and political eminence 
 never before attained by any man, unaided by place, by 
 party, or by the sword." 
 
NOTES ON AUTHORITIES. 
 
 1. John Wesley's Journals^ in four vols. (Kershaw : London, 
 
 1827). 
 
 2. Life and Times of John Wesley : in three vols. : by L. Tyer- 
 
 man (Hodder & Stoughton : London, 1870). 
 
 3. The Evangelical Revival^ by Canon Overton (Longmans: 
 
 London). 
 
 4. John Wesley, by Canon Overton (Methuen : London, 1891). 
 
 5. Historical Sketches in the Reign of George 11, , by Mrs. Oii- 
 
 phant (London, 1870). 
 
 6. The Life of William Wilberforce^ written by his sons, in five 
 
 vols. (1838) ; but also abridged into one vol. (John Murray: 
 London). 
 
 7. For the general history of the period read W. E. H. Lecky's 
 
 History of England^ vols. II., V., and VI. (Longmans: 
 London, 1878). 
 
THE FACTORY REFORMERS 
 
 OWEN, OASTLER, AND SHAFTESBURY. 
 
THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 § I. The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 A GOOD many people know now that whilst the abolition 
 of slavery was being agitated with so much earnestness and 
 philanthropy, as regards black slaves abroad, there was grow- 
 ing up a white slavery quite as bad at home — a white 
 slavery, which in some of its aspects is not yet abolished, 
 and which has done incalculable harm to the present gener- 
 ation of English men and women. A good many people 
 know it ; but after all, not so many as know about the 
 wrongs of the negro race ; and this is not surprising, for it 
 went on under the very eyes of our grandfathers and fathers, 
 and perhaps it is still going on to-day. At any rate, it can 
 do no harm to emphasize the fact that white slavery, and 
 what is worse, child slavery, was quite a common state of 
 things in the England of 1 800, and — at the risk of offending 
 many well-meaning people — it is well to remark that the 
 word " slavery " is used advisedly and deliberately, and as 
 conveying its ordinary meaning. The proofs of the state- 
 ment are not to be found in the pages of hysterical reformers 
 or excited agitators, but in the dry official records of the 
 
112 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 Blue B ooks containing the results of the parliamentary 
 commissions of the early part of this century, and these are 
 the principal authorities for the facts which are related in 
 this part of the present book. 
 
 By the year 1800 — which we may take as a date because 
 it is a round number — the Industrial Revolution had fully 
 begun its work in this country, both for good and evil. 
 /That Revolution, to summarize it in a sentence, was a com- 
 plete change of the conditions of manufacture, from industry 
 carried on more or less under the domestic system to 
 industry carried on in factories. /The one was scattered, 
 the other collective. In the one the workman was often 
 the master, and the master often the workman ; in the 
 second, the workman and the master had become very 
 distinct. In the one, work was generally carried on at 
 home, amid home surroundings and influence ; in the other, 
 work and home were for ever dissociated, and the workman 
 became only a unit, a *' hand " among thousands of others, 
 with no bond of union between themselves and their 
 masters but that'bondof money wages that so often dissevers 
 rather than unites the two classes of employers and em- 
 ployed. Of the coming of the Revolution, and the intro- 
 duction of machinery worked by steam power instead of by 
 hand, we cannot here speak. All we have to do is to 
 notice its effect upon the social condition of the people, 
 and upon the nature of their employment. 
 
 § 2. Ei7iployment of Children, 
 
 " In the height of the great duel between France and 
 England, when the English manufacturers represented to 
 Mr. Pitt that the rise in the rate of wages incapacitated 
 
EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. 113 
 
 them from paying the taxes, he pronounced the terrible 
 words : Take the children. Those words weigh heavily upon 
 England as a curse." So says the great French historian, 
 Michelet, in writing of the terrible struggle between France 
 and England in the Continental and Napoleonic wars of 
 1795 to 1 81 5. He is wrong in ascribing the actual words 
 to the younger Pitt,^ but he is right as to the main fact of 
 the case — that the manufacturers " took the children." For 
 about «the end of last century the possibility of utilizing 
 child labour in running the new machinery became fully 
 appreciated. A Lancashire physician, Dr. Aikin, in his 
 description of the country round Manchester in 1795, tells 
 us the result in the words of an eye-witness: *'The invention 
 and improvement of machines to shorten labour have had a 
 surprising influence to extend our trade, and also to call in 
 hands from all parts, particularly children^ for the cotton 
 mills. In these, children of a very tender age are employed, 
 many of them collected from the workhouses in London and 
 Westminster, and transported in crowds as apprentices to 
 masters resident many hundreds of miles distant, where 
 they serve unknown, unprotected, and forgotten by those 
 to whose care nature or the law had confided them. These 
 children are usually too long confined to work, in close 
 rooms, often during the whole night." 
 
 Dr. Aikin's description was written almost exactly fifty 
 years before the passing of the Ten Hours ^ Bill. The half 
 century that intervened presents an almost unique record of 
 horror and misery for the children of the poor. 
 
 ^ Possibly William Pitt's speech of February 12th, 1796, upon in- 
 dustrial schools may have caused Michelet's mistake. 
 ^ History of Factory Movement , i. 117. 
 
114 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 § 3. Treatment of Apprentices in Factories. 
 
 Many children, Dr. Aikin said, were collected from 
 London and other southern workhouses. The traffic was 
 regular and systematic. The northern mill-owners com- 
 municated with the overseers of the poor, and a sufficient 
 supply of children having been provided for the latter, a 
 day was fixed for their examination and selection by the 
 mill-owner or his deputy. Those selected were then taken 
 in waggons or canal boats to their destination, if it was 
 already fixed. But it often happened that the contracting 
 party was a mere trafficker, a middleman, and not the 
 principal ; and so, if he had not already a market in some 
 mill for his white slaves, these were kept in dark cellars or 
 other abodes in Manchester or elsewhere, till some mill- 
 owner was pleased to come and examine their limbs and 
 stature, and strike a bargain for their conveyance to his 
 factory.^ Once in the mill, the round of slavery was unceasing. 
 The mills were run night and day in those brisk times, when 
 Lancashire cotton- spinners declared " it was not profits of 
 hundreds but of thousands per cent, that made their 
 fortunes." One relay of children rose wearily from their 
 beds as another relay came to throw themselves down in 
 their places, in beds where vice, disease, and death grew 
 rank as in a teeming ground. ^ They were fed on the 
 coarsest and cheapest food, or rather were starveH upon it, 
 so that they often fought with their master's pigs for the 
 refuse of the swine-trough. ^ They were worked sixteen, 
 
 1 Cf. the well-authenticated Memoirs of Robert Blincoe. 
 
 ^ Discrimination of sexes was often not regarded at all. Cf. evidence 
 before the Sadler Committee, 1832 (evidence of J. Paterson, overseer, 
 Dundee). 
 
 8 Ct Blincoe's Memoirs, 
 
EARLY FACTORY ACTS. 115 
 
 eighteen, or even a larger number of hours at a stretch, 
 " till many weary victims, young in years but old in suffer- 
 ing, nightly prayed that death would come to their relief." 
 Sometimes they tried to run away, but it was an almost 
 hopeless attempt ; and when brought back, their sufferings 
 were generally worse than before, for now their bondage was 
 made even more literal, and chains were riveted upon their 
 limbs. " Even young women, if only suspected of intending 
 to run away, had irons riveted to their ankles, reaching by 
 long links and rings up to the hips ; and in these they were 
 compelled to walk to and from the mill, and to sleep." 
 Cruel punishment was their lot if their merciless tasks were 
 not fulfilled — punishment that not unfrequently ended in 
 death. The lash was almost constantly in requisition, and 
 many kinds of tortures were used to compel the sinking 
 frames of the apprentices to pursue their unceasing toil. 
 At length, wearied out and worked to death, their forms 
 stunted and misshapen by accidents and overwork, often 
 scarred and bruised by the whip of the overseer, these poor 
 wretches found a merciful relief in death. Many a silent 
 plantation and lonely moorland is a silent repository of 
 dark secrets over which an outcast's grave has for ever 
 closed. 
 
 § 4. Early Factory Acts. 
 
 All this time the friends of the negro were harrowing the 
 feelings of the inhabitants of the country in which these 
 daily and nightly cruelties were perpetrated with tales of the 
 sufferings of the unfortunate black men. No notice was 
 taken of the horrors going on under the very eyes of the 
 agitators, till at length the miseries of the factories began to 
 avenge themselves upon a callous population in the shape 
 V y^ x^^JU^^ \3Lw- . yj^^xX- .-^Y^ -xAocA^ K/x^--> X^ o*-^/^ A^^ 
 
Il6 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 of malignant fevers, bred from the horribly insanitary con- 
 dition of the mills in which the apprentice system was in 
 force. In Manchester a committee had to be formed (1796) 
 to inquire into **the health of the poor"; and after six 
 years of desultory parliamentary discussion, Sir Robert Peel 
 brought in and passed a Bill for the preservation of the 
 health and morals of apprentices and others employed in 
 cotton and other factories (1802). Indeed, some such 
 measure was found to be necessary as a preventive of 
 general disease. By this Act the hours of work (for children !) 
 were limited to only twelve per day ; night work was to be 
 gradually abolished, and factory inspectors were to be 
 appointed. 
 
 But such is the natural astuteness of the human mind 
 when set on gain that this Act soon became practically 
 a dead letter. Workhouse apprentices could now no longer 
 be used up and worked to death, but, as the law did 
 not apply to ** free " children of poor parents, the manu- 
 facturers could still find plenty of human raw material. 
 And so before long matters in the factories became as bad 
 as ever, and little children of seven years old were worked 
 thirteen or fourteen hours a day, and thrashed and ill-treated 
 as badly as any slave on a West Indian plantation. 
 
 § 5. Robert Ozvefi at Lanark Mills. 
 
 It was shortly before this time that Robert Owen had be- 
 come the part owner of the New Lanark Mills, and was living 
 there as resident manager. He was then only a young man 
 of twenty-eight, but had had a good deal of experience in 
 Manchester as manager of cotton mills, and had become 
 a partner in the new Chorlton Twist Company before he 
 negotiated the purchase of the New Lanark Mills from a 
 
ROBERT OWEN AT LANARK MILLS. 117 
 
 Mr. Dale, whose daughter he almost immediately married. 
 Coming to Lanark, with its lovely surroundings of hills 
 and woods and waters, he found round his mills a popu- 
 lation of some 1300 people settled in families in the village, 
 and about four or five hundred miserable pauper children 
 procured from other parishes, whose ages were only from 
 five to ten years instead of the seven or twelve years 
 which had been attributed to them by their masters and 
 sellers. Robert Owen almost at once began to try to 
 improve the moral and physical condition of his work- 
 people, but he found it almost impossible to do anything 
 for the apprentices as regards moral or mental instruction, 
 because their hours of labour were so cruel that any effort 
 to teach them afterwards was simply an additional torment 
 to them. However, in course of time, by arranging the 
 physical conditions of work in a somewhat more humane 
 manner, Owen was able to effect a considerable improve- 
 ment among both children and adult workers, an improve- 
 ment of which several years later (18 16) he was able to 
 give satisfactory evidence before a Committee of the House 
 of Commons. But what he had seen impelled him to do 
 more, and he began to be one of the earliest and most 
 earnest supporters of shorter hours of labour. One of his 
 plans is particularly worthy of notice, for it shows his 
 endeavour to use favourable conditions of trade as a lever 
 for improvement in the condition of the workers. In 18 15 
 he proposed at a meeting of Scottish cotton-spinners in 
 Glasgow that the Government should be asked to repeal the 
 import duty of about fourpence in the pound on raw cotton, 
 and at the same time to limit the age of employment of 
 children, to reduce the hours to ten a day, and to provide 
 for compulsory education in reading, writing and arithmetic. ^ 
 
Ii8 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 Needless to say, only the import duty was repealed, and the 
 other proposals were shelved. Nevertheless Robert Owen 
 persisted in his efforts towards a shorter day, and from this 
 time a Ten Hours Bill began to be a measure that was 
 definitely adopted by a small body of social reformers. 
 
 § 6. Efforts towards Factory Reform. 
 
 Meantime, however, the Act of 1802 seems to have 
 become, even as regards apprentices, a dead letter. White 
 slaves could be bought and sold in England with as much 
 impunity as in the West Indies — in fact with more, for by 
 1815 Wilberforce's wishes as regards trading in slaves had 
 long since become law. The fact that such sales took place 
 is attested by the debate in the Commons on June 6th, 
 1 81 5, introduced by Sir Robert Peel, in which one speaker 
 (Horner) described the sending away of children to distant 
 parishes, and gave an instance in which " with a bankrupt's 
 effects a gang of these children had been put up to sale 
 and advertised publicly as part of the property. A still 
 more atrocious instance," he continued, " had been brought 
 before the Court of King's Bench two years ago, when a 
 number of these boys, apprenticed by a parish in London 
 to one manufacturer, had been transferred \i. e. sold] to 
 another, and had been found by some benevolent persons 
 in a state of absolute famine." Facts like these, even 
 though negroes were not concerned, could no longer be 
 blinked, and at length in 181 6 a Select Committee of the 
 House of Commons was appointed to take evidence upon 
 the state of children employed in the manufactories of the 
 United Kingdom. Terrible evidence of over-work was 
 given before this Committee, but the grasp of Mammon 
 was cr-uel and relentless, and now that social reformers were 
 
RICHARD OASTLER. 119 
 
 in earnest, the inevitable opposition of capitalistic greed 
 rose up in all its power to block the path of humanity. 
 The surest block was the barrier of delay. Further Com- 
 missions were asked for by the opponents of factory reform, 
 and the same kind of evidence as before was repeated in 
 181 9 before a Committee of the Lords, and when at last 
 very shame demanded that something should be done, the 
 ineffectual Act 59 George III. c. 7 was passed. This Act 
 when originally introduced was meant to apply to all 
 factories, but it was afterwards limited only to cotton 
 factories, so that it had only a very partial effect, and 
 was even then frequently evaded. And in any case the 
 worsted and woollen mills were not even touched.^ 
 
 § 7. Richard Oastler. 
 So things went on again as badly as ever for year after 
 year, and manufacturers grew rich while children and young 
 people of both sexes were beaten and overworked to make 
 their profits, and philanthropists riding home late at night 
 from heated meetings after discussing the wrongs of the 
 black slaves looked with cheerful and ignorant complacency 
 at the great factory windows blazing with light, and accepted 
 them " as signs of prosperity," little heeding or knowing the 
 misery and cruelty that dwelt within those brilliant walls. 
 It was, however, one of these friends of the negro, who had 
 often had such a midnight ride, who was suddenly awaked 
 to the fact that slavery was going on in England, while he 
 was agitating for its abolition abroad. Richard Oastler was 
 the man whose eyes were thus opened, a Yorkshireman by 
 
 1 It provided, (i) Nine years to be limit of age for child employ- 
 ment ; (2) Twelve-hours day for those under sixteen years ; (3) Time 
 to be allowed for meals ; (4) Ceilings and walls to be washed with 
 quicklime twice a year. 
 
I20 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 birth, and one well acquainted with the industries of the 
 busy West Riding.^ He was once in 1830 staying at the 
 house of a friend who lived at Horton Hall, near Bradford, 
 and was a large manufacturer. As Oastler was talking to 
 him one night about his slavery reforms, his friend John 
 Wood remarked to him : " I wonder you have never turned 
 your attention to the factory system." — '* Why should I?" 
 replied the young abolitionist, " I have nothing to do with 
 factories." "Perhaps not," was the answer, "but you are 
 very enthusiastic against slavery in the West Indies, and 1 1 
 assure you that there are cruelties daily practised in our" 
 mills on little children, which I am sure if you knew you 
 would try to prevent." And then he went on to describe 
 to his astonished hearer the horrors of the factories. Even 
 in his own mill Wood confessed that little children were 
 worked from six in the morning till seven at night, with 
 a break of only forty minutes, and in many other mills no 
 rest at all was allowed, and that various cruel devices were 
 employed to goad them on to renewed labour. They were 
 fined, beaten with sticks and straps and whips; and the 
 girls were also often subjected to shocking indecencies. 
 
 § 8. Factory Agitatmi in Yorkshire. For and Against. 
 
 Oastler, when once he saw what was going on about him 
 in his own country, made no delay in entering upon a 
 warfare that was to last for many a sad and weary year, 
 and to bring many a trial and disaster. The very next day 
 he wrote a long letter to the great Yorkshire daily paper the 
 Leeds Mercury^ in which he took for his text the old, foolish, 
 
 1 He was born in 1789, and had succeeded his father as steward to 
 Mr. Thornhill on his Yorkshire estates, living at Fixby Hall near 
 Huddersfield. 
 
FACTORY AGITATION IN YORKSHIRE. 121 
 
 and utterly untrue statement, "It is the pride of Britain 
 that a slave cannot exist on her soil," and proved very 
 conclusively that slavery could and did exist in a most 
 dreadful form. He pointed out that thousands of children, 
 both male and female, from six to fourteen years of age, 
 and chiefly girls, were compelled to labour thirteen to 
 sixteen hours a day under the lash of an overseer in the 
 mills of Bradford and Morpeth and Huddersfield, and 
 many other northern towns. ^ fThis sudden revelation of 
 English slavery caused a tremendous sensation, but of 
 course an equally tremendous opposition. The simplest 
 thing was to deny the existence of any such evils, and 
 denials became accordingly remarkably frequent. A keenj 
 newspaper correspondence arose, chiefly in the columns) 
 of the Leeds Mercury ; and from this controversy Oastler 
 emerged triumphant, with all his facts proved over and 
 over again, while confirmation of his statements began to 
 pour in from every part of Yorkshire. Before a month 
 had passed a meeting of the worsted spinners of Bradford 
 was called by some of the principal firms in that town 
 (Nov. 22nd), in order to promote legislation on the subject, 
 and a petition was drawn up to be forwarded to Parliament. 
 A similar agitation now arose in Lancashire, and a Bill was 
 laid before the Commons by Lord Morpeth to reduce the 
 hours of work, and raise the limit of age for work in mills. 
 Hope seemed to be dawning for the children of the factories, 
 when all at once the manufacturers of Halifax and district 
 struck the first note of opposition in a counter petition. 
 They set forth the " unimpeachable character for humanity 
 and kindness " possessed by manufacturers as a class ; the 
 impossibility of making profits if hours were reduced \ the 
 
 ^ Cf. Leeds Meicury of 1830. Oastlei-'s letter is dated Sept. 29th. 
 
122 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 overpowering force of foreign competition (almost non- 
 existent then as compared with to-day) ; the general hard- 
 ships of a manufacturer's lot owing to taxation and other 
 difficulties; and finally "the pernicious tendency of all 
 legislative enactments upon trade and manufactures," or 
 in other words, the necessity of following the golden rule 
 of laisser faire. 
 
 I have quoted the arguments of this petition because 
 they are in brief a summary of the arguments which were 
 then employed, are now employed, and probably always 
 will be employed against any interference between master 
 and man. In this case the law had only been invoked to 
 step in between master and child; but no matter, the 
 "liberty of the subject" and "freedom of contract" were 
 questions too sacred to be trifled with. And it was soon 
 seen that these arguments of the mill-owners and their 
 friends were by no means lacking in cogency, for the 
 proposed legislation upon the working of factories was', 
 modified to such an extent as to make it almost useless,' 
 and, in any case, the measure was to be applied to cotton 
 mills only. Oastler felt that the day was lost, and said as 
 much in a public letter to the Leeds Intelligencer of October 
 2oth, 1 83 1, a letter which shows cruel disappointment of 
 heart indeed, but yet is as full as ever of fire and hope for 
 the future. Incidentally it is curious to note, from a 
 passage in this letter, that the Factory Reformers of that 
 day were accused of being opposed to the abolition of 
 negro slavery, and were said to be getting up a factory 
 agitation "in order to turn the attention of the nation 
 away from West India slavery." But in spite of calumny, 
 prejudice, and the savage opposition of vested interests, the 
 brave words of Richard Oastler rang forth undauntedly to 
 
TEN-HOURS DAY, AND MR. SADLER. 123 
 
 the working classes of Yorkshire : '* Let no promises of 
 support from any quarter sink you to inactivity. Consider 
 that you must manage this cause yourselves. Collect 
 information and publish facts. Let your politics be : Ten 
 hours a day, and a time-book." 
 
 § 9. Ten- Hours Day, and Mr. Sadler. 
 
 At this time Oastler was living at Fixby Hall, Hudders- 
 field, and from his position as a Tory and a Churchman, as 
 he describes himself, could not see his way to working 
 actively among the mill hands, who were mostly " Radicals 
 and Dissenters." But now he saw that no barriers of class 
 or creed or politics could be allowed to interfere in this 
 cause, and from henceforth decided to throw in his lot with 
 the factory workers, come what might. He was assisted 
 from the political side by men like T. Hobhouse and M. 
 T. Sadler, both members of Parliament, warmly attached to 
 his cause, and it was decided that Sadler should lead the 
 question in the House of Commons. It would be tedious 
 to go through all the phases of the great Ten Hours 
 Agitation in and out of Parliament ; it must suffice to 
 mention that Sadler at length introduced a Ten Hours Bill 
 into the Commons late in 1831 and moved its second 
 reading in March 1832, in a speech of eminent moderation 
 and judgment. He pointed out the existence of child 
 slavery in England and the causes of it, mainly in the 
 poverty but partly in the inducements to laziness of the 
 parents. Many parents were unable to get work themselves, 
 and thus were compelled to hire out their children to the 
 brutalities and hardships of factory work. Some parents, 
 demoralized by the old Poor Law, selfish and brutalized by 
 custom, purchased idleness for themselves at the cost of 
 
124 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 their children's health and strength. In some districts, 
 so great was the demand for children's labour, that an 
 indispensable condition of marriage among the working 
 classes was the certainty of offspring, whose wages — 
 beginning at six years old — might keep their inhuman 
 fathers and mothers in idleness. Well might Sadler exclaim, 
 "Our ancestors could not have supposed it possible — 
 posterity will not believe it true — that a generation of 
 Englishmen could exist or had existed, that would work 
 lisping infancy of a few summers old, regardless alike of 
 its smiles or tears and unmoved by its unresisting weakness, 
 twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, and through 
 the weary night also, till, in the dewy morn of existence, 
 the bud of youth was faded, and fell ere it was unfolded." 
 
 But, to our eternal disgrace as a nation, that generation 
 of Englishmen existed, and Mr. Sadler told the House, 
 detail by detail, of the evils and outrages of the whole 
 abominable system. Excessive hours, low wages, immorality, 
 ill-health — all were enumerated ; and then he continued, 
 "Then, in order to keep them awake, to stimulate their 
 exertions, means are made use of to which I shall now 
 advert as a last instance of the degradation to which this 
 system has reduced the manufacturing operatives of this 
 country. Children are beaten with thongs, prepared for the 
 purpose. Yes, the females of this country, no matter 
 whether children or grown up — and I hardly know which is 
 the more disgusting outrage — are beaten, beaten in your 
 free market of labour as you term it, like slaves. The poor 
 wretch is flogged before its companions — flogged, I say, like 
 a dog, by the tyrant overlooker. We speak with execration 
 of the cart-whip of the West Indies, but let us see this night 
 an equal feeling rise against the factory thong of England." 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF FACTS. 125 
 
 § 10. The Evidence of Fads. 
 
 Of course it is needless to say that such an equal feeling 
 did not arise, not, that is, with anything like the cry of 
 horror that arose over negro slavery. The hours of black 
 slaves' labour in our colonies were at that very time carefully 
 limited by law ^ to nine per day for adults, and six for young 
 persons and children, while night work was simply pro- 
 hibited. But for white slaves no limit was to be fixed, nor 
 was the arm of the law to interfere. Though Sadler's bill 
 was read a second time, and was referred to a committee, 
 nothing much was done. But the evidence given before this 
 committee at length produced some effect. Oastler's tactics 
 of pubhshing the facts had now been taken up unwittingly 
 by Parliament itself, and the facts given before Sadler's 
 committee were terrible enough to cause a shudder of 
 shame to run through the country. Yet, after all, the 
 shame was only felt by a minority ; the nation as a whole 
 was not yet touched. ' And very soon Mr. Sadler lost his 
 seat in the House of Commons in the election after the 
 great Reform Bill of 1832, and the factory hands were thus 
 left without a parliamentary advocate of any influence. 
 But now a new leader appeared in the person of Lord 
 Ashley, afterwards Earl Shaftesbury, who undertook to bring 
 forward once more the Ten Hours Bill. 
 
 But before speaking of Lord Ashley we may pause to 
 look, though only for a moment, at the revelations of 
 slavery brought to light by the Sadler Committee. 
 
 In the first place the committee received the satisfactory 
 
 assurance from one witness that the youngest age at which 
 
 children were employed was never under five ! But from 
 
 five years onwards it was the custom to employ them from 
 
 1 By the Orders in Council of Nov, 2. 183 1. 
 
126 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 about five o'clock in the morning till as late as ten o'clock 
 at night, during the whole of which time they were on their 
 feet, with a short interval for dinner. The children were 
 generally cruelly treated, so cruelly that they dare not for 
 their lives be too late at their work in a morning. One 
 witness stated that he had seen children, whose work it was 
 to throw a bunch of ten or twelve cordings across their 
 hand and take them off one at a time, so weary as not to 
 know whether they were at work or not, and going through 
 the mechanical actions without anything in their hands. 
 When they made mistakes in this state of fatigue they were 
 severely beaten by the spinner whom they helped or by the 
 overlooker. Several cases of deaths through such beating 
 and blows were given in evidence. " The children were 
 incapable of performing their day's labour well towards the 
 end of the day : their fate was to be awoke by being beaten, 
 and to be kept awake by the same method. At a mill in 
 Duntruin," continued the same man who gave this evidence, 
 " they were kept on the premises by being locked up while 
 at work ; they were locked up in the bothies (sleeping-huts) 
 at night; they were guarded to their work and guarded 
 back again. There was one bothy for the boys, but that 
 did not hold them all, so there were some of them put into 
 the other bothy along with the girls." Sometimes the elder 
 children tried to escape from such miserable and degraded 
 surroundings. When caught, as they generally were, they 
 were inhumanly flogged, or sent to gaol for breaking their 
 contracts. A case is given of a young woman who was 
 thus put in prison for a year, " brought back after a twelve- 
 month and worked for her meat ; and she had to pay the 
 expenses that were incurred. So she worked two years for 
 nothing, to indemnify her master for the loss of her time." 
 
ENGLISH SLAVERY. 127 
 
 § II. English Slavery. 
 
 Here again is the story of a Huddersfield lad who was 
 lame. He lived a good mile from the mill, and it was 
 painful for him to move. " So my brother and sister used 
 out of kindness to take me under each arm, and run with 
 me to the mill, and my legs dragged on the ground in con- 
 sequence of the pain. I could not walk, and if we were 
 five minutes too late the overlooker would take a strap and 
 beat us till we were black and blue." The worst of it was, 
 the masters in many mills encouraged the overlookers in 
 this kind of brutality. An eye-witness relates, " I have 
 seen them when the master has been standing at one end 
 of the room with the overlookers speaking to him, and he 
 has said, ' Look at those two girls talking,' and has run and 
 beat them the same as they beat soldiers in the barrack 
 yard for deserting." A Leeds girl, who began her mill- work 
 at six years old, and toiled then from five in the morning 
 till nine at night, gives similar evidence. " When the doffers 
 flagged a little or were too late, they were strapped, and 
 those who were last in doffing were constantly strapped, 
 girls as well as boys. I have been strapped severely, and 
 have been hurt by the strap excessively. Sometimes the 
 overlooker got a chain and chained the girls, and strapped 
 them all down the room. The girls have many times had 
 black marks upon their skins." This was in a Yorkshire 
 factory, and not upon a West Indian plantation. But the 
 slaves were white ; otherwise there would have been all the 
 difference. That the dreadful exertions produced by this 
 forced labour often caused death from exhaustion among 
 children is obvious. A Keighley overseer in giving evidence 
 told the story of a man who came to him, saying, '* * My little 
 
122 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 girl is dead.' I asked, '■ When did she die? ' — and he said, 
 * In the night ; and what breaks my heart is this : she went 
 to the mill in the morning, but she was not able to do her 
 work. A little boy said he would help her if she would 
 give him a halfpenny on Saturday, but at night when the 
 child went home, perhaps about a quarter of a mile, she 
 fell down several times on the road through exhaustion, till 
 at length she reached her door with difficulty. She never 
 spoke audibly afterwards, she died in the night.' " Tragedies 
 like this, told in such simple, common-place words, happened 
 in not a few homes, or instead of death a maimed and 
 miserable life of ill-health and disease was slowly dragged 
 along till the grave gave a merciful release. One might 
 give a long list of them, and of various forms of torture 
 inflicted on children not daring to resist, but in this tender 
 age one is not allowed to harrow even the feelings of a 
 reader. Yet we may perhaps be allowed to quote one more 
 case from a speech of Richard Oastler's. " I will not picture 
 fiction to you," this brave reformer said in the early days of 
 the factory movement ; " but I will tell you what I have 
 seen. Take a little female captive, six or seven years old ; 
 she shall rise from her bed at four in the morning of a cold 
 winter day, but before she rises she wakes perhaps half-a- 
 dozen times, and says, Father, is it time ? Father, is it time ? 
 And at last when she gets up and puts her little bits of rags 
 upon her weary limbs, weary yet with the last day's work, 
 she leaves her parents in their bed, for their labour (if they 
 have any) is not required so early. She trudges alone 
 through rain and snow, and mire and darkness, to the mill, 
 and there for thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, or even 
 eighteen hours, is she obliged to work, with only thirty 
 minutes' interval for meals and play. Homeward again at 
 
LORD ASHLEY AND THE ACT OF 1833. 129 
 
 night she would go, when she was able, but many a time 
 she hid herself in the wool in the mill, as she had not 
 strength to go. And if she were one moment behind the 
 appointed time, if the bell had ceased to ring when she 
 arrived with trembling, shivering, weary limbs at the factory 
 door, there stood a monster in human form, and as she 
 passed he lashed her. This," he continued, holding up 
 an overlooker's strap, " is no fiction ! it was hard at work 
 in this town last week. The girl I am speaking of died; 
 but she dragged on that dreadful existence for several 
 years." 
 
 § 12. Lord Ashley and the Act of 1833. 
 
 It was evidence like this, which he afterwards corroborated 
 from his own experience, that induced Lord Ashley to take 
 up the cause of Factory Reform. The Select Committee 
 of Mr. Sadler in 1832 was followed by another, designed to 
 gain delay for the manufacturers, in 1833, but the second 
 only strengthened the facts of the first. By incessant labour 
 and indefatigable care Lord Ashley, assisted by the Report 
 of the Commissioners to the eff"ect that " a case is made 
 out for the interference of the Legislature," brought in a 
 Bill which was read a second time on June 17th, 1833. 
 This was a Ten Hours Bill for women and young persons. 
 Needless to say it was violently opposed, both in and out 
 of Parhament, the most strenuous among its opposers being, 
 unfortunately, men like Richard Cobden and John Bright, 
 whose political economy (being what it was) seems in this 
 case to have got the better of their humanity. Lord Althorp 
 finally introduced a Government Bill, which, though falling 
 very far short of Lord Ashley's and Oastler's ideal, yet did 
 
 K 
 
130 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 a certain amount of good.^ It aimed, as far as possible, at 
 the very lowest limit of interference with the interests of the 
 manufacturers, and was arranged so as to come into operation 
 very gradually. But in many cases it was rendered almost 
 useless by the fact that manufacturers might act as justices, 
 and punish offences against the Act committed by members 
 of their own body. Naturally the punishments were few 
 and slight, while infractions of the Act were numerous and 
 frequent. The limit of age for children, whether nine or 
 twelve years, was frequently evaded, and wholesale mis- 
 representations were made by masters and parents. 
 
 Moreover the ingenuity of profit-seekers discovered other 
 ways of evading the law. The legal working day for young 
 people was now fixed between the hours of 5.30 a.m. and 
 8.30 p.m., and to keep their machines going the whole-time 
 employers had recourse to a system of relays, which com- 
 menced work at different times of the day, and which did 
 not work at the same time as the relays of children, so that 
 exceedingly complicated arrangements had to be made to 
 fit in the different times of leaving off and beginning work ; 
 the arrangements for meal-times were also fixed irregularly 
 for different groups of workers, and the working-time of any 
 individual was altered to suit such arrangements. The real 
 result of all this carefully-elaborated re-arrangement was 
 such a confusion of complication throughout any given mill 
 that it was next to impossible to prevent infractions of the 
 Act, and that was what the employers wished. The 
 factory inspectors declared unanimously that no legal re- 
 strictions on the time of labour could now be enforced 
 
 1 Its provisions were, (i) Nine years limit of age, except in silk mills; 
 (2) Nine hours day, xoith exceptions, for children under thirteen. No 
 provision for adults, young people, or children over thirteen years. 
 
THE TEN HOURS AGITATION CONTINUED. 131 
 
 against the master's will. In many cases children under 
 thirteen were dismissed, and their places taken by others 
 a year or so older, whom the law could not protect, and 
 whom consequently an unscrupulous employer could over- 
 work as much as he liked. 
 
 § 13. The Ten Hours Agitation continued. 
 
 Consequently the Ten Hours Agitation had to be kept 
 up, or rather to be begun all over again. The relief of the 
 younger children was paid for by the extra labour of those 
 between thirteen and eighteen, who now often had to per- 
 form a double task. Moreover, the law was often openly 
 disregarded with impunity. Richard Oastler therefore 
 began his campaign out of Parliament afresh. "Short 
 time " committees were re-constituted once more in the 
 chief Yorkshire towns ; a series of letters were sent to the 
 papers by Oastler and his friends — men like G. S. Bull, the 
 Vicar of Bierley, near Bradford, and John Wood, the 
 Bradford manufacturer — and great enthusiasm and excite- 
 ment was again roused among the working-classes of the 
 North. The cry " Yorkshire slavery still exists " again went 
 forth ; and therewith went a renewed determination to 
 aboHsh it. Public meetings were again held with fresh 
 vigour, and at one of them a document was produced, 
 which proved conclusively that a disguised form of traffic 
 in children for sale to mill-work was still being carried on.^ 
 At length, in June 1836, on a motion by Charles Hindley, 
 M.P., the Government promised to do their best to compel 
 obedience to the Factory Acts. Nevertheless, it was found 
 
 ^ Speech of Rev. J. R. Stephens, Wesleyan minister, at Manchester, 
 March 1836. The document is for the "hire " often children for three 
 years : and is dated Feb. 9th. 
 
132 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 almost impossible to gain convictions under them, owing 
 to the active opposition of the magistrates, who often 
 simply refused to enforce the law. One magistrate at 
 Blackburn calmly dismissed complainants with the remark : 
 " Oh, that is Oastler's law ; we have nothing to do with it. 
 Take your complaints to him." But public meetings went 
 on outside Parliament, and Lord Ashley attacked the 
 question once more inside Parliament (1838-40), in spite 
 of many defeats, with untiring energy and determination ; 
 and popular feeling, apart from the working-classes them- 
 selves, was growing more and more strongly on his side. 
 As an instance of Lord Ashley's exertions in the cause of 
 the mill-hands, and the brutality of some employers, we 
 may mention a case in which a young woman, employed in 
 a mill at Stockport, had been caught by the machinery, 
 whirled round and dashed to the floor with her legs broken 
 and all her body mutilated. It will scarcely be credited 
 by those not* acquainted with similar facts of more recent 
 years, but it is none the less true, that her master, instead 
 of giving any compensation for her fearful injuries, deducted 
 one and sixpence from her wages for the portion of the 
 week as yet unexpired when the accident happened. 
 It is some comfort, however, to learn that Lord Ashley 
 took up the case, prosecuted the mill-owner, and obtained 
 a verdict of ;£'ioo damages for the girl, and ;£6oo costs for 
 expenses on both sides. But this is only a solitary instance 
 of his exertions. Not satisfied with reports and written 
 evidence, he made personal tours in the factory districts, 
 in towns like Manchester, Leeds, Bolton and Bradford, 
 and saw with his own eyes the evils of the old factory 
 system. He refused office in 1841 because of the un- 
 decided views of Sir Robert Peel on the question ; incurred, 
 
IMPRISONMENT OF OASTLER. 133 
 
 as all reformers do, opprobrium, contempt and misrepre- 
 sentation, from interested people like the late John Bright ; ^ 
 he was distrusted by his associates in the work, even by 
 Oastler, because of his Parliamentary tactics ; yet in spite 
 of all he went on slowly, surely, and undeterred. 
 
 § 14. Imprisonment of Oastler. 
 
 But, meanwhile, a great blow occurred to the reformers 
 outside Parliament. Their hero and champion, Richard 
 Oastler, was suddenly cast into the Fleet Prison. The facts 
 were these. He was employed by T. Thornhill of Riddles- 
 worth, in Norfolk, as steward of his large estates in Yorkshire, 
 as his father had been before him. His employer agreed 
 with him largely in his views on the factory question, and 
 did not object to his work as a reformer. He even intro- 
 duced him to people of rank, like the Duke of Wellington, 
 Earl Grey the Premier, and others, until a question arosei 
 about the introduction of the New Poor Law into the] 
 Halifax and Huddersfield districts. The Poor Law Com- * 
 missioners found that Oastler's influence was so strong there ' 
 that they had considerable difficulty in enforcing the law, as 
 he seems to have objected to it. The upshot was that as 
 Oastler would not promise to aid the Commissioners, Mr. 
 Thornhill dismissed him in May 1838. Now during his 
 stewardship Oastler had incurred various expenses — chiefly in 
 keeping up the position necessary to the representative of a 
 gentleman of fortune — which had necessitated his borrowing 
 money to pay the annual balances due to his employer. 
 Finding this extremely unpleasant, he offered to resign his 
 stewardship in 1834, but Mr. Thornhill would not accept 
 his resignation, and he continued in his office on the 
 
 1 Cf. Hoddcr's Life, ii, 22, 27, 130. 
 
134 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 understanding that his salary should be increased from 
 ;^3oo to ;£'5oo per annum, and out of this increase he 
 should annually reduce his debt. There had grown a 
 balance of some ;^2ooo against him during his fourteen 
 years' work as steward. This arrangement was regarded as 
 mutually satisfactory till, suddenly, Mr. Thornhill, being 
 vexed at a placard commenting on Oastler's dismissal — a 
 placard in which it must be admitted that Oastler had no 
 share — issued a writ against his former steward for the 
 remainder of his debt, now only ;£"5oo. This was two 
 years after his dismissal, and during those two years Oastler 
 had been living almost entirely on charity. " The only 
 money. I have," he writes to a friend in November 1840, 
 " comes by letters — sometimes a five -pound-note, sometimes 
 a ten, sometimes a twenty — but from whom, except in two 
 instances, I know no more than you." Of course he could 
 not pay his debt, and was accordingly committed to the 
 Fleet Prison, that curious institution so familiar to readers 
 of Pickwick. 
 
 § 15. Oastler' s Release. 
 
 Undaunted by imprisonment, Oastler proceeded to issue 
 from his enforced seclusion — which does not seem \o have 
 been very severe, except that it kept him within walls — 
 a weekly journal called The Fleet Papers^ devoted to the 
 discussion of factory and poor-law questions. In the Fleet 
 he saw his friends daily, and one of them gives an amusing 
 account of a " public breakfast " given by " The Factory 
 King." *'The apartment," he writes, "is not large. The 
 Monarch for once made his bed his throne ; I was honoured 
 with the chair of state ; the friend from Huddersfield at- 
 tended to the tea-kettle and coffee-pots ; the gallant captain 
 
VICTORY AT LAST. 135 
 
 [a French refugee cavalry-officer] took command of the egg- 
 department, and there was an appointed purveyor of ham 
 and bread-and-butter, all of the best quality." Amid this 
 mild Bohemianism Oastler lived and worked cheerfully till 
 his friends — including John Walter of the Times, W. B. 
 Ferrand, M.P., John Fielden, M.P., and many another 
 name well known in the great factory fight — got up an 
 " Oastler Liberation Fund," and at length a sum was sub- 
 scribed or guaranteed from which the debt, interest, costs, 
 and expenses, amounting to over ;^3ooo, were fully paid 
 (1844). Oastler had been in prison four years. His public 
 entry into Huddersfield soon after his release was an event 
 even yet remembered by many a Yorkshire factory hand. 
 For miles round the town the roads were thronged with 
 people eager to greet their liberated champion with music 
 and banners and processions. Thousands followed his 
 carriage, cheering, singing and shouting in an excited 
 welcome. It was a prelude to his final victory. 
 
 § 16. Victory at last. 
 
 But that victory was slow in coming. Meeting after 
 meeting was held in the country, debate after debate in 
 Parliament, but the Ten Hours Day had not yet dawned 
 upon the factory children. Meanwhile, the attention of 
 the public was turned towards other forms of employment. 
 Lord Ashley, in his unremitting labours on behalf of the 
 oppressed and unknown, had made the whole country 
 shudder with his exposure of the incredibly disgraceful 
 and brutal abuses of the coal-mines of England. By his 
 eiforts the Children's Employment Commissioners of 1842 
 and 1843 had published terrible revelations as to the treat- 
 ment of children in industries as yet untouched by law. 
 
136 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 And now even the manufacturers could no longer delude 
 
 the public into non-interference. In 1844 a Factory Act 
 
 was passed, reducing children's labour in textile factories, 
 
 and adult females as well as young persons were protected.^ 
 
 Then at last the labours of Oastler and Lord Ashley were 
 
 rewarded by seeing the success of the Ten Hours Act ^ of 
 
 1847. Lord Ashley himself had lost his seat in Parliament, 
 
 but the Bill was introduced by Mr. Fielden, and after a 
 
 short but sharp opposition, headed by Sir Robert Peel and 
 
 supported by the manufacturing interest, it was carried 
 
 successfully, and received the royal assent. At last the old 
 
 factory song had come true — the song that had been sung 
 
 by thousands of children in the crowded streets of the 
 
 factory towns, that had echoed over many a Yorkshire moor, 
 
 whose loneliness was startled by some great public gathering ; 
 
 the song that fathers had muttered sternly and desperately 
 
 to themselves as they saw their little ones ground down by 
 
 a remorseless Mammon; the song that Oastler and his 
 
 friends had given the best years of their lives to make a 
 
 reality had come true at last : 
 
 " We will have the Ten Hours Bill, 
 That we will, that we will ! " 
 
 1 The Act 7 Vict. c. 15 (1844). It provided, (i) Children from eight 
 to thirteen years of age, not to be employed in textile industries more than 
 six and a half hours in one day, or ten hours on alternate days ; (2) In 
 case of young persons the day was to be ten hours ; (3) School instruction 
 to be provided during time when children were not in factories ; (4) 
 Adult women under same rules as young persons ; (5) Same meal-time 
 for all protected persons, and no work after 4.30 p.m. on Saturdays. 
 
 2 The Act 10 Vict. c. 29 provided, (i) A Ten Hours Day for women 
 and young persons ; (2) Fixed legal day as any ten hours between 5.30 
 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. Later on {1850), owing to the abuse of the relay system 
 by manufacturers, a uniform working day was fixed — from 6 a.m. to 6 
 p.m., with an hour and a half for meals, and work for protected persons 
 to cease after 2 p.m. on Saturday. 
 
OASTLER'S DEATH. 137 
 
 § 17. Oastler^s Death. 
 
 So now at last Richard Oastler saw the fruits of the 
 labours and sacrifices of so many years. That was for him 
 enough. His work did not bring him the honours which 
 most men desire ; on the contrary, Jt brought only an old 
 age of poverty and retirement. His very name is un- 
 recorded in many modern volumes which profess to give 
 biographies of men distinguished above their fellows, and 
 probably in due course it will be entirely forgotten. ** The 
 noblest of all martyrdoms," it is said, " is that of an old age 
 impoverished by the generous sacrifices of youth." Such an 
 old age Oastler passed, dwelling in seclusion in a small 
 cottage at Guildford in Surrey,' where he delighted to tend 
 his garden, and receive the visits of those friends by whose 
 side he had fought through so many stormy years. It was 
 a great change from the activity and pleasant position of 
 the inmate of Fixby Hall, but he accepted his lot with un- 
 failing cheerfulness and serenity. His much-loved wife, the 
 mainstay of his life's work, had died soon after his release 
 from the Fleet, and lay buried in a Yorkshire churchyard 
 (1845). He survived her for many lonely years, and then 
 at length the old '* Factory King," as his admirers lovingly 
 called him, entered into his eternal rest (1861) at the age 
 of seventy-two. Of him, more than of many a reformer of 
 far greater fame, could it be truly said : ** Well done, thou 
 good and faithful servant." 
 
138 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 II. LORD SHAFTESBURY. 
 
 § I. More Abuses. 
 
 But it must not be thought that with the Factory Act of 
 1847 the work of Lord Ashley and other philanthropists 
 was at an end. There remained much to be done, work 
 of which indeed that Act was only the first forerunner. 
 The same fight had to be waged over and over again in 
 nearly every trade in the country, and a record of Lord 
 Shaftesbury's life is in itself record of the deliverance of 
 the feeble and oppressed in every branch of industry. 
 Few people to-day can realize the awful and abominable 
 amount of cruelty and degradation that existed in the Eng- 
 land of thirty or fifty years ago. Fewer still realize how much 
 exists among us now. It was Lord Ashley's task to shed a 
 piercing ray of light upon the places of darkness, and "the 
 cruel habitations " of the earth, and then to call upon the 
 nation in no uncertain voice to wipe away these foul blots 
 upon the veneered surface of modern civilization. In 
 the limits set before me it is impossible to do more than 
 mention the industries in which he saved children, youths, 
 maidens, and women from the most horrible and debasing 
 surroundings — in calico-printing works, in mines, in lace- 
 works, in potteries, in the hosiery trade, in millinery and 
 dress-making, in agriculture, in almost every department 
 of English industry. But it may do some good if one gives 
 an example of the abominations that went on in the England 
 of our fathers, in order that people may see into what 
 depth so f_degradation humanity is capable of descen ding 
 when u nchecked by religion, public opinion, or even A cts-of 
 Parliament. 
 
ENGLISH COAL-MINES. 139 
 
 § 2. English Coal-mines. 
 
 In 1842 the country was horrified by reports as to the 
 conditions of working in mines and collieries. A Com- 
 mission of inquiry was instituted, and irrefutable proofs of 
 these reports were disclosed by it. It was shown that a 
 very large proportion of the workers underground were less 
 than thirteen years old, and most of them began work at 
 about eight years, and some even as low as four or five. 
 Men and women, girls and boys, were all alike employed 
 underground; and very often they were below during the 
 whole week, and never saw the light except on Sunday. 
 The men did the hewing of the coal, but the work of 
 transporting the coals from the men's workings to the shaft 
 was performed by women, girls, and boys. " Hurrying," 
 that is loading small waggons with coals, and pulling 
 or pushing them along the underground passages, was 
 an especially barbarous labour. Those who did it had 
 to crawl on hands and feet, with an enormous weight of 
 coals in a truck either before or behind them, along 
 passages as narrow and wet as common sewers. Boys and 
 girls performed this duty as beasts of burden, either by being 
 regularly harnessed to the waggons by straps, or wear- 
 ing a girdle round their waists, to which was attached a 
 chain passing between the legs. Thus, panting and strain- 
 ing at their loads, these unfortunate creatures stumbled 
 or crawled through the darkness of passages too low and 
 narrow for a pony to work in, and with blistered sides, 
 chafed limbs, and aching backs, toiled throughout eighteen 
 or even thirty-six hours continually. In addition to this 
 cruel labour these boys and girls suffered terribly from the 
 cruelty of the overlookers, or of the miners whom they 
 
I40 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 helped, being beaten and punished in the most brutal 
 manner. ** Education was totally neglected and the morals 
 of the mining population were in the lowest possible state. 
 Nor can this be wondered at, when it is remembered that 
 in the pits men habitually worked in a state of perfect 
 nakedness, and in this state were assisted in their labours 
 by females of all ages, from girls of six years old to women 
 of twenty-one, these women themselves being quite naked 
 down to the waist, their only garment being trousers." 
 
 § 3. Degradation of English Labour. 
 
 Such was the state of things among the miners of England 
 when Lord Ashley took up their cause, and so shocking were 
 the revelations made before the Royal Commission then 
 appointed, that the country would permit of no delay in 
 passing a Bill to prohibit women and children from work- 
 ing in coal-pits ; which indeed was carried the same year. 
 But into whatever branch of industry we turn at this 
 period the same horrible pictures meet our eyes. In the 
 cutleries of Sheffield, in the potteries of Staffordshire, in the 
 mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire, slavery, cruelty, vice, 
 and ignorance held their sway unchecked. Even in the 
 agricultural districts, the system of employing at certain 
 seasons gangs of workers — men, women and children — got 
 up and superintended by a contractor, had produced 
 lamentable results, and here again sexual immorality and 
 cruelty to children were of usual and common occurrence. 
 Truly, in the earlier half of this century, the Industrial 
 Revolution, whether in the factory or in the field, had 
 brought the English labourer, and still more his children, 
 little cause for gratitude. 
 
LORD SHAFTESBURY'S EARLY LIFE. 141 
 
 § 4. Lord Shaftesbury's Early Life. 
 
 That their position has been largely ameliorated is due to 
 one man, not indeed entirely, but still in a pre-eminent 
 degree. We cannot now go through all the various struggles 
 of Lord Ashley in the many branches of his reforming work, 
 and must content ourselves with a brief glance at the 
 reformer himself. Generally one is able, in the surround- 
 ings of such a man, to discern some influence of parentage 
 or position that has helped to shape his later life and work. 
 In Lord Ashley's case it was not so. His parents were 
 both active and busy people, but their activity was directed 
 mainly in the paths of social life and pleasures. The 
 amusements, the cares, the opinions, the whole tone of his 
 home, were almost directly opposed to the tenor of his 
 after life. It seems to have been to an old housekeeper, 
 a simple-minded and Christian woman, that Shaftesbury 
 owed that deep religious feeUng, and that pious and 
 evangelical tendency which coloured all his later actions. 
 The hereditary home of the family was at St. Giles's at 
 Wim borne, in Dorset, an old manor-house, filled with 
 family traditions from the days of Henry VI., and even of 
 the first Edward. But this he did not see till later ; and 
 when he was only seven years old (1808)^ he was sent 
 from his birthplace in London to a school at the Manor 
 House, Chiswick ; a private school, such as the British 
 parent still favours, and, like most private and public 
 schools of that day, of the most inefficient and disgraceful 
 type. Even in his old age he used to say : " I think there 
 never was such a wicked school before or since. The place 
 was bad, wicked, filthy, and the treatment was starvation 
 
 ^ He was born April 28th, 1801, at 24 Grosvenor Square. 
 
142 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 and cruelty." Here he remained, in much tribulation, till 
 he was sent at the age of twelve to Harrow, and placed in 
 the house of the head-master, Dr. Butler. Harrow and its 
 surroundings helped to dispel the gloomy influences of 
 Chiswick, and now, too, he experienced the delights of 
 country life at St. Giles's, to which his father had succeeded 
 as sixth Earl of Shaftesbury in 1811. But it was at Harrow 
 that the drunken funeral of a deserted pauper happened to 
 turn his mind towards questions which ultimately led him 
 in the direction of social reform. It did not bear fruit, 
 however, till some time later; and when, in 18 19, he en- 
 tered as an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, he 
 used to accuse himself of "the besetting sin of idleness." 
 But, on going up to Oxford, he certainly does not seem to 
 have allowed his " besetting sin " to overcome him, for we 
 find him three years later taking a first-class in classics. 
 
 Then, leaving his University with a good degree, he 
 entered Parliament at the age of twenty-five as member for 
 the borough of Woodstock. His career for the future had 
 not yet been definitely shaped. He was a Conservative, a 
 follower of the party led by Canning and Lord Liverpool ; 
 but he was no servile follower, and in several ways showed 
 considerable poHtical independence. During this time he 
 became a great personal friend of the Duke of Wellington, 
 and frequently visited him at Strathfieldsaye, nor is it too 
 much to suppose that some portion of the stern perseverance 
 of the Iron Duke was absorbed by the spirit of the young 
 member for Woodstock. And, young as he was, his 
 qualities were sufficiently admired for Canning to offer him 
 (in 1827) a place in his administration, an honour, however, 
 which Lord Ashley declined, chiefly, it seems, owing to his 
 own low estimate of himself, which he frequently expresses 
 
HIS WORK AS A REFORMER. 143 
 
 in his diary. "Why am I so weak and useless?" he 
 exclaims; *'why cannot I utter one word of eloquence or 
 manliness ? " 
 
 § 5. His Work as a Reformer. 
 
 But, at length, though not in haste, his life-work came to 
 him. He had been devoted to science, then to literature 
 and languages, a student of Welsh and Hebrew, and a 
 dabbler in astronomy; but other things were before him. 
 The subject of the barbarous treatment of lunatics had 
 been brought before Parliament by Robert Gordon, and on 
 that subject Lord Ashley made his first important speech 
 (1828). From that day forward his energies and sympathies 
 were mainly devoted to the cause of social reform, some- 
 times in public life and in Parliament, and often in private 
 acts of unknown charity. Just at this period, moreover, as 
 if to stimulate and encourage him on his new path, he had 
 the singular good fortune to marry a good and beautiful 
 woman, whose sympathy was to cheer him throughout the 
 vicissitudes and oppositions of an active pubhc life. His 
 wife was Emily, daughter of the fifth Earl Cowper, and the 
 marriage took place in the summer of 1830. Very soon 
 afterwards he contested successfully the county of Dorset ; 
 and now amid the storms of the Reform Bill and of labour 
 movements, he began to carve out that independent career 
 as a social reformer that earned for him the title, given 
 sometimes in gratitude and often in scorn, of the Working- 
 man's Friend. In 1833 he became, as we saw, the acknow- 
 ledged Parliamentary leader of the Factory Movement, and 
 by so doing he came, as his biographer so aptly puts it, to the 
 parting of the ways. " On the one hand lay ease, influence, 
 promotion, and troops of friends ; on the other an unpopular 
 
144 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 cause, unceasing labour amidst every kind of opposition, 
 perpetual worry and anxiety, estrangement of friends, an- 
 nihilation of leisure, and a life amongst the poor. It was 
 between these he had to choose." How well he chose, and 
 how nobly he adhered to his choice, is known now to all 
 men. Nor is it too much to say that to this choice the 
 England of to-day owes probably more than in our generation 
 she has owed to any single man. 
 
 § 6. His Life and Work. 
 
 It is not within our scope to follow him through all the 
 works of reform that are associated with his name ; nay, it 
 is almost impossible, for to do so would be to catalogue all 
 the philanthropic movements of the last half-century. Still 
 less is it within our province to dilate upon his religious 
 views ; views which, however great unpopularity they 
 brought upon him, were as firm as they were sincere. " An 
 evangelical of the evangelicals," as he was bitterly called by 
 his enemies, and as he cheerfully and proudly called him- 
 self, he went through life with a perfect and simple faith, 
 that had much of grandeur in its very simplicity. "Do 
 what is right, and trust in God for the rest," was his constant 
 motto ; and from that principle he never swerved. He made 
 mistakes, and sometimes he judged others rather harshly ; 
 yet few men have inspired the great masses of the people 
 with a more unfailing confidence and love. " When the 
 ear heard him it blessed him, and when the eye saw him it 
 gave witness to him ; because he delivered the poor that 
 cried, and the fatherless and him that had none to help 
 him." And when he ceased from his labours, and at last 
 was laid to rest, the cry of mourning that arose was the 
 sudden sobbing of a whole nation in grief. He was buried 
 
ROBERT OWEN. 145 
 
 in the churchyard of his ancestral home of St. Giles's, 
 having come to the end of a long life, " simply an old man 
 who endeavoured to do his duty in that state of life to 
 which it had pleased God to call him." For so he spoke of 
 himself in all humility, and yet no greater meed of praise 
 can any man hope to give him.^ 
 
 III. ROBERT OWEN. 
 
 § I. Early Life. Shop-assistant and Mill-oumer, 
 We have already mentioned in passing a part of the 
 work done by Robert Owen in factory reform ; and now, 
 although he died before either Oastler or Shaftesbury, we 
 may look upon him as the connecting bond between the 
 philanthropists we have already discussed and the more 
 modern socialistic school represented in one form by 
 Charles Kingsley. So, disregarding chronological order, we 
 may mention briefly here the main facts of Robert Owen's 
 Hfe as a reformer. He was bom in 1771 at Newtown in 
 North Wales, his father being a saddler and ironmonger. 
 Of schooling he had very little, for at the early age of ten 
 he was sent off to London to be an assistant in a draper's 
 shop, but found very soon a similar position at Stamford in 
 Lincolnshire, where his master was a shrewd yet not un- 
 kindly Scotchman, who had begun life as a pedlar with 
 
 1 He died on October i, 1885, having held the title of seventh Earl 
 of Shaftesbury since his father's death in 185 1. Speaking upon a 
 poUtical question in 1885 the Duke of Argyll declared: "The social 
 reforms of the last century have not been mainly due to the Liberal 
 party. [He might have said, to any party]. They had been due to the 
 influence, character, and perseverance of one man — Lord Shaftesbury." 
 
 L 
 
146 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 a few shillings and a basket. Here he stayed some time, 
 till at length he bettered himself by going back to London, 
 where, as a shop-assistant in a draper's on old London 
 Bridge, he thought himself " rich and independent " on 
 ;^25 a year with board and lodging. Next he got j£/[o a 
 year at a first-class house in St. Anne's Square, Manchester, 
 where he remained till he was eighteen, and then, with the 
 modest capital of ;£"ioo which he had borrowed from his 
 brother, he went into partnership with a man called Jones, 
 who had some new ideas about making wire bonnet frames. 
 But Jones seems to have been an unbusinesslike person, 
 and Owen soon left him and started as a manufacturer on 
 his own account, and was ere long making ;£"3oo a year at 
 cotton-spinning. The improvements he introduced into 
 this department of industry soon gave him a good reputation 
 in and around Manchester, and after one or two connections 
 with other firms, he became a manager and partner in the 
 Chorlton Twist Company. It was this company that took 
 over the cotton mills started by Dale & Arkwright at New 
 Lanark in 1784, and shortly after marrying Mr. Dale's 
 daughter, Owen took up his residence there as manager. 
 Here he at once began, as we saw (p. 117), to carry out 
 various schemes of philanthropy among the workers — both 
 children and adults — collected in the little village round 
 the mills. He entered upon his duties as manager on the 
 first day of the year 1800, so that his work as a social 
 reformer may be said to have begun definitely with the 
 present century. He paid special attention to education, 
 especially of the young, as a means of social improvement, 
 and was one of the first founders of infant schools. He 
 arranged stores and shops for supplying his workpeople 
 with the best goods at the lowest cost, and thus began in a 
 
NEW LANARK. 147 
 
 small way a scheme which saw its fruition — very largely due 
 to his own later efforts— in the present co-operative movement. 
 
 § 2. New Lanark. 
 
 People are fond of saying that philanthropy does not 
 pay; and, indeed, very often it does not. But Robert 
 Owen showed that philanthropy and profit were, at any 
 rate at New Lanark, by no means incompatible. At the 
 same time he did not care to get a sufficiently high rate of 
 profit to please his partners and shareholders, and the 
 upshot of it was that he severed his connection with them, 
 bought the works, and started them as a new concern, in 
 which not more than five per cent profit should be ex- 
 pected or demanded. This was in 1813, and among his 
 partners were Jeremy Bentham and William Allen the 
 Quaker. He now felt more at liberty to carry out his 
 various schemes for the benefit of his workpeople ; he took, 
 as we have seen, an active interest in factory legislation ; 
 and his mills became noted throughout England and 
 Scotland for the humane and careful manner in which they 
 were conducted. Not only social reformers, but statesmen 
 and royal personages, like the Czar Nicholas of Russia, 
 made pilgrimages to New Lanark to see the good work he 
 had accomplished. They found healthy and contented 
 workpeople, with children well-taught and well-trained ; they 
 found sexual immorality an extreme rarity and drunkenness 
 non-existent ; and, moreover, they found the mills working 
 profitably as a sound commercial success. How was it 
 then, it may well be asked, that Robert Owen found himself 
 (in 1828) at fifty-seven years of age compelled to leave his 
 work there, and turn out into the world, no longer as a 
 flourishing man of business, but as a poverty-stricken socialist? 
 
148 THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 § 3. His Social Views. Industrial Communities. 
 
 The answer is to be found in the opposition, no doubt 
 sincere and well-meaning, of his Quaker partner, to what 
 were called Owen's " infidel teachings." The facts were that 
 Owen had never had any settled religious views, and had 
 published a work, the New View of Society., or Essays on the 
 Principle of the Formation of the Huinan Character ( 1 8 1 2), in 
 which he put forward views obnoxious to many well-mean- 
 ing people. He believed, for instance, that man was not 
 responsible for his religious beliefs, nor were these under a 
 man's own control. In regard to many other questions, 
 especially as to the nature of the Deity, he was an Agnostic. 
 Unfortunately for him, people at that time could not dis- 
 tinguish between agnostics and ** infidels," and he found the 
 whole of the religious world against him. He had to leave 
 New Lanark, and became an agitator busy with many new 
 ideas and futile schemes. It was by these paths that he 
 became what is now called a Socialist. His Socialism had 
 already come out in a report to the Committee of the House 
 of Commons (1817) upon the Poor Law; for Owen, in view 
 of the deep distress among the working-classes in the early 
 part of this century, due to the first effects of the Industrial 
 Revolution, recommended therein, as a measure of relief, 
 the formation of social communities of some 1200 persons 
 on lands of about 1000 or 1500 hundred acres in extent. 
 The persons composing these communities were to live in 
 one large building, with public kitchens and mess-rooms, 
 but with separate private living-rooms for each family, while 
 work and payment was to be in common, under supervision 
 by qualified persons. Such a community was founded later 
 by M. Godin, in the Familistbre of Guise, and, as all co- 
 
SOCIALISM AND SECULARISM. 149 
 
 operators know, has been a great success. But Robert 
 Owen's own scheme failed. Although his plans were re- 
 ceived with favour, and many people of high rank — such as 
 our Queen's father, the Duke of Kent — countenanced them, 
 the practical application of them was unfortunate. One 
 community was founded in 1825 at Orbiston, near Glasgow, 
 under the direction of Abram Combe, and another was 
 formed by Owen himself in 1824 at New Harmony, Indiana, 
 U.S.A., but both collapsed after a very short existence. 
 Most of Owen's money had been sunk in the American 
 community ; and the failure of this, coupled with his resig- 
 nation from New Lanark, made him a poor man. 
 
 § 4. Socialism and Secularism. Ideal Societies. 
 
 He now settled in London, and became engaged in a 
 very active propaganda of socialism and secularism. His 
 secularist views excited much opposition, not only to him- 
 self, but to the causes with which he was identified ; and 
 added to this, most of his social schemes proved to be 
 failures. In 1832 he founded a Labour Exchange, whose 
 " notes " for work done were to supersede the use of money. 
 In 1835 he formed the "Association of all Classes of all 
 Nations " to discuss social questions ; and it was in connec- 
 tion with this society that the word " Socialism " is said to 
 have been first used in its present sense. Then came more 
 communistic experiments, one at Ralahine, in county Clare, 
 Ireland (183 1-5), and another, known as Queenwood 
 (1839), at Tytherly, in Hampshire. As usual, both failed, 
 though it must be said that Ralahine had in it the elements 
 of success, and lasted for three years and a half, being only 
 ruined because its proprietor took to gambling and was sold 
 out. In fact, of all his schemes, the only one that has lasted 
 
ISO THE FACTORY REFORMERS. 
 
 successfully down to our own day was that of Co-operation. 
 The present gigantic Co-operative Movement owes very 
 much to the work of Owen, though not by any means to 
 him exclusively; and it owes still more to the fact that it 
 recognizes present practical conditions, and works in and 
 among them. The main fault of Owen's schemes was that 
 they sought to build up, apart from the world as it is, a new 
 and ideal society, free from the evils of the present day. 
 Such ideal societies have never succeeded, and such ready- 
 made socialism must inevitably fail. However much we 
 recognize (with Owen) that the environment moulds the 
 individual, we must recognize just as fully that the individual 
 also influences his environment. The individual may in 
 time — probably in a very long time — be materially improved 
 by modifying his surroundings, and a good many of the 
 surroundings of the present day require considerable modi- 
 fication from a social point of view. But, after all, we must 
 begin with the individual as well, for till he is altered both 
 socially, physically, and morally, little else can be done. 
 
 Robert Owen died in 1858 at the advanced age of 
 eighty-seven years. He began as a pure philanthropist and 
 ended as a socialist. His belief that man is the product of 
 inherited capacities and external circumstances, early associ- 
 ations and social environment, led him to insist very truly 
 upon careful education of the young, and upon the im- 
 portance of ethical training generally. In this direction we 
 of to-day owe him much, as we do to all pioneers, and it is 
 as a pioneer that posterity will chiefly regard him. 
 
NOTES ON AUTHORITIES. 
 
 1. (For the Factory Movement generally, and Richard Oastler's 
 
 work in particular), The History of the Factory Movementy 
 in two volumes, by "Alfred" : (London : Simpkin, Marshall 
 &Co.: 1857.) 
 
 2. English Factory Legislation, by Von Plener, gives an analysis 
 
 of all the most important Acts. 
 
 3. The Industrial Revolution, by Arnold Toynbee (London : 
 
 Rivingtons: 1887). 
 
 4. (For Lord Shaftesbury's work), The Life of Lord Shaftesbury, 
 
 by Edwin Hodder, in three volumes (London : Cassell : 
 1887). 
 
 5. (For Robert Owen's work), The Life, Ti77ies^ and Labours of 
 
 Robert Owen, by Lloyd Jones (London : Sonnenschein : 
 1890). 
 
 6. (For the whole period generally), The Industrial History of 
 
 England, pp. 143 — 210 (London: Methuen : 1891 edition). 
 
 7. Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, by F. Engels 
 
 (Leipzig : 1845), is accurate in its facts, though passionate 
 in tone. 
 
 8. The Blue Books from 1802 — 1847 on employment in factories, 
 
 mines, and workshops are indispensable. 
 
CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
CHARLES KINGSLEY AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 SOCIALISTS. 
 
 § I. Kings ley's Early Life. 
 
 While Robert Owen was still living and working at factory 
 reform in New Lanark, there was born in a little country 
 vicarage far away in the south of England, just under the 
 brow of Dartmoor, another "socialist," who was destined 
 to mould men's minds with far more effectual power than 
 the cotton manufacturer of the north. Charles Kingsley 
 was born on June 12, 18 19, while his father was vicar of 
 Holne in Devon. He was the child of somewhat remark- 
 able parents, his father being a man of undoubted ability, 
 but unfortunately "a man with every talent except that 
 of using his talents : " while, on the other hand, his mother, 
 born in the West Indies, was a woman of rare strength of 
 character, full of imagination and enthusiasm, to whom her 
 son owed much of that fine humour and love of science and 
 travel that is so characteristic of him. They were all destined 
 to leave Devonshire before the boy was more than a few years 
 old, for his father was transferred to the living of Barnack in 
 Nottinghamshire, near that Fen district which the novelist 
 paints so gloriously and so lovingly in some of the finest 
 
156 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 descriptive portions of his Hereward the Wake and Prose 
 Idylls. But again the family was to change, this time back 
 once more to the Devon that Kingsley loved so well, to 
 that little fishing village of Clovelly (1830), which has since 
 become historic. There he felt the strangely mingled sad- 
 ness and glamour of the sea and of the fisher life which 
 inspired the truly noble poem of The Three Fishers. 
 
 § 2. The Lesson of the Bristol Riots. 
 Next year the boy was sent to school at Clifton, near 
 Bristol, where there is still a college ; and in Bristol there 
 came to him the first inkling of what was afterwards to be 
 the greatest work of his life. Many years after, in 1858, 
 when speaking in that town, he said : '* It was in this very 
 city of Bristol that I received my first lesson in what is now 
 called social science ; and yet, alas ! ten years elapsed before 
 I could even spell out that lesson, although it had been 
 written for me, as well as for all England, in letters of flame 
 from one end of the country to the other." That lesson 
 was given in the shape of the Bristol Riots (Oct. 29 — 31, 
 1 831), which took place on the occasion of the entrance of 
 Sir Charles Wetherell, the Recorder, into the city, he being 
 known as an opponent of the Reform Bill. Nearly five 
 hundred people were killed in the collisions which took 
 place between the citizens and the military. From Clifton 
 Charles was sent to Helston Grammar School, where one 
 hears much of his strong, active and fearless disposition, 
 his love of nature and of out-door Hfe, his keen interest in 
 all healthy out-door sports. But once more his father was 
 transferred, and the quiet country living by the sea-side 
 was given up for the busy world of a London suburban 
 parish, that of Chelsea (1836). 
 
AT CAMBRIDGE. 157 
 
 § 3. y^/ Cambridge. 
 
 Thus the young man of nineteen came to the great world 
 of London. He continued his studies at King's College, 
 but soon went up to Cambridge (1838), and entered at 
 Magdalene, where he gained a scholarship, and distinguished 
 himself by hard work both in classics and mathematics. 
 While yet an undergraduate, ardent and impulsive, he met 
 during a visit at Ipsden, in Oxfordshire, his future wife, 
 and love at first sight proved for him no disillusioned dream. 
 Years and years afterwards he declared that the day he first 
 met her was his real wedding-day. But back to Cambridge 
 he went, and there lived a busy intellectual and physical 
 life. Religious doubts were forcing themselves upon him, 
 and giving him many a pang of gloom ; the pressure of 
 college work was over him ; his leisure hours were filled with 
 boating and other sports. Yet amid all he found time to 
 read some of Carlyle's fierce declamations upon the evils 
 of the day, and declares : " I am utterly delighted with 
 them," speaking of Carlyle as "that old Hebrew prophet 
 who goes to prince and beggar, and who says, ' If you do 
 this or that you shall go to hell '—not the hell that priests 
 talk of, but a hell upon this earth." There was a certain 
 grimness in this way of putting it that has a frequent re-echo 
 in passages of Kingsley's own works. But now-a-days we 
 are too humane to believe in a hell, and consequently hardly 
 inclined to belreve very much in a heaven. 
 
 § 4. Curate and Rector of Eversley. 
 
 Kingsley came out senior optime in mathematics, and in 
 the first class in classics — a double distinction, somewhat 
 rarer now, for we fear to overload the budding undergraduate 
 mind with too much Greek, and do not expect a classical 
 
IS8 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 man to be a mathematician. He went down from Cambridge 
 in 1842, and read for Holy Orders, soon afterwards taking 
 a curacy at Eversley, near the borders of old Windsor Forest, 
 a rough country parish, full of poachers, and empty of re- 
 ligion, but a parish just fitted for a man like Kingsley, who 
 did his pastoral work like a messenger of Christ, and yet 
 could swing a flail with the threshers, or turn a swathe with 
 the mowers as well as any labourer amongst them, and 
 knew as much about hunting and turnips as any ordinary 
 squire or farmer in his flock. Yet in the midst of all his 
 work he had a deep trial and sorrow, a separation from her 
 to whom he had given his heart in keeping, but whom he 
 knew that as a penniless curate he could not marry. His 
 prospects were dark, almost hopeless, and for a time he was 
 in despair. Yet before a year was out he had obtained 
 a better curacy at Blandford, in a few months more 
 (January, 1844) was married to Miss Grenfell, and, before 
 the year was out, had returned to Eversley (where the 
 living had suddenly fallen vacant), no longer as curate, but 
 as rector, called thither by the efforts of the parishioners 
 themselves, who, rough as they were, had appreciated more 
 than he guessed the work he had already done. And so 
 this year, 1844, with the double fortune of marriage and 
 promotion in the Church, became the turning-point of Kings- 
 ley's Hfe. He entered heartily and fully into parochial work, 
 as indeed he had ever done, but now with a new zest and 
 earnestness resulting from his happy domestic life and more 
 authoritative position. And the work of the country parish 
 led him to look into the hardships and difficulties of the 
 agricultural life of that day — a day when hardly one grown- 
 up person among the agricultural labourers could read or 
 write, and when boys and girls alike escaped as early as 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE. 159 
 
 they could from the village school — where cobbling, teach- 
 ing, and flogging went on indiscriminately — into the hard 
 work of the fields. Among such a population, ignorant and 
 barbarous indeed, yet not so through any fault of their own, 
 he spent all his time, hardly ever dropping his parish work 
 except for a few hours' fishing. All the while he was learning 
 the lesson of social and industrial knowledge that he soon 
 began so powerfully and impressively to preach. As yet 
 his life went on peacefully, with little beyond events of 
 domestic interest to stir it. But the birth of his eldest son 
 in 1847, and the fact that the child was named after its 
 godfather, Frederick Denison Maurice, reminds us of the 
 influence that Maurice was exercising over the minds of 
 thoughtful men Hke Kingsley at this time. 
 
 § 5. Frederick Denison Maurice, 
 
 For if Charles Kingsley was the exponent, Frederick 
 Maurice was the founder, of Christian Socialism in England. 
 Maurice was, like Kingsley, a Cambridge man, born in 1805, 
 and a student at Trinity Hall, where he obtained a first-class 
 in civil law in 1827. After doing some literary work in 
 London, and being for some time editor of the Athenceum^ 
 he decided to enter the ministry of the Church of England. 
 With this object he went to Oxford and took a classical 
 course, and was ordained in 1834. After a short spell of 
 country parish work he was appointed chaplain of Guy's 
 Hospital, and became thenceforward ''a sensible factor in 
 the intellectual and social Hfe of London." He also became 
 later a Professor of History and Literature, and subsequently 
 of Divinity, at King's College; but in 1853 was deprived 
 of these offices for publishing in his Theological Essays 
 opinions on the subject of eternal punishment which did 
 
l6o CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 not commend themselves to the College. But in 1866 he 
 was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, 
 and held that post till his death in 1872. For nine years 
 (1860-69) he was vicar of St. Peter's, Vere Street, but had 
 no parish attached to his church. Hence he had all the 
 more time for social work, and became identified with two 
 important educational institutions — the Working-Men's 
 College, and the Queen's College for Women. He gave 
 eager support to the Christian Socialist schemes of co-opera- 
 tive production and to other forms of co-operation, and if 
 his fame as a social reformer is obscured by his reputation 
 as a " Broad Churchman," it is perhaps because his views 
 were in advance of his age. 
 
 Kingsley's own view of social questions, and who was to 
 solve them, was coloured very largely by his inherited pre- 
 disposition towards the upper classes. These indeed he 
 considered to be the true leaders of the people. A peer 
 and a dean seemed to him to be the persons most fitted 
 to discharge such an office, and it is curious to trace this 
 belief of his to the hereditary traditions of his family. The 
 descendant, on his father's side, of a race of country squires, 
 and, on his mother's, of West-Indian planters, he was hardly 
 the man to agree to the theory that the only leader of the 
 people is the people itself. Yet he had a passionate 
 sympathy for the poor and weak, and became through many 
 a stormy day of good and evil report their speaker, guide 
 and protector. 
 
 § 6. Eversley Rectory and the Rector. 
 
 But as yet he continued to look on at the stirring events 
 of the time from the quiet seclusion of Eversley Rectory. 
 A beautiful description of that rich home life is given by onf 
 
EVERSLEY RECTORY AND THE RECTOR. i6i 
 
 of his friends at this time : *' The picturesque, bow-windowed 
 rectory rises to memory as it stood with its doors and 
 windows open on certain hot summer days ; the sloping 
 bank with its great fir-tree ; the garden — a gravel sweep 
 before the drawing-room and dining-room, and a grass-plat 
 before the study, hedged off from the walk — and the tall, 
 active figure of the Rector tramping up and down one or the 
 other. The manuscript of the book he was writing lay open 
 upon a rough standing-desk, which was merely a shelf pro- 
 jecting from the wall ; his pupil, treated like his own son, was 
 working in the dining-room ; his guests perhaps lounging 
 on the lawn, or reading in the study. He would work him- 
 self into a sort of white heat over his book, till, too excited 
 to write more, he would calm himself down with a pipe, 
 pacing his grass-plat in thought with long strides. He was 
 a great smoker, and tobacco was to him a needful sedative. 
 During his afternoon walks he would visit one or another 
 of his very scattered hamlets or single cottages on the heaths, 
 and those who have read My Winter Garden know how 
 he loved the moor under all its aspects, and the great groves 
 of firs. 
 
 "Nothing was more real than Kingsley's visiting. He 
 believed absolutely in the message he bore to the poor, and 
 in the health his ministrations conveyed to their souls ; but 
 he was at the same time a zealous sanitary reformer, and 
 cared for their bodies also. I was with him once when he 
 visited a sick man suffering from fever. The atmosphere of 
 the little ground-floor bedroom was horrible ; but before the 
 Rector said a word he ran up-stairs, and, to the great 
 astonishment of the inhabitants of the cottage, bored with 
 a large auger he had brought with him, several holes above 
 the sick man's head for ventilation." One can still imagine 
 
 M 
 
i62 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 the tall and spare Rector, with his sinewy, rather than 
 powerful frame, his swarthy complexion and piercing eye, 
 hurrying about his parish, ever eager and active, ever doing 
 some kindly action for his people. For kindliness was the 
 greatest ingredient in his nature ; it kept in check his quick 
 temper, which, though hot, was under rigid control, and 
 through it shone the essential tenderness, love, and gentleness 
 of his manly disposition. 
 
 § 7. The Chartist Agitation. 
 
 Thus for awhile he watched the great stream of modern 
 history rolling past him afar off, till at length came news of 
 the Chartist rising, and Kingsley could contain hhnself no 
 longer, but went up to London to take his share in the 
 work. This was in 1848, the year in which the great 
 Chartist Movement, which had been gathering force for the 
 past ten years, culminated, and then collapsed. The 
 Reform Bill of 1832, much though it did, especially when 
 compared with the state of things before its enactment, had 
 left the working-classes of the country dissatisfied. They 
 felt that not they, but the middle classes, had gained most 
 by it. Accordingly, in 1838, six members of the House of 
 Commons held a conference with some deputies of the 
 Working-Men's Association, and produced a " Charter," 
 which demanded these six points — Annual Parliaments, 
 Universal Suffrage, Voting by Ballot, the Abolition of 
 property qualification for Members of Parliament, Payment 
 of Members, and Equal Electoral districts. As we look 
 back upon them now, these demands seem almost ludic- 
 rously moderate, compared with the extraordinary excitement 
 which they produced, both among supporters and opponents. 
 But people were not yet used to the methods of democratic 
 
THE CHARTIST AGITATION. 163 
 
 politics : and when monster meetings were held, and much 
 strong language was used, the whole affair was taken with 
 the utmost seriousness. Collisions with the police and 
 military occurred, and created bad feeling. Huge petitions 
 were got up amid wild enthusiasm ; new newspapers were 
 started, with what seemed then a tremendous circulation; and 
 of one of them — The Northern Star — the well-known Feargus 
 O'Connor became editor. In 1840 the National Charter 
 Association was inaugurated at Manchester with 400 sister 
 societies, and some 40,000 members. The Chartists stood 
 by themselves, for all efforts at coalition with the moderate 
 Radicals of that day failed, and their sympathy with the 
 Parisian revolutionaries of 1848 caused them to be suspected 
 of the wildest tendencies. It was a time of much distress 
 among the working-classes, and excitement in their ranks 
 became intense. There were agitations and risings at 
 Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Manchester among the manu- 
 facturing population, and everybody seemed to fear an 
 outbreak of unusual violence. Then a great demonstration 
 was announced to be held in London on April loth, 1848, 
 at Kennington Common. A monster procession was to be 
 formed to present the petition for the Six Points of the Charter 
 to Parliament. Owing to the fear of violence, this procession 
 was forbidden by the Government, and the Duke of Well- 
 ington, who was called upon to defend London, took 
 military precautions of an amusingly elaborate nature. 
 
 But, like many other demonstrations, the Chartist pro- 
 cession collapsed. Only 50,000 people assembled at 
 Kennington Common. O'Connor and Ernest Jones, their 
 leaders, did not conduct the procession to the Houses of 
 Parliament ; and though the Monster Petition was presented, 
 the whole affair fell miserably flat. Indeed, it had been 
 
i64 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 taken altogether too seriously, and if it had occurred to- 
 day, would have met with the same good-natured indifference 
 that is accorded impartially to the annual meetings of the 
 National Liberal Federation or the Union of Conservative 
 Associations by the mass of the people, who, after all, do 
 not care much for politics. 
 
 § 8. ''Parson Lot's'' Papers. 
 
 But in those days such indifference was impossible. The 
 year 1848 was a period of revolution in continental countries, 
 and many men, including Charles Kingsley, feared that 
 revolution might occur among the working-classes at home. 
 The Rector of Eversley preached to his people on the 
 poHtical and social disturbances of the day; and then, 
 when the news of the Chartist demonstration came to his 
 quiet country parish, he could no longer remain at home, 
 but rushed up to London to see what was going on. The 
 tenth of April, as we can see from his hurried letters to his 
 wife, was a day of the most intense mental excitement to- 
 him. He sat up till four in the morning, writing placards 
 under the auspices of his friend and leader, Maurice. These 
 placards, written in the fever of those excited April days, 
 were followed by a number of tracts on questions of the 
 day, and by a periodical entitled Politics for the People. It 
 is a curious fact that the contributors to this paper were 
 nearly all University men, clergymen of the Church of 
 England, London barristers, and men of science ; and 
 though a short-lived publication, it was remarkable in many 
 ways. A few letters from working-men were admitted, but 
 the feeling that " the natural leaders of the people were a 
 peer and a dean," was perhaps a characteristic of its general 
 tone. The most interesting contribution for us is the series 
 
'PARSON LOT'S' PAPERS. 165 
 
 of Letters to the Chartists^ written by Charles Kingsley, 
 under the name of " Parson Lot." Strangely enough, they 
 were interpreted by his contemporaries of his own class as 
 being of the most violent and revolutionary character. As 
 a matter of fact, they were a series of constant exhortations 
 to abstain not only from actual violence, but even from 
 many legislative reforms, till the working-classes should be 
 fit to receive them. " Be wise, and then you will be free, 
 for then you will \>^ fit to be free," are the concluding words 
 of his first placard, and the whole of his subsequent teaching 
 and writing was directed to guiding men in the paths of true 
 wisdom in social difficulties. The error of the Chartists, he 
 says, consisted in imagining that legislative reform was social 
 reform, or that man's heart can be changed by Act of 
 Parliament. His own error consisted in underrating the 
 effects of social legislation upon social conditions. One 
 might say that he believed more in the modification of the 
 individual than of his environment, or rather overlooked the 
 immense influence of the environment upon the individual. 
 We must recognize the necessity of reform in both cases if 
 we are to produce any lasting result. At the same time we 
 cannot recognize too fully, or emphasize too strongly, the 
 absolute necessity of the doctrine of self-reformation of the 
 individual presented by Kingsley, especially as at this time 
 the other side of the case, the possibility of entire reform by 
 Act of Parliament, is so frequently presented to us. To-day, 
 as much as ever, are Kingsley' s words of warning true : 
 " God will only reform society on condition of our reforming 
 every man his own self, while the devil is quite ready to help 
 us to mend the laws and the Parliament, earth and heaven, 
 without ever starting such an impertinent and * personal ' 
 request, as that a man should mend himself." 
 
I66 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 § 9. * Yeast.' 
 
 It was while he was thus teaching the working-classes 
 that he was writing his first novel, Yeasf, the most sympa- 
 thetic and accurate sketch of the English agricultural 
 labourer that had ever appeared. It came out monthly 
 during the autumn of 1848 in Fraser's Magazine ; and we 
 may look upon it as stating pretty clearly his own views on 
 social questions at that epoch. Chaotic and somewhat 
 uncertain these were in some respects ; but the book was 
 written "with his heart's blood," and declared one main 
 truth with no uncertainty at all — the belief that "the 
 ancient creed, the Eternal Gospel, will stand and conquer, 
 and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other for 
 1800 years, by claiming and subduing and organizing those 
 young anarchic forces, which now, unconscious of their 
 parentage, rebel against Him to whom they owe their 
 being." But, while thus holding this belief with all the 
 fervid assurance of God's overruling providence in human 
 affairs that is so strong a characteristic of him, Kingsley did 
 not hesitate to declare the state of the country to be 
 ominous, or to speak of the economic conditions of society 
 as utterly rotten and confused. To what end it all tended 
 he hardly knew, but he had fears for the very worst. " If 
 the signs of the times mean anything," he says, "they por- 
 tend a somewhat mysterious and mythical denouement to this 
 very age. Why should not this age, as all other like it have 
 done, end in a cataclysm, and a prodigy and a mystery ? " 
 
 The cataclysm has not come, but it has only been averted 
 by measures which men in the days of 1848 would have 
 called socialistic, and by the recognition of the rights of 
 working-men to act for themselves, and to have a larger 
 
^. 
 
 * YEAST.' 167 
 
 share in the government of their state. What Kingsley's 
 views were about the rights of the mass of the people may- 
 be seen from the speech of his hero, Lancelot Smith, in 
 Yeasf: " If a man living in civilized society has one right 
 which he can demand, it is this, that the State which exists 
 by his labour shall enable him to develop, or at least not to 
 hinder his developing, his whole faculties to the very utmost, 
 however lofty that may be. While a man who might be an 
 author remains a spade-drudge, or a journeyman while he 
 has capacities for a master, while any man able to rise in 
 life remains by social circumstances lower than he is willing 
 to place himself, that man has a right to complain of the 
 State's injustice and neglect." And again : " It did strike 
 him that the few might possibly be made for the many, and 
 not the many for the few, and that property was made for 
 man, and not man for property." But apart from any such 
 mere statements of views, Yeasf presents a truly marvellous 
 picture of the agricultural labourer ; marvellous because it is 
 so true, startling because it is so real. The description of 
 his daily labour in the fields, his miserable and filthy and 
 overcrowded home, his dull and sodden amusements, his 
 hopelessness and lurking savagery — all are drawn in painfully 
 livid colours. Yet even in drawing this picture Kingsley 
 had hope, for he had a very living faith in a divine purpose 
 underlying all things ; and when, some years afterwards, he 
 wrote a preface to a second edition of his novel (1859), he 
 seemed to think that much improvement had already been 
 made. 
 
 § 10. ^ Alton Locked 
 
 Meanwhile, his reformer's spirit soon found fresh ground 
 on which to work. Turning from the fields to the city, he 
 
i68 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 was horrified at the disclosures about the sweating system 
 among working tailors that had come under his notice 
 during his active work in London. The year 1849 was 
 a cholera year, both in London and in the country; and 
 Kingsley worked incessantly in both town and country to 
 promote the cause of sanitary reform, to get at least pure 
 water and fresh air for the people. All the while Alton 
 Locke was taking shape amidst his other work, and in 1850 
 was ready. But the author had enormous difficulty in find- 
 ing a publisher for it. Messrs Parker, who had issued Yeast 
 and Politics for the People^ thought their reputation was 
 suffering by these outspoken books, and would have no 
 more. Thomas Carlyle came to the rescue, and gave 
 Kingsley an introduction to Messrs Chapman and Hall, 
 who brought it out. But now Kingsley was to feel the 
 wrath of the privileged classes whom he had ventured to 
 warn of their shortcomings. The press, and especially the 
 religious press, received Alton Locke either with scorn or 
 bitter animosity. But yet the nobler minds of the day 
 appreciated its truth and honesty of purpose, and the 
 artisans who read it received it with joy as a true picture of 
 their class and their conditions of life. *' Containing more 
 faults, sweeping accusations, and hasty conclusions than 
 any of his writings," says one critic, " it is yet his greatest 
 poem, and his grandest sermon." Carlyle called it crude, 
 but found in it " everywhere a certain wild intensity, which 
 holds the reader fast as by a spell." Many people identified 
 Kingsley's thoughts with those of his hero in his most bitter 
 moments, and looked upon the Rector of Eversley not only 
 as a disgrace to his Church, but as a destroyer of society. 
 They could not understand the great thought which under- 
 lies the whole book; the thought expressed by the hero 
 
KINGSLEY AND HIS OPPONENTS. 169 
 
 looking back upon the bitter strife and wild remedies in 
 which he had once had hope : " For my part, I seem to 
 have learnt that the only thing to regenerate the world 
 is not more of any system, good or bad, but simply more 
 of the Spirit of God." That is the keynote of Christian 
 Socialism. 
 
 § II. Kings ley and his Opponents. 
 
 Charles Kingsley was soon to find how greatly he was 
 misunderstood. A blow came upon him when he least 
 expected it. The Christian Socialists as a body had now 
 attracted considerable attention, and " Parson Lot's " tract 
 on Cheap Clothes and Nasty ^ in which Kingsley denounced 
 the sweating system, and those who by buying cheap clothes 
 supported it, had already become famous. Frederick Maurice 
 and some other London clergymen organized in 185 1, the 
 year of the Great Exhibition, a series of lectures and sermons 
 on social questions. Kingsley was naturally invited to join 
 in the series, and arranged to give a sermon on "The 
 Message of the Church to the Labouring Men." The 
 sermon was to be given with the full permission of the 
 incumbent, Mr. Drew, and on its delivery was listened to 
 with profound attention by a large congregation. In one 
 part of his discourse Kingsley uttered the following out- 
 spoken words : " I assert that the business for which God 
 sends a Christian priest into a Christian nation is to preach 
 and practise liberty, equality, and brotherhood, in the fullest, 
 deepest, widest, simplest meaning of those great words ; 
 that, in as far as he so does, he is a true priest, doing his 
 Lord's will, and with his Lord's blessing on him. All 
 systems of society which favour the accumulation of capital 
 in a few hands, which oust the masses from the soil which 
 
170 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 their forefathers possessed of old, which reduce them to the 
 level of serfs and day-labourers, living on wages and on 
 alms, which crush them down with debt, or in any wise 
 degrade and enslave them, or deny them a permanent stake 
 in the commonwealth, are contrary to the kingdom of God 
 which Jesus proclaimed." 
 
 No sooner had this sermon ended than the incumbent of 
 the church in which it was preached stood up and declared 
 that, while he agreed with much that had been said, it was 
 his duty to add that he believed much of it to be dangerous 
 and untrue. Naturally, this produced immense excitement 
 in the congregation. Kingsley said nothing, but gave the 
 blessing with deepened solemnity, and left the pulpit. He 
 returned to his home at Eversley exhausted and depressed. 
 
 The note of opposition thus once sounded, soon became 
 louder and louder. A leading daily paper attacked the 
 preacher ; he was called in derision and anger " The Apostle 
 of Socialism " ; the Bishop of London in a hasty moment, 
 without knowing all the facts of the case, forbade him to 
 preach in London. To a man of Kingsley's temperament, 
 such attacks were more than he could bear. Quite exhausted 
 with work and controversy, he had to go to the Rhineland 
 for a complete change. His " storm and stress " period was 
 upon him ; and though it was coming to a close, the end of 
 it had been the hardest of all. 
 
 § 12. His Work and Social Views. 
 
 After that storm there came a calm. His next great book, 
 Hypatia^ did not touch the social problems of his own age, 
 but none the less he was working at them with undiminished 
 energy. But literary denunciation was laid aside for the 
 practical work of sanitary reform, the better housing of the 
 
HIS WORK AND SOCIAL VIEWS. 171 
 
 working-classes, and the promotion of co-operation. One 
 of his pupils, Mr. Martineau, states the gradual change 
 very well; " In later years he gradually modified or 
 abandoned his democratic opinions, thereby, of course, 
 drawing down upon himself the charge of inconsistency 
 from those who considered that he had deserted them. To 
 me, looking back at what he was when he wrote Alton Locke 
 and Yeasty the change seems rather the natural development 
 of his mind and character under more or less altered cir- 
 cumstances, partly because he saw the world about him 
 really improving, partly because by experience he found 
 society and other existing institutions more full of healthy 
 life, more willing to be taught, more available as instruments 
 of good than he had formerly thought. But at that time 
 (about 1850) in his books and pamphlets, and often in his 
 familiar daily speech, he was pouring out the whole force of 
 his eager passionate heart in wrath and indignation against 
 starvation wages, stifling workshops, reeking alleys, careless 
 landlords, roofless and crowded cottages, hard and canting 
 religion. His Poachet^s Widow is a piercing, heart-rend- 
 ing cry to heaven for vengeance against the oppressor. 
 * There is a righteous God,' is its burden, * and such things 
 cannot and shall not remain to deface the world which He 
 has made. Laws, constitutions, are none of His if they 
 tolerate such ; they are accursed, and must perish — destroy 
 what they may in their fall. Nay, they will perish in their 
 own corruption.' " 
 
 § 13. The Christian Socialists and Co-operation. 
 
 This fierceness of spirit abated in later years, but the 
 natural intensity of Charles Kingsley found its vent in 
 practical work. To him, and to his friends Maurice and 
 
172 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 Thomas Hughes, the co-operative movement, as we know 
 it to-day, owes much of its success. The Christian Socialists 
 did not take it up at first altogether in the form in which it 
 had been started by the Rochdale pioneers of 1844. They 
 sought to establish productive co-operative workshops, 
 organized labour associations, with co-operation instead of 
 competition as their motto. Associations of this kind had 
 been set on foot in Paris, and Mr. Ludlow, a friend of 
 Kingsley and Maurice, had visited them to see something 
 of their working. The Christian Socialists started them in 
 London, the Tailors' Association being a direct outcome of 
 Alton Locke; and a new publication, the Christian Socialist^ 
 was set up in order " to diffuse the principles of co-operation 
 by the practical application of Christianity to the purposes 
 of trade and industry." But opposition was fierce and 
 bitter. The Christian Socialist movement and all connected 
 therewith were fiercely attacked, both in the Edinburgh and 
 Quarterly Reviews, who regarded socialism and communism 
 as identical, and displayed the usual ignorance and bitter- 
 ness that is accorded by " respectable " people to any new 
 scheme for the self-improvement of the working-classes. 
 Of course such attacks made no difference in Kingsley. 
 "The Co-operative movement entirely approved itself to 
 his conscience and judgment, and mastered him so that he 
 was ready to risk whatever had to be risked in fighting its 
 battles." He was in 1852 a cordial supporter of co-operative 
 work in London, though his parish duties prevented him 
 from helping personally ; and although, as every one knows, 
 these first co-operative associations for production failed, 
 Kingsley never wavered in his belief in the general principle 
 of association. The success of the movement on its dis- 
 tributive side, and recent new developments of co-operative 
 
KINGSLEY AS A SANITARY REFORMER. 173 
 
 production, have more than justified that belief. A letter 
 of his to Mr. J. Nichols in 1856 puts the whole question in 
 a nutshell : " Association," Kingsley declares, " will be the 
 next form of industrial development, I doubt not, for pro- 
 duction; but it will require two generations of previous 
 training, both in morality and in drill, to make the workman 
 capable of it. Association for distribution is what I look 
 to with far higher hope. I am sure, for example, that if the 
 method of the People's Stores and Mills at Rochdale were 
 generally carried out, the saving to wages, to public honesty, 
 and (considering the present adulteration of goods) to 
 public health, would be immense." And the sum of the 
 whole matter is grandly stated in another letter of Kingsley's, 
 containing these words : " Now as for any schemes of 
 Maurice's or mine — it is a slight matter whether they have 
 failed or not. The failure of a hundred schemes would not 
 alter my conviction. For it is my belief that not self-interest 
 but self-sacrifice is the only law upon which human society 
 can be grounded with any hope of prosperity or per- 
 manence." 
 
 § 14. Kingsley as a Sanitary Reformer, 
 
 Not only as a promoter of the co-operative movement, 
 but as a sanitary reformer, Kingsley's influence has borne 
 lasting results. We have already mentioned that the summer 
 of 1849 was particularly unhealthy. Cholera was prevalent 
 in many parts of England. The progress of the epidemic 
 roused all Kingsley's eager activity. He began a crusade 
 against dirt and bad drainage ; and one may use the word 
 crusade very appropriately in his case, for he had all the 
 fervour, religious and physical, all the eagerness and all the 
 impatience of the crusaders of the middle ages. The terrible 
 
174 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 revelations about the London water-supply that came to 
 light in this year, disgusted and sickened him indeed, but 
 made him all the more eager to be up and doing. He went 
 up to London again, and in October (1849) went over the 
 cholera districts of Bermondsey. " Oh God ! what I saw ! " 
 he writes to his wife ; *' people having no water to drink — 
 hundreds of them — but the water of the common sewer, 
 which stagnated, full of dead fish, cats and dogs, under their 
 windows. At the time cholera was raging Walsh saw them 
 throwing untold horrors into the ditch, and then dipping 
 the water out and drinking it ! 1 And, mind, these not dirty 
 debauched Irish, but honest, hard-working artisans. It is 
 most pathetic to see the poor souls struggle for cleanhness, 
 to see how they scrub and polish their little scrap of pave- 
 ment, and then go through the house, and see ' society ' 
 leaving at the back poison and filth such as would drive a 
 lady mad with disgust in twenty-four hours. Oh, that I 
 had the tongue of Saint James to plead for these poor 
 fellows ! to tell what I saw myself, to stir up some rich men 
 to go and rescue them from the tyranny of the small, shop- 
 keeping landlords, who get their rents out of the flesh and 
 blood of these men." Well might Kingsley wish for the 
 tongue of an apostle to expose such abominations ; the pity 
 of it is that they are exposed over and over again, and no 
 one cares ; the landlord draws his rent as usual, and the 
 tenants do not care to be disturbed. 
 
 § 15. TAe Housing of the Poor. 
 It is nearly fifty years ago since the reformer exclaimed, 
 " Do not let them wait for committee meetings and investi- 
 gations. While they will be maundering about vested in- 
 terests and such-like, the people are dying." It is nearly 
 fifty years ago, and how little has been done 1 Rookeries 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 175 
 
 and slums exist in large numbers, not in London only, but 
 in every large and small town, and many a country labourer's 
 cottage is in no better plight. The vested int- ests are 
 very strong, and the majority of the population are very 
 callous. Kingsley wished that " one-tenth part of the 
 money which has been spent in increasing, by mistaken 
 benevolence, the cruelties of the slave trade, had been spent 
 in buying up these nests of typhus, consumption, and cholera, 
 and rebuilding them into habitations fit, I do not say for civil- 
 ized Englishmen — that would be too much ! — but for hogs 
 even." His wish shows very plainly how conservative he was 
 with all his so-called socialism. He would give money to the 
 owners, who got their rents, as he himself puts it, out of the 
 flesh and blood of these men ; where modern socialists would 
 say outright (although there is another side to the question) 
 that men who so abused their rights as owners of property 
 deserved no compensation at all. This view seemed never to 
 strike Kingsley. He exclaimed angrily : " Why are you 
 so confoundedly merciful and tender-hearted ? Do you 
 actually fancy you can talk those landlords into repentance ? 
 Are men capable of repentance who will go on doing what 
 they have been doing ? " But his own class instincts pre- 
 vented him from taking the standpoint of a modern sociaHst 
 reformer : and, of course, all the views of scientific socialists 
 about the ownership of land would have revolted Kingsley's 
 mind and feelings altogether. 
 
 § 16. If?iportance of Sanitary Science. 
 
 As years went on the eagerness for sanitary reform, which 
 
 he showed so keenly in Bermpndsey and elsewhere in 1849, 
 
 increased rather than diminished. He devoted more and 
 
 more of his time, thought, and influence to it — and his 
 
176 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 influence had become very considerable since the days of 
 Alton Locke and Yeast. He had become one of her 
 Majesty's chaplains (1859), and Professor of Modern History 
 at Cambridge (i860), and in 1861 was invited to give private 
 instruction to the Prince of Wales. The increased influence 
 that these honours brought him he used abundantly in the 
 cause of sanitary science — in the publication of the laws of 
 health, in the deliverance of men's bodies and homes from 
 disease and dirt, and, by so doing, helping on their deliver- 
 ance from the usual consequences of drunkenness, vice and 
 poverty. These became in his eyes more important than 
 any political reforms. But perhaps the most striking example 
 of his eager urging on of sanitary reform was when he 
 preached a sermon on " National Sorrows and National 
 Lessons," at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, on the day of 
 thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from 
 fever, and in the course of his sermon hoped that the 
 Prince's illness would "awaken all loyal citizens to demand 
 and enforce a sanitary reform in town and country, imme- 
 diate, wholesale, imperative." Since those eager words 
 were spoken, much has been done, but much more yet 
 remains. On this point, as on many others of social 
 importance, Kingsley was too hopeful. 
 
 § 17. Kingsley on Woman and her Mission. 
 
 One more question remains with which we have not yet 
 dealt, namely, Kingsley's views of women and women's work. 
 On the great "woman question," that has caused so much 
 acrimonious, ignorant, and absolutely foolish controversy, he 
 spoke with no uncertain voice. Many modern sentimen- 
 talists would call him brutal. " Man is a sexual animal," 
 said Kingsley boldly, in a letter on the subject. This fact 
 
KINGSLEY ON WOMAN AND HER MISSION. 177 
 
 is constantly ignored by modern disputants, by men as well 
 as women, and those who allude to it, be it ever so deli- 
 cately, are called brutal and indecent. Nevertheless, the 
 fact is there, and there is no getting over it. People may 
 believe Genesis or not, as they please, but the words " male 
 and female created He them," express a physical fact and a 
 general principle, which, independently of Genesis, is verified 
 in the person of each one of us. Not being subject to 
 mental hysteria or false delicacy, Kingsley was able to 
 perceive and state these facts clearly, and his letter to John 
 Stuart Mill on " Woman's Rights " forms an admirable com- 
 mentary upon the whole subject. The sum and substance 
 of it is, that medical education of women is the only phase 
 of the woman's rights movement which he could support, 
 but this he supported cordially and sympathetically. The 
 whole question is summed up in two sentences. *' I object," 
 he says, *' to the question of woman's right to vote or to 
 labour, and above all, to woman's right to practise as 
 physicians and surgeons, being mixed up with social, /. e. 
 sexual, questions. Of woman's right to be a medical prac- 
 titioner, I hold that it is perhaps the most important social 
 question hanging over us." There is a profound truth in 
 the statement made by Kingsley, that the strength of the 
 movement "lies not in the abnormal, but in the normal 
 type of womanhood," and that " any sound reformation of 
 the relations between woman and man must proceed from 
 women who have fulfilled well their relations as they now 
 exist." At the same time, Kingsley admits that these re- 
 lations are imperfect and unjust, and declares that "wher- 
 ever man and wife are really happy together, it is by ignoring 
 and despising, not by asserting, the subordination of women 
 to man." And, as any one can see, whether in Yeast, or 
 
 N 
 
178 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 Hypatia^ or Two Years Ago^ Charles Kingsley thoroughly 
 and earnestly believed that woman was the proper teacher, 
 " the natural, and therefore divine guide, purifier, inspirer of 
 the man." It is a pretty theory; but, judging from the 
 results of some centuries of such guidance and inspiration, 
 man nevertheless seems to reflect little credit on his teacher. 
 Or could it possibly be the teacher's fault ? This, however, 
 is heresy. 
 
 § 1 8. Kingsley* s Characteristics. 
 
 We have endeavoured, very imperfectly, to give some of 
 the main points of Kingsley's social teaching. We have seen 
 that his socialism was of a very mild type, especially in his 
 later years, and hardly corresponds at all to the socialism 
 of to-day. The fact was that Kingsley remained all his life 
 an aristocrat, sympathizing indeed with the wants of the 
 people, but in his heart of hearts abhorring democracy. 
 He looked for the salvation of society to come from its 
 higher ranks, not from its lower. Perhaps he was right, yet 
 neither class seems at present very promising. In any case, 
 Kingsley hated demagogues. Throughout his life, his books 
 and his works, he remained essentially an English country 
 gentleman, with all the special virtues, but also with all 
 the limitations of his type. The best and the truest that 
 can be said of him is that in every vicissitude and depart- 
 ment of life he was pre-eminently a man ; and, after all, as 
 things go now-a-days, that is a high meed of praise. No 
 one has so well summed up his whole career as his friend 
 Max Miiller in his recollections of the chamber of death at 
 Eversley Rectory.^ "One remembered the young curate 
 and the Saints' Tragedy ; the Chartist parson and Alton 
 ^ Charles Kingsley died on January 23rd, 1875, 
 
KINGSLEVS CHARACTERISTICS. 179 
 
 Locke; the happy poet and the Sa?ids of Dee; the 
 brilliant novel-writer and Hypatia and Westward Ho ! the 
 Rector of Eversley and his Village Sermons ; the beloved 
 professor at Cambridge, the busy canon at Chester, the 
 powerful preacher at Westminster Abbey. One thought 
 of him by the Berkshire chalk-streams, and on the Devon- 
 shire coast, watching the beauty and wisdom of Nature. 
 One saw him in town alleys, preaching the gospel of godliness 
 and cleanliness, while smoking his pipe with soldiers and 
 navvies. But as one looked at him for the last time on 
 earth, one felt that greater than the poet, the professor, the 
 canon, had been the man himself, with his warm heart, his 
 honest purposes, his trust in his friends, his readiness to 
 spend himself, his chivalry and humility, worthy of a better 
 age." 
 
 Charles Kingsley's last words were those of the wonderful 
 prayer of the burial service, words which express better than 
 anything less sacred the whole attitude of his mind and soul 
 throughout his busy life : " Thou knowest, O Lord, the 
 secrets of our hearts; shut not Thy merciful ears to our 
 prayer, but spare us, O Lord most holy, O God most 
 mighty, and suffer us not at our last hour, for any pains of 
 death, to fall from Thee." 
 
NOTES ON AUTHORITIES. 
 
 1. Charles Kingsley ; his Letters and Memories of his Life: 
 
 edited by his wife in two volumes ; also (abridged) in one 
 volume (London : Kegan Paul : 1885). 
 
 2. Kingsley's novels ; especially Alto7i Locke, Yeast, and Two 
 
 Years Ago (Macmillan: various editions, from 6^. upwards). 
 The edition of Alton Locke with the preface by Thomas 
 Hughes should be read if possible. 
 
 3. Life and Letters of F. D. Maurice: in two vols. (Macmillan : 
 
 1884). There is also a small volume by Colonel Maurice 
 (London : Methuen). 
 
 4. Christian Socialisfn : by Rev. M. Kaufmann (London : 
 
 Sonnenschein : 1888). 
 
 5. (For Co-operation) The Co-operative Movement To-day: by 
 
 G. J. Holyoake (London : Methuen), and the same author's 
 larger History of Co-operation ^ in two volumes* 
 
CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
CARLYLE AND RUSKIN, 
 
 I. THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 § I. Introductory. 
 
 We are not keeping strictly to chronological order in 
 taking Carlyle and Ruskin together after Kingsley and the 
 Christian Socialists j but it is proper to class these two 
 men, so different and yet so alike, by themselves. For the 
 thunders and roarings of Carlyle have united with the calm 
 delicacy of Ruskin to promote an influence for good in the 
 discussion of social questions that is none the less real ''^ 
 because it has not been so direct as that of men more pro- 
 minent as practical social reformers. One is more inclined 
 to look at these two as historian and art-critic ; yet to ignore 
 their reforming influence in modern England would be to 
 fail in recognizing some of the most important factors of 
 social amelioration in the present century. Both Carlyle 
 and Ruskin will live in our history as true prophets, for 
 they have been the two greatest inspirers and awakeners of*^ 
 the mind of England in an age in which the mental and 
 spiritual faculties of our race have sometimes seemed in 
 danger of succumbing to the material. 
 
I84 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 § 2. Carlylis Early Life and School-mastering, 
 
 The two men were very dissimilar in the circumstances of 
 their birth ; for Carlyle was the son of a poor working-man, 
 a mason, born in an obscure Scotch village ; while Ruskin's 
 father was a comfortable and prosperous merchant, living 
 in a well-to-do district of London. Let us follow Carlyle's 
 career first. He was more than twenty years older than 
 John Ruskin, being born on December 4th, 1795, "i'^ ^ 
 room inconceivably small," at Ecclefechan, a village in the 
 county of Dumfries, not far from the Border. He was the 
 eldest of the nine children who were born to James Carlyle 
 and his wife ; the father stern, rugged, and taciturn, the 
 mother loving and anxious, but severely pious — yet a woman 
 of whom her son could afterwards say that " with her alone 
 my heart played freely." When the little lad, the Scotch 
 labourer's son, was five years old he was sent to the village 
 school, and when he was nine to Annan Grammar School ; 
 and so eventually to the University of Edinburgh. It was a 
 cold November day in the year 1809 when the young student 
 completed his eighty miles' walk from Ecclefechan to the 
 capital, where he was to be prepared, or to prepare himself, 
 as his father hoped, for the ministry of the Kirk. But the 
 youth never took kindly to this idea. On the other hand 
 Carlyle attained a considerable proficiency in mathematics, 
 which study afterwards enabled him to support himself by 
 earning the dry and bitter bread of a schoolmaster ; and in 
 1 8 14 a recommendation from his mathematical professor, 
 Leslie, obtained him the honour of being allowed to teach 
 the budding genius of the youth of Annan Academy in 
 return for J^^jo a year — which, as scholastic appoint- 
 ments go now, was a very fair salary. However, it is satis- 
 
STRUGGLES AND INFLUENCES. 185 
 
 factory to find that this was " a situation flatly contradictory 
 to all ideals or wishes of mine." Still he stuck to school- 
 mastering, not finding anything better to do, and in 18 16 
 obtained another post, as master of a school at Kirkcaldy, 
 on the coast of Fife. The head-master of the Grammar 
 School at this town was Edward Irving, and it was the wish 
 of Carlyle's supporters that Carlyle's school should be a 
 rival institution to the Grammar School. But in Irving, so 
 far from finding a rival, Carlyle found a close and intimate 
 friend, and " but for Irving," he said long after, " I had 
 never known what communion of man with man means." 
 Indeed, Irving's influence was at this time all-important for 
 the young teacher's development. His library took Carlyle 
 away from the arid paths of mathematics to the more 
 human interests of history. And at this time a still more 
 human interest was aroused in Carlyle's heart by his ac- 
 quaintance with Margaret Gordon, a girl of no ordinary 
 depth of character, who foresaw clearly the gifts and the 
 faults of this young and obscure schoolmaster, and declared 
 to him that "genius will render you great," long before 
 Carlyle had written a line of literature. Perhaps she might 
 have been Carlyle's wife, but the fates decided otherwise, 
 and after a short time she passed out of his life. Many years 
 afterwards he saw her, when she was Lady Bannerman, riding 
 in Hyde Park, *' and her eyes (but that was all) said to me 
 almost touchingly, * Yes, yes, that is you.' " 
 
 § 3. Struggles a?id Influences. 
 
 To us now it is perfectly clear that Carlyle would never 
 have succeeded as a schoolmaster, and fortunately he did 
 not. " Some convincing proofs of unpopularity," whatever 
 these may have been, decided his course. He resigned his 
 
l86 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 post and went to Edinburgh, almost penniless and with few 
 prospects of bettering himself. Here he earned a very 
 scanty income by giving private lessons and translating 
 French pamphlets, living chiefly on monthly rations of oat- 
 meal and butter supplied by his father, who was now the 
 tenant of a small farm at Mainhill, near Ecclefechan. These 
 scanty meals and his often enforced fasts at this time 
 were almost certainly the cause of his future terrible enemy, 
 dyspepsia — without which, however, Carlyle would certainly 
 not have been the man he was. It was a cruel time for the 
 young schoolmaster ; but he struggled on and, after a while, 
 found some literary hack-work on the Edinburgh Encyclo- 
 pcedia^ for which he wrote some biographical articles. It 
 was poorly paid but helped him to live. An important 
 episode for his development as a social reformer was his 
 visit to Irving at Glasgow, where he was brought face to 
 face with the dangerous discontent of the workmen there, 
 who had to exist in enforced idleness owing to the industrial 
 depression of 1820 and previous years. For, although the 
 great Continental wars of 1795 to 1815 were now over, 
 and Napoleon was removed to his sea-washed prison in the 
 Atlantic, England had by no means yet recovered from the 
 strain of that terrible contest. It is true that the manu- 
 facturers and merchants were doing fairly well and pouring 
 a large quantity of English goods into the European markets, 
 but by 1820 the stimulus caused by the declaration of peace 
 had faded away; prices had gone down ; and then in 18 16 
 and 181 7 a couple of bad harvests, whose effects were 
 accentuated by the old Corn Laws, had caused widespread 
 distress among the working-classes. A commercial crisis 
 followed that reached its culminating point in 18 19, and 
 was followed after a few years' recovery by another in 1825. 
 
SLOW PROGRESS. 187 
 
 Such being the state of industrial England, no thinking 
 man could fail to have his mind drawn very largely towards 
 social and industrial problems. Thus, all unconsciously, 
 Carlyle received in his visit to Glasgow impressions and 
 influences that were afterwards to bring forth the " winged 
 words " of his social writings. 
 
 § 4. Slow Progress, 
 
 Meanwhile he was very miserable. Care, hunger, and 
 sleeplessness tortured him. He was a good deal at his 
 father's farm at Mainhill in 1820 and 182 1, and spent 
 much of his time ranging the moors round his home in 
 loneliness and mental misery. But this summer brought a 
 new light into his life, in his acquaintance, through Irving, 
 with Jane Baillie Welsh : and a correspondence sprang up 
 between them, though not at first relating to much more than 
 the girl's studies. But a new era had dawned for Thomas 
 Carlyle, and, like his own Teufelsdrockh, he felt he had at 
 length discomfited the "Everlasting No." 
 
 He had for some time studied the German language, 
 and was now sufficiently acquainted with it to read and 
 enjoy its literature, for which he conceived a great enthu- 
 siasm, and in especial for the works of Goethe. It was 
 now by translations from this literature that he first became 
 known to the world of books and their makers. His Life of 
 Schiller hQg2in to appear in the London Magazine in 1823, 
 to which periodical Charles Lamb and De Quincey were 
 then contributors. Then came his translation of Goethe's 
 Wilhelm Meister. Meanwhile, by Irving' s help, he had 
 been asked to become tutor to the three sons of Charles 
 BuUer, a retired Anglo-Indian, and lived with that family 
 at Edinburgh, and at their shooting-box in Perthshire. He 
 
I88 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 went with them to London in June 1823, but soon after- 
 wards gave up his tutorship. Still he remained in London 
 — with the exception of two short excursions to Paris and 
 Birmingham — and saw much of his friend Irving, and 
 something of other notabilities, such as Coleridge and 
 Lamb. But the great influence upon his London life at 
 this time was London itself. As yet, however, he was still 
 only a struggling, though not quite unsuccessful, literary 
 man, whose chief claim to recognition was a thorough 
 sympathy with the spirit of German literature. 
 
 § 5. Marriage and Craigenputtock, 
 
 It was in order to proceed with the translation of a new 
 work, German Romance^ that he now allowed his family to 
 take for him a farm near his father's, called Hoddam Hill ; 
 which farm his brother Alexander managed for him while 
 Thomas Carlyle ''lived a russet-coated idyll" — writing ten 
 pages of translation every day, and riding or walking over 
 the wide, wild moors. Meanwhile his love for Jane Welsh 
 had ripened till he could withstand it no longer; and at 
 length after many difficulties the two became betrothed, and 
 finally (October 17th, 1826) were married and settled down 
 in Edinburgh, where the young husband hoped to support 
 himself by literary work. 
 
 But he had a hard time, and the newly-married pair were 
 often in real want. Luckily, however, Carlyle got some 
 work to do for the Edinburgh Review^ and also for the new 
 Foreign Review^ in which journals he was allowed to write 
 to his heart's content upon his pet subject, German literature. 
 At this period he owed much to the kindness of that much- 
 abused editor, Jeffi-ey, who saw in the new writer the signs 
 of genius, and let him have to a large extent his own way. 
 
'SIGNS OF THE TIMES.* 189 
 
 The Carlyles now found it necessary to give up the Edin- 
 burgh house and settle at Craigenputtock, at the manor of 
 the wife's family, " a lonely farm-house isolated among miles 
 of dreary moorland," in "a solitude altogether Druidical." 
 Here Carlyle still worked at the mines of German literature 
 while his brother Alexander managed the farm ; but the 
 great literary event for his career was his connexion with 
 Fraser's Magazine^ started in February 1830. His first 
 great original work, Sartor Resartus, was taking shape, but 
 Eraser would have none of it. 
 
 Meanwhile, the farming at Craigenputtock did not 
 succeed. After being reduced to " an available capital of 
 twelve pence in coppers," Carlyle had, for almost the only 
 time in his life, to borrow ;£^o from his friend Jeffrey ; and 
 then departed to London to seek a publisher for Sartor 
 Resartus^ comforted in his trials by his wife's remark : *' My 
 dear, this is a work of genius." Unfortunately no pubHsher 
 for the work of genius could be found ; and after some stay 
 in London, and a brief return to Craigenputtock, whose 
 solitude they found unendurable, the Carlyles took up their 
 abode once more in Edinburgh (1832), and the usual essay- 
 writing continued. 
 
 § 6. * Signs of the Times* 
 
 But during this time we find in Carlyle's writings the 
 first notes of the trumpet of social reform that he afterwards 
 blew so loudly. The note was sounded in an essay on 
 Ebenezer EUiott's Corn Law Rhymes (1832), and therein 
 we may discern the line of thought that afterwards was to 
 be developed in Chartism and Past and Present. The 
 thought had already been foreshadowed in the essay on 
 Signs of the Times (1829), in which spiritual Dynamics are 
 
190 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 contrasted with Mechanics, and the current belief in outward 
 institutions that correspond to no inward impetus or con- 
 viction is emphatically denounced. The whole spirit of the 
 age had become, said Carlyle in that Essay,^ entirely 
 mechanical, even as the system of industry under machinery 
 and in factories. " Not the external and physical alone is 
 now managed by machinery, but the internal and spiritual 
 also. . . It is by the mere condition of the machine, by 
 preserving it untouched, or else by reconstructing it, and 
 oiling it anew, that man's salvation as a social being is to 
 be insured and indefinitely promoted." Against this view 
 he protested forcibly, and, as cognate with it, against the 
 merely shopkeeping idea of pure utilitarianism, the mere 
 striking of "a balance of Profit and Loss." It is to 
 spiritual dynamics that he declares man must look for hope, 
 to "the primary, unmodified forces and energies of man, 
 the mysterious springs of Love and Fear and Wonder, of 
 Enthusiasm, Poetry, and Religion — all that have a truly 
 vital and infinite character." 
 
 Now, holding such views as these, it is easy to see that 
 Carlyle had little hope of much good resulting from 
 legislative reforms such as the Corn Laws, or from political 
 propaganda such as Chartism. The true reform must 
 
 ^ proceed from within, not from without, from moral, not 
 mechanical forces. " All reform except a moral one," he re- 
 marks in criticizing, not un sympathetically, Ebenezer Elliott's 
 rough Rhymes^ " will prove unavailing . . . Political reform 
 can indeed root out the weeds, but it leaves the ground 
 
 4. empty— x^dAy either for noble fruits, or for new worse tares." 
 This is the idea running throughout his writings on social 
 subjects ; and it is an idea that we of to day would do well 
 1 Edinburgh Review : vol. xlix., pp. 439—459. 
 
 y 
 
EARLY WORKS, AND LONDON. 191 
 
 even now to take to heart when discussing the many well- 
 meaning schemes so freely propagated for working out our 
 social salvation. The mere alteration of physical and 
 material conditions may do much, but it cannot do every- 
 thing. Man cannot live by bread alone now any more 
 than at any other period of his existence. However fine 
 and sweet the bread may be, at howsoever fine a table he 
 may eat it, there is yet something lacking if the great moral 
 forces of his nature are not also roused into activity. It 
 may be that utterances like these are not what people are 
 pleased to call practical, but yet they contain truths without 
 the acceptance of which practical reformers will find that 
 their reforms are in the long run fruitless. 
 
 § 7. Early Works, and London. 
 
 Between the days of these first signs of Carlyle's 
 increasing interest in social and industrial questions, and 
 the publication of his Chartism at the end of 1839, a great 
 many important changes took place in his life. We can 
 only allude to them briefly in this short sketch. We left 
 him and his wife in Edinburgh, where he was still writing for 
 the reviews, but still without a publisher for Sartor Resartus. 
 At length, however, Eraser, the proprietor of the magazine 
 called by his name, agreed to bring it out in that periodical, 
 and thus it appeared in instalments in 1833 and '34. It 
 was to all appearances a miserable failure, and even a re- 
 print was not to be thought of. So a modest fifty copies 
 were struck off from the magazine type for personal friends, 
 and thus Diogenes Teufelsdrockh and his quaint Clothes- 
 Philosophy came doubtfully into the world. It must have 
 been a bitter disappointment to the author of his being, but 
 even disappointment such as this did not daunt him. An 
 
192 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 impossible attempt to obtain a Professorship of Astronomy 
 at Edinburgh by Jeffrey's influence was frustrated by the 
 perfectly justifiable refusal of Jeffrey to use his influence 
 against a man who had far more knowledge of that subject 
 than Carlyle. This failure, coupled with a small lecture 
 from the great Lord Advocate upon Carlyle's " perverse 
 and foolish affectation of singularity," not perhaps entirely 
 undeserved, decided Carlyle and his wife to leave Scotland, 
 and, in the face of all future risks, to settle down in London. 
 Craigenputtock, which they had again inhabited for a season, 
 was sold ofl", and one day early in June 1834 they entered 
 into number five Cheyne Row, and dwelt there for the rest 
 of their days. 
 
 Being now fairly settled in London, in the society of 
 congenial spirits such as John Stuart Mill, Leigh Hunt, 
 Harriet Martineau, and John Sterling, Thomas Carlyle 
 addressed himself to the great historical task that was at last 
 to make him famous. He wrote the story of the French 
 Revolution, as no man had written it before, or will do here- 
 after. Of that work he could truly declare to the world : 
 " You have not had for a hundred years any book that comes 
 more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man." 
 Having completed it (January 1837) he fled to Scotland and 
 to his own people for three good months of restful idleness. 
 He came back to find himself becoming famous, to find the 
 French Revolution praised on all sides, to welcome even the 
 hitherto neglected Sartor Resartus^ at last creeping slowly into 
 notice. He now addressed himself to new tasks, of which a 
 book on Oliver Cromwell was to be one ; but while prepar- 
 ing this he felt constrained to utter to the world some 
 thoughts on the great and significant movement, both social 
 and political, that took shape in the Chartist agitation. 
 
CARLYLE ON CHARTISM. 193 
 
 § 8. Carlyle on Chartism. 
 
 As we have already had occasion to refer to this movement 
 when speaking of Charles Kingsley (p. 162), we need not 
 dilate further upon it, but may proceed to hear at once what 
 Carlyle had to say about this portent. What he had to say 
 was well worth a hearing. The newspapers were rejoicing 
 loudly and proclaiming that " we have put down the 
 Chimera of Chartism," but Carlyle knew well enough that 
 the ideas and forces that it represented were still alive. 
 The living essence had not been put down so long as there 
 still existed, as there did exist, " the bitter discontent grown 
 fierce and mad, the wrong condition therefore, or wrong 
 disposition, of the working-classes of England." What meant 
 this continual discontent of the working-classes? was it reason- 
 able or not ? And if it was reasonable, as indeed it seemed to 
 be, then why should we not proceed to find some remedy for 
 it ? These questions Carlyle put to himself and the nation; for 
 it seemed to him that the time had come when such questions 
 imperatively demanded an answer, and he at least felt that 
 as far as in him lay it was his duty to try and answer them. 
 The signs of the times had filled him long before with dismay, 
 and almost with despair for the future of England. For it 
 was a time, he had declared, *' when, public and private / 
 principle (as the word was once understood) having gone out 
 of sight, and self-interest being left to plot and struggle and 
 scramble as it could and would, difficulties had accumulated 
 till they were no longer to be borne, and the spirit that 
 should have fronted and conquered them seemed to have 
 forsaken the world ; a time when the Rich, as the utmost 
 they could resolve on, had ceased to govern, and the Poor, 
 in their fast-accumulating numbers and ever-widening com- 
 
 o 
 
194 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 plexities, had ceased to be able to do without governing. 
 And now the plan of Competition and Laisser Faire was on 
 every side approaching its consummation ; and each, bound 
 up in the circle of his own wants and perils, stood grimly 
 distrustful of his neighbour, and the distracted Common 
 Weal was a Common Woe, and to all men it became 
 apparent that the end was drawing nigh." ^ 
 
 § 9. The Condition of England. 
 
 As for the general condition of the working-classes, the great 
 " Condition-of-England " question, their degradation and 
 misery had become a bye-word to European nations. A 
 description of the state of the industrial population about 
 1840, such as that written in such lurid letters by the German 
 Socialist Engels, presents an almost incredible record of 
 starvation, misery, vice, filthiness, and brutality. Four-and- 
 sixpence a week for sixteen hours* work every day was the 
 lot of the stocking-frame workers of Leicester ; ^ and the 
 misery of which this is an instance was spread far and wide. 
 "At the same time the population was huddled together in the 
 towns in filthy dens like wild animals, and women worked 
 like beasts of burden in the mines. The country labourers 
 were almost worse off than the weavers of the towns ; they 
 famished in their dark hovels — no wonder that the skies 
 were reddened by the flames of burning ricks. Not only 
 was there distress, but there was tumult and anger amongst 
 the people, the like of which we have not seen since." ^ 
 This last feature was to Carlyle the most ominous of all. 
 The worst of it was that Parliament never found time to 
 
 1 On Corn Law Rhymes ; Edin. Review, vol. Iv., pp. 338 — 361 
 (1832). 
 * Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 193 and 206. 
 
REMEDIES. 195 
 
 consider it. Carlyle complained that our legislators never 
 found time to speak on " the Condition-of-England question," 
 and remarked bitterly that they went to Parliament for their 
 own sake, and not for the sake of the nation. 
 
 § lo. Remedies. 
 
 Certainly, little help was to be got from Parliament. Nor 
 in his Chartism does Carlyle hope for a solution from 
 statistics or from a mere study of wages and prices. The 
 principle of the New Poor Law, as being an announcement 
 that whosoever will not work ought not to live, commended 
 itself to some extent to his grim spirit, but it seemed to him 
 " not a noble method " of dealing with the current distress \ 
 especially in view of the fact of " the poor man seeking for 
 work and yet unable to find it." As for the doctrines of 
 laisser /aire, and that the ** cash nexus " was the sole bond 
 that need be recognized between master and man, they were 
 simply an abomination unto him. Nor again did Carlyle 
 have any faith in the political panacea of Parliamentary 
 reform, or in the Chartist programme itself. "Reform 
 ministries," he declared, " are as barren as the east wind," 
 and he saw no particular benefit in the universal privilege 
 of sending " the twenty-thousandth part of a master of tongue- 
 fence to the National Palaver." In fact he had little hope 
 in any legislative work, or even in social reform on its material 
 side. A scheme of national education and of systematized 
 emigration seemed to be the only practical outcome of his 
 book, and even in these suggestions he had but little faith. 
 Looking back upon his whole discussion of Chartism, he can 
 only say, " what a black, godless, waste-struggling world in 
 this once merry England do such things betoken ! " 
 
196 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 § II. Carlyle^s chief Teaching, 
 
 It will be seen that Carlyle had not many practical sug- 
 gestions to offer. But he did what was perhaps better — he 
 preached the doctrine of a moral and ethical change in 
 society. He agreed for instance with the principle of the 
 New Poor Law as above stated, but he wished still more to 
 see the law of " no work, no recompense," appHed to every 
 class. "The law of * no work, no recompense ' behoves to 
 be enforced everywhere and rigidly made good," for " work 
 is the mission of man on this earth." But ho7v this universal 
 law is to be enforced, and how every idler, rich or poor (but 
 especially the rich), is to be made to perform his mission, the 
 prophet does not tell us. The main idea of his philosophy 
 is that man should bow down to his superiors, wherever he 
 finds them, and let a real aristocracy, "a corporation of the 
 best and bravest," lead him. " Democracy is a self-cancell- 
 ing business," he declares : yet after all where is man to find 
 his leaders ? If the aristocracy will not lead, what shall the 
 democracy do ? May there not be some truth in Arnold 
 Toynbee's strangely beautiful simile : " Democracy is sudden 
 like the sea, and grows dark with storms and sweeps away 
 many precious things; but, like the sea, it reflects the 
 light of the wide heavens and cleanses the shores of human 
 life"? 
 
 § 12. ' Past and Present J 
 His book on Chartism^ as Emerson had told him, was 
 for Carlyle but a breaking of new ground. " One day," 
 Emerson assured him, " when the fact is riper, you will 
 read the Second Lesson." The day came sooner perhaps 
 than either the English or American philosopher expected. 
 
'PAST AND PRESENT/ 197 
 
 The Chartist riots of 1842, and the great mass of revelations 
 as to the condition of the people which this year brought 
 forward, caused his impatient and eager spirit to break 
 silence once again. And so he sat down and wrote quickly, 
 with a throbbing heart, his great contrast of Past and 
 Present, It was published in 1843. The "Past" of 
 Carlyle's England is the England of Joceline de Brake- 
 londe, chronicler of the abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, who 
 wrote, about the end of the twelfth century, a quaint and 
 simple record of his abbey and its doings that had been 
 published by the Camden Society about this time. This 
 picture of twelfth-century society was to be the foil of the 
 state of England in the nineteenth. "It is at once the 
 most tender and pathetic picture of the Past and the most 
 unsparing indictment of the Present that exists in modern 
 English literature." ^ The great contradiction that presented 
 itself to the writer was that England was full of wealth, of 
 multifarious produce, supply for human wants in every kind ; 
 " yet England is dying of inanition. ... So many hundred 
 thousands sit in workhouses ; and other hundred thousands 
 have not yet got even workhouses ; and in thrifty Scotland 
 itself or Edinburgh City, in their dark lanes, hidden from 
 all but the eye of God, there are scenes of woe and destitu- 
 tion and desolation such as, one may hope, the sun never 
 saw before in the most barbarous regions where men 
 dwelt. . . . Descend where you will into the lower class, 
 in town or country, by what avenue you will, by Factory 
 Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by 
 Mining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes 
 and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself ) you 
 have to admit that the working body of this rich English 
 1 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution^ p. 193. 
 
198 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state to which, 
 all sides of it considered, there was literally never any 
 parallel." 
 
 § 13. Change and Permanence. 
 
 What explanation of these things could be found ? Many 
 were ready to give one, but none of them gave Carlyle any 
 satisfaction. Yet there were two facts that he laid hold on 
 as being at the root of our modern evils ; they were the 
 ^^ant of permanence in industrial society and the acceptance 
 of the cash-nexus as the sole bond between man and man. 
 The Present, with its perpetual coming and going of fresh 
 workmen to new masters, its restless search hither and 
 thither for the shortest cut to wealth, the hurry and stress 
 of modern labour, and the continual striving to get into a 
 different sphere than that in which a man was born — all 
 this was contrasted in Carlyle's mind with the quiet, per- 
 manent institutions of the Past, " when men lived together 
 in contentment whole lifetimes, and formed unbroken 
 habits of affection." ** Permanence, persistence," he cried, 
 *'is the first condition of all fruitfulness in the ways of 
 men." Such conditions existed in the Past. " Gurth was 
 hired for Hfe to Cedric, and Cedric to Gurth. . . . The 
 very horse that is permanent, how much kindlier do his 
 rider and he work, than the temporary one, hired on any 
 hack principle yet known ! I am for permanence in all 
 things, at the earliest possible moment, and to the latest 
 possible. Blessed is he that continueth where he is." 
 
 In such teaching there was indeed much of truth, and yet 
 permanence is not alone sufficient as a cure. And is it not 
 obvious to remark that if Carlyle had " continued where he 
 was," in Ecclefechan or elsewhere, as a penniless usher, he 
 
'CASH-PAYMENT/ 199 
 
 would probably never have been able to preach his doctrine ? 
 Such criticism, however, is captious : there is an abiding 
 suggestiveness of truth in the idea, thrown out almost at 
 random in this same chapter : " A question arises here 
 whether in some ulterior, perhaps not far-distant stage of 
 this Chivalry of Labour, your Master- Worker may not find 
 it possible and needful to grant his workers permanent 
 interest in his enterprise and theirs ? So that it become, in t* 
 practical result, what in essential fact and justice it ever is, 
 a joint enterprise." Some such relationship as this, now 
 fortunately in one form or another becoming more and 
 more common, he already foreshadowed in an age when 
 the cry was all for ** temporary contracts ; " and only in 
 the restoration of the old system of permanent employment 
 and stable conditions did he see much hope for the 
 future. 
 
 § 14. '' Cash- Payment:' 
 
 The second great evil that Carlyle attacked was the 
 principle of " man's duty to man resolving itself into hand- 
 ing him certain metal pieces and then shoving him out of 
 doors. . . . We have profoundly forgotten everywhere 
 that Cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings -1^ 
 we think, nothing doubting, that it absolves and liquidates 
 all engagements of man. . . . One thing I do know : never 
 on this earth was the relation of man to man long carried 
 on by Cash-payment alone. Cash never yet paid one man 
 fully his deserts to another, nor could it, nor can it, now or 
 henceforth to the end of the world. In brief, we shall have 
 to dismiss the Cash-Gospel rigourously into its own place : 
 we shall have to know that there is some infinitely deeper 
 Gospel, subsidiary, explanatory, and daily and hourly cor- 
 
200 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 rective to the Cash one ; or else that the Cash one itself 
 and all others are fast travelling." In place of the Cash- 
 gospel Carlyle would bring back the old order of life when 
 Cedric and Gurth, the master and the man, were bound 
 together as human beings, and not merely as industrial 
 units. He would have the rich mill-owner regard his 
 workpeople as men and women, not merely as " hands " ; 
 would have had him guide and protect them, in fact govern 
 and rule them as in times past the rich governed and guided 
 the poor. 
 
 § 15. Organization of Industry. 
 
 Such were the guiding ideas of Carlyle's teaching in Past 
 and Present. As before, it may be objected that such teach- 
 ing is lacking in practical result ; and yet such a criticism 
 overlooks the deeper influences of the teacher and prophet 
 in stimulating and awakening the thoughts of men who had 
 at heart the welfare of their country, and only needed some 
 such earnest appeal as this to arouse them to their work. 
 And, after all, it is as a stimulator and awakener that 
 Carlyle was chiefly useful to his age : for the only specific 
 remedies that he mentions — such as systematized emigration, 
 national education, and so forth — do not amount to very 
 much. The best and most tangible suggestion he made 
 was that of organization under "Captains of Industry." 
 "All human interests, combined human endeavours, and 
 social growths in this world, have at a certain stage of their 
 development required organizing : and work, the grandest 
 of human interests, does now require it." In winged words 
 like these, Carlyle shadowed forth in succinct outhne the 
 true harmony of Socialism and Individualism. He saw the 
 great failure of our present industrial system was its want of 
 
SOME CRITICISMS : GURTH. 201 
 
 organization, its wild and wasteful anarchy of struggling and 
 conflicting interests. " Can you any more continue to lead 
 a working world unregimented, anarchic ? " he asked of the 
 workers and masters of his day. " I answer, and the 
 heavens and earth are now answering, No ! The laws of 
 Nature will have themselves fulfilled. That is a thing 
 certain to me." And it is equally certain to any thinking 
 man that the present industrial system is in need of reform 
 in many points. 
 
 § 16. Some Criticisms : Gurth, 
 
 These then are the main lines of teaching in Fast and 
 Present. Of the book itself, considered as a piece of litera- 
 ture and not as a message from a modern prophet, it is easy 
 to say harsh things. Like all Carlyle's works, it is very 
 wordy and diffuse, and there is much chaff hiding the solid 
 grain. There is the usual exaggeration in his style of 
 writing and speaking, and the usual striving after effect by 
 the use of extraordinary nicknames and similes. His own 
 criticism of a greater man than himself, the poet Goethe, 
 may well be applied to his own work : *' Bushels of dust 
 and straw and feathers, with here and there a diamond of 
 the purest water." And there was much truth — though 
 now it is almost heresy to say so — in his old editor Jeffrey's 
 remark : '* The great source of your extravagance, and of all 
 that makes your writings intolerable to many and ridiculous 
 to not a few, is not so much any real peculiarity of opinions 
 as an unlucky ambition to appear more original than you 
 are." This unlucky ambition never left him, and is often 
 in Past and Present painfully apparent. But, after all, these 
 are minor points. The greatest fault in the book is not its 
 style or its want thereof, but a certain absence of any clear 
 
202 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 connexion between the world of the nineteenth century 
 and that of Abbot Samson, even as contrasts. Only here 
 and there is the link between them hinted at ; it is the 
 contrast that strikes us most. There is a telling passage 
 about Gurth, the swineherd, that will illustrate my meaning. 
 " Gurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, has been greatly 
 pitied by Dryasdust and others. Gurth, with the brass 
 collar round his neck, tending Cedric's pigs in the glades 
 of the wood, is not what I call an exemplar of human 
 felicity ; but Gurth with the sky above him, with the free 
 air and tinted boscage and umbrage around him, and in 
 him at least the certainty of supper and social lodgings 
 when he came home — Gurth to me seems happy in com- 
 parison with many a Lancashire and Buckinghamshire man 
 in these days, not born thrall of anybody. Gurth's brass 
 collar did not gall him ; Cedric deserved to be his master. 
 The pigs were Cedric's, but Gurth too would get his parings 
 of them. Gurth had the inexpressible satisfaction of feeling 
 himself related indissolubly, though in a rude brass-collar 
 way, to his fellow-mortals in this earth. He had superiors, 
 inferiors, equals. Gurth is now ' emancipated ' long since ; 
 has what we call * liberty.' Liberty, I am told, is a divine 
 thing. But Liberty, when it becomes the * liberty to die 
 by starvation,' is not so divine ! " The contrast between 
 the Saxon swineherd and the Lancashire operative is 
 admirably drawn ; but there is no hint of that strange 
 chain of circumstances that led to Gurth's modern trans- 
 formation. Carlyle knew nothing about it. 
 
 § 17. Closing Years. 
 
 We have here no space to dwell upon Carlyle's later days, 
 though after writing Past and Present he had still nearly 
 
CLOSING YEARS. 203 
 
 forty years of life before him. We are concerned here only 
 with his teaching as a social reformer, and the story of his 
 other work has been so ably, and so often, told already and 
 can so easily be read in his own words that we need not 
 now repeat it. His quiet life at Chelsea was signalized mainly 
 by the appearance of his historical works, Oliver Cromwdl 
 (1845), and Frederick the Great (1865) ; and the only great 
 public recognition of his position in English thought and 
 literature was his election as Lord Rector of the University 
 of Edinburgh, where he delivered his inaugural address in 
 April 1866. The same month brought him the awful blow 
 of his wife's death. It is not for us to judge between Mrs. 
 Carlyle and her husband. It is evident that they were too 
 nearly alike to help each other much, and the lack of tact so 
 perceptible in the wives of literary men (as of other mortals) 
 was in this case also painfully apparent. Carlyle felt her 
 loss keenly, and perhaps hardly ever recovered from the 
 ^ blow. He had done his best work before her death, and 
 after it there came to him honours which he had never 
 sought. He was offered by Disraeli the Grand Cross of 
 the Bath, and a pension, but chose to decline both, though 
 he accepted (1874) the Prussian order "For Merit." His 
 eightieth birthday (December 4th, 1875) brought him 
 numerous testimonies of the high reputation he had won, 
 not only in England but in Europe, chief among which were 
 the telegram from the literary men of Germany, headed by 
 Leopold von Ranke, a letter from Bismarck and a medallion 
 portrait in gold offered by some English friends and students. 
 He lived a few years longer, and at length, full of years, died 
 quietly at his Chelsea home on February 5th, 1881. But truly 
 he being dead yet speaketh ; his influence has impressed his >J 
 generation with a great moral and ethical power ; and when- / 
 
304 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 ever we think of him his great watch-words of honesty, truth, 
 duty, obedience, and work ring as clearly as of old in our 
 ears. '*As a revolutionary or pentecostal power on the 
 sentiments of Englishmen his influence," said Dr. Martineau 
 many years ago, " is perhaps nearly spent, and will descend 
 from the high level of faith to the tranquil honours of 
 literature." The honours of literature undoubtedly have 
 come, yet the truest test of Carlyle's work is that these are 
 the least of his titles to our admiration and respect. 
 
 II. JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 § I. Carlyle and Ruskin. 
 
 '* Read your Carlyle with all your heart, and with the best 
 brain you can give, and you will learn from him first, the 
 eternity of good law, and the need of obedience to it ; then, 
 concerning your own immediate business, you will learn 
 further this ; that the beginning of all good law, and nearly 
 the end of it, is in these two ordinances, — that every man 
 shall do good work for his bread ; and secondly, that every 
 man shall have good bread for his work. But the first of 
 these is the only one you have to think of." 
 
 The man who thus lit his torch from the flaming fire of 
 Carlyle's inspiration has come to take a higher place in 
 English literature and in English thought than even his 
 teacher. Yet no name, perhaps, has encountered more 
 hostility from the average middle-class Englishman in the 
 course of his teachi.ig, and no one has obtained so unique 
 a position, while being in so many ways directly opposed to 
 the spirit of his time. He has won his way into public 
 
EARLY INFLUENCES. 205 
 
 favour (however much that may be worth), in spite of all 
 antagonisms, by sheer force of greatness of soul and con- 
 sistency of attitude, by doing and saying what he knew to 
 be right and true, and caring not one whit for the world's 
 opinion of himself He has been one of the few teachers 
 who have risen in this commercial age to tell us in what true 
 nobility and beauty consist, and to point out what the 
 England of to-day is fast losing — the riches and exceeding 
 fairness of a perfectly simple life. His own lot, indeed, has 
 been cast in favoured places, but he has so used it as to 
 shed over the whole of our modern society, if we care to 
 use it, the light of the lamps of beauty and truth that now so 
 often are waxing dim. 
 
 § 2. Early Influences, 
 
 His early Hfe was as different from that of his great fellow- 
 teacher Carlyle as possible. He has always been in a position 
 of moderate competence. His father was a rich and worthy 
 merchant, born in Edinburgh, but who had come to London, 
 where, at the time of his son's birth, he was living in Hunter 
 Street, Brunswick Square. John Ruskin was born there on 
 the 8th of February, 18 19. The boy was educated privately, 
 and the influence of his parents upon his development was, 
 perhaps, therefore unusually marked. That influence was of 
 the highest type. Of his father he could say with truth, " he 
 was an entirely honest merchant, and his memory is, to all 
 who keep it, dear and helpful." His mother was a woman 
 of great depth of feeling, affectionate, exacting and religious ; 
 one to whom her son owes that deep vein of reverence in 
 the highest sense that runs through all his writings. It was 
 she, he tells us, who regularly " drilled " him in the reading 
 and study of the Bible, to whose beauty of language he, like 
 
2o6 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 Carlyle and many another great writer, owes so much. 
 Perhaps one of the deepest influences of this early period of 
 his life was his annual tour round England with his father, 
 who used to spend two months in the summer in going the 
 round of his country customers, not racing through the 
 scenery boxed up in a railway carriage, but drinking it in 
 and enjoying it from the seat of a post-chaise. In these 
 pleasant summer journeys Ruskin became acquainted with 
 " all the high roads, and most of the cross ones, in England 
 and Wales, and great part of Lowland Scotland as far as 
 Perth." Thus early did the boy learn to know and love 
 Nature at her fairest and best, and this love was his first 
 and deepest. "The first thing which I remember," he 
 writes, "as an event in life was being taken by my nurse to 
 the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater. The intense 
 joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the 
 hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag, into the dark 
 lake, has associated itself more or less with all twining roots 
 of trees ever since." And among his " beginnings in life " 
 he counts chiefly the crossing of Shapfell, and going through 
 Glenfarg, near Kinross, on a winter's morning, when the 
 rocks were hung with icicles. With such a love of natural 
 beauty so soon developed, we are not surprised to find an 
 equal love of art, derived again from his father, who **had 
 a rare love of pictures," and " an innate faculty for the dis- 
 cernment of true art," a gift as rare as the mere liking for 
 pictures is common. Even in his twelfth year John Ruskin 
 had successfully copied some of Cruikshank's etchings, and 
 was then allowed to learn drawing ; and only two years 
 afterwards he had given to him Roger's poem on Italy with 
 vignettes by one Turner, whose genius at once captivated 
 and fascinated his youthful eye. About the same period 
 
OXFORD AND ITALY. 207 
 
 the Ruskin family became so charmed with the views in 
 Prout's Sketches in Flanders and Germany that they deter- 
 mined to see the real places for themselves, and accordingly 
 in 1833 went on a long tour up the Rhine and over the 
 Alps as far as the great cities of Northern Italy. The 
 artistic impressions derived from this tour were strengthened 
 by another in the next year to Normandy, where the arch- 
 itecture of Abbeville, Rouen, and Rheims contributed the 
 subtle and majestic beauty of centuries of wondrous art in 
 stone to the many other influences that were then shaping 
 Ruskin's character. He was still very young, but even at the 
 age of seventeen he was learning water-colour painting from 
 Copley Fielding, and was defending his favourite Turner from 
 the sneers of magazine critics. 
 
 § 3. Oxford and Italy. 
 
 In due time Ruskin went up to Oxford, and entered as 
 a gentleman-commoner at Christ Church. The natural and 
 artistic beauties of our greatest University were, for once, 
 not wasted on the undergraduate mind ; and Oxford 
 formed another step in the development of his poetic 
 nature. It is a curious fact, however, that Ruskin gained 
 the Newdigate prize for English verse in 1839, ^^ honour 
 which a genuine poet is generally the last to win. Beyond 
 this solitary distinction, he did not have much success in 
 the ordinary academic career. *' I never used a crib," he 
 says, " but I believe the Dean would rather I had used 
 fifty than borne the puzzled and hopeless aspect which I 
 presented at the examinations." The cause of this was 
 very largely his weak health, which in 1840 necessitated his 
 being taken by his parents to Italy. But though his journey 
 had this unfortunate origin it was productive of the most 
 
2o8 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 fortunate artistic results, and his time spent among the 
 creations of the greatest masters of painting, sculpture, and 
 architecture resulted in lasting benefit and joy, not only 
 to himself, but to all those whom his artistic teaching has 
 subsequently enriched. He was able to return to Oxford 
 in 1842, and take his degree. He had come of age two 
 years before, and it is characteristic not so much of his love 
 of Turner as of his love of Art, that he celebrated the 
 occasion by buying Turner's * Harlech.' 
 
 § 4. ^Modern Painters^ 
 
 Nor was it very long before the combined influences of 
 his English and Italian art-training resulted in the production, 
 at the early age of twenty-four, of the initial volume of his 
 first and possibly greatest book, Modern Painters. The full 
 title expresses concisely its general purport : it is, "Modern 
 Painters : their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting 
 to all Ancient Masters proved, &c., by a Graduate of Oxford." 
 The superiority consists in the modern artist's greater faith- 
 fulness to Nature, of which faithfulness Turner was the great 
 example. It was left for Turner to interpret Nature properly : 
 "By Shakespeare, humanity was unveiled to you ; by Verulam, 
 the principles of nature ; and by Turner, her aspect. Of all 
 the three, though not the greatest, Turner was the most 
 unprecedented in his work," for none before him "had 
 lifted the veil from the face of Nature ; the majesty of the 
 hills and forests had received no interpretation, and the 
 clouds passed unrecorded from the face of the heavens 
 which they adorned, and of the earth to which they 
 ministered." The young critic's book had a good re- 
 ception on the whole, but the art critics combated severely 
 his views. It is impossible, however, to go even inci- 
 
THE REVELATION OF BEAUTY. 209 
 
 dentally into Ruskin's art teaching. We are considering 
 him here as a social reformer, and can only chronicle briefly 
 the appearance of his great works. A residence for some 
 time in Italy resulted in a continuation of Modern Painters, 
 of which the second volume appeared in 1846, including 
 criticisms of Italian painters, and up to i860 three more 
 followed at intervals. In the interim the Seven Lamps of 
 Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851) came , 
 out, and already in them we notice the keynote of his social | 
 teaching, the central fact of " the dependence of all human | 
 work or edifice, for its beauty, on the happy life of the \ 
 workman," while "the laws of the workman's Hfe, and the 
 dependence of national wealth upon the principles of justice, A 
 mercy, and admiration," were taught by his later works. 
 Unto this Last (1862), and Munera Pulveris (1872). 
 
 § 5. The Revelation of Beauty and the Curse of Darkness. 
 
 With this hurried sketch of Ruskin's artistic development 
 we are now more in a position to discuss his views as a 
 social reformer. It is, of course, his main characteristic in 
 this department — a characteristic that is peculiarly his own 
 in social questions — that the foundation of his social teach- 
 ing is laid in the eternal principles of beauty in Nature and ^ 
 in Art. He has always sought — and sought successfully — 
 * to link his exposition of art with every department of 
 human life and human necessity." His own words about 
 Turner are with but slight modification completely applicable 
 to himself : none before him has lifted the veil from the 
 face of Art and of Nature, and interpreted to men the wide, 
 inevitable laws that rule the Life of Humanity. ** In all true 
 works of art," once said Carlyle, " wilt thou discern Eternity 
 looking through Time, the God-like rendered visible : " and 
 
 p 
 
 \ 
 
2IO CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 Ruskin says the same when he reveals to us that Art *' de- 
 clares the perfectness and eternal beauty of the work of 
 God, and tests all work of man by concurrence with or 
 subjection to that." 
 
 Well then may it be asked — How does our modern in- 
 dustrial and social system fare when judged by such a test? 
 For in this sense must we regard the teaching of Ruskin on 
 this point. Alas, it fares but badly. " A curse of darkness " 
 has fallen on our hearts and thoughts, and the "myriads 
 imprisoned by the English Minotaur of lust for wealth " are 
 *' condemned to live, if it is to be called life, in the laby- 
 rinth of black walls and loathsome passages between them, 
 which now fills the valley of the Thames and is called 
 London ... I beg you," he cries entreatingly and earnestly, 
 " I beg you once for all to understand that unless you are 
 minded to bring yourselves, and all whom you can help, out 
 of this curse of darkness, you need not try to do any art- 
 work — it is the vainest of affectations to try to put beauty 
 into shadows, while all the real things that cast them are 
 left in deformity and pain." 
 
 § 6. The First Evil of Modern Industry, 
 
 It is the deformity and pain of our modern system 
 against which the heart of this artist rebels. He knows 
 that it betrays a wrong condition of things altogether. 
 " Wherever you see want, or misery, or degradation in this 
 world about you, there, be sure, either industry has been 
 wanting, or industry has been in error." And that our 
 modern industry has been in error to a considerable extent, 
 few who consider the conditions of life in our manufacturing 
 towns, the numbers of our poor and the miserable dwellings 
 of thousands of respectable workpeople, will deny. What, 
 
THE FIRST EVIL OF MODERN INDUSTRY. 211 
 
 then, is the cause of all this ? The answer is indeed given 
 in many ways by different thinkers; Ruskin states clearly 
 his belief that our present evils result mainly from the 
 utterly mechanical nature of our modern system, which 
 leaves the workman — of whatever grade — no joy in his 
 work ; and from a general desire to gain wealth or, for that 
 matter, ordinary wages, without the proper amount of 
 previous toil. Let us state the causes in Ruskin's own 
 words : " It is verily this degradation of the operative into 
 a machine, which, more than any other evil of the times, is 
 leading the mass of the nations everywhere into vain, in- 
 coherent, destructive struggling for a freedom of which 
 they cannot explain the nature even to themselves. ... It 
 is not that men are ill-fed, but that they have no pleasure 
 in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore 
 look to wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is not 
 that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but 
 they cannot endure their own ; for they feel that the kind 
 of labour to which they are condemned is verily a degrading 
 one, and makes them less than men. Never had the upper 
 classes so much sympathy with the lower, or charity for 
 them, as they have at this day, yet never were they so hated 
 by them." Surely this is a strange and significant sign. 
 Ruskin interprets it truly : ** To feel their souls withering 
 within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk 
 into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap 
 of mechanism, numbered with its wheels and weighed with 
 its hammer-strokes ; — this nature bade not — this God blesses 
 not ; — this humanity for no long time is able to endure." 
 
 This is but another expression of Carlyle's denunciation 
 of the mechanical bond of the cash-nexus between employer 
 and employed. It may be objected that the feeling thus 
 
212 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 attributed to the working-classes is exaggerated, and that 
 they are unconscious of such a sentiment about their work. 
 But that a feeling is unconscious and unexpressed is no 
 proof of its non-existence. The labourer and the artisan 
 may not feel it quite in the way Ruskin puts it ; but in 
 what he says there is a deep and abiding truth — in our 
 modern industry the mechanism has killed the man. " We 
 manufacture everything except men ; we blanch cotton and 
 strengthen steel and refine sugar and shape pottery ; but to 
 brighten, to strengthen, to refine or to reform a single living 
 spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages." 
 
 § 7. The Second Evil 
 
 That is the first great cause : and the second is the 
 \y modem dislike of resolute labour — a dislike which has 
 possibly been brought about by the excessive use of 
 machinery and the minute sub-division of labour, that takes 
 away all a man's interest in his work and makes him only 
 long to get done with it as soon as possible and receive his 
 reward. It is the price we have to pay for apparent saving 
 of labour. Ruskin has put it thus : "By far the greater 
 part of the suffering and crime which exists at this moment 
 in civilized Europe, arises simply from people not under- 
 standing this truism — not knowing that produce or wealth 
 is eternally connected by the laws of heaven and earth with 
 resolute labour; but hoping in some way to cheat or ab- 
 rogate this everlasting law of life, and to feed where they 
 have not furrowed, and be warm where they have not 
 woven. I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result 
 from this one misapprehension. The law of nature is, that 
 a certain quantity of work is necessary to produce a certain 
 quantity of good, of any kind whatever. If you want know- 
 
ORGANIZATION OF INDUSTRY. 213 
 
 ledge, you must toil for it ; if food, you must toil for it ; 
 and if pleasure, you must toil for it. But men do not ac- 
 knowledge this law, or strive to evade it, hoping to get their 
 knowledge and food and pleasure for nothing ; and in this 
 effort they either fail of getting them, and remain ignorant 
 and miserable, or they obtain them by making other men 
 work for their benefit; and then they are tyrants and 
 robbers." These last words are an outspoken, and by no 
 means a solitary, denunciation of men who live in idleness 
 on other people's labour — of which there are far too many in 
 our modern society, just as old Sir Thomas More declared 
 long ago there were in the society of the sixteenth century.^ 
 
 § 8. Orgatiization of Industry. 
 
 Having thus seen the two main causes of the misery and 
 evils of to-day, we naturally ask, What remedies has Ruskin 
 suggested for their cure ? To many the answer will be dis- 
 appointing. It is the same answer as was given by Carlyle : 
 that social reform must begin with the internal and moral A 
 reform of the individual, and need not be looked for, or / 
 expected from any mechanical reconstruction of society. It j 
 does not seem very tangible, and it is very hard to put into 
 practice ; but till that reform is begun no other is even 
 possible. Of course, however, Ruskin does not ignore 
 improvements that might be made by legislative action, or 
 by an alteration in the condition of man's material surround- 
 ings. He even states some reforms that he would approve 
 as desirable ; and as these, even in his own opinion, are 
 the least important, we will dispose of them first. 
 
 "One of the least important, though by no means the 
 
 1 Cf. p. 51 of this book. 
 
214 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 least certain, of the positions to be defended," as he ex- 
 presses it, against the critics of his Unto This Lasty is the 
 necessity of the organization of labour, with fixed wages. 
 "Government and co-operation are in all things the laws of 
 
 -\; life ; anarchy and competition the laws of death." Beginning 
 from this general principle, he explains his proposal for a 
 fixed rate of payment, which has been a stumbling-block 
 to so many who would eagerly agree otherwise that some 
 organization of labour is imperative. But Ruskin finds 
 little difficulty in the fixed wage. "Perhaps one of the 
 most curious facts in the history of human error is the 
 denial by the common political economist of the possibility 
 of thus regulating wages; while for all the important, and 
 much of the unimportant labour on the earth, wages are 
 already so regulated." ^ As for the general organization of 
 labour — to which it really seems, occasionally, as if we were 
 tending — Ruskin believes that "the sudden and extensive 
 inequalities of demand which necessarily arise in the mer- 
 cantile operations of an active nation constitute the only 
 essential difficulty which has to be overcome." Of course, 
 "in effecting any radical changes of this kind, doubtless 
 there would be great inconvenience and loss incurred by all 
 the originators of the movement. That which can be done 
 with perfect convenience, and without loss, is not always the 
 thing that most needs to be done, or which we are most 
 imperatively required to do." But the difficulty remains, 
 where are we to obtain the "captains of industry" that 
 
 \, Carlyle so fervently longed for, and that Ruskin's whole 
 
 system imphes ? " If we once can get a sufficient quantity 
 
 of honesty in our captains, the organization of labour is easy, 
 
 and will develop itself without quarrel or difficulty ; but if 
 
 1 Unto This Last, Essay i. 
 
EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT WORKSHOPS. 215 
 
 we cannot get honesty in our captains, the organization of 
 labour is for evermore impossible."^ Once again, the 
 reform must begin from within. 
 
 § 9. Education and Government Workshops. 
 
 Besides this — to my mind— fundamental reform of the 
 organization of labour, Ruskin, in his preface to Unto This 
 Last, details four other points. 
 
 First, there should be training schools for youth estab- 
 lished, at Government cost and under Government disci- 
 pline for the teaching of these three things : {a) the laws of 
 health, {b) habits of gentleness and justice, and {c) the 
 calling by which he is to live. Of these, the first and third 
 points are now being taken up in elementary schools, whereat 
 Ruskin would no doubt rejoice ; but how in this present 
 age can habits of gentleness and justice be taught under the 
 code? 
 
 Then, secondly, comes the proposal for the establishment 
 of Government manufactories and workshops, " for the pro- 
 duction and sale of every necessary of life, and for the 
 exercise of every useful art." In these shops there should 
 be only "authoritatively good and exemplary work done, 
 and pure and true substance sold." Here again Ruskin 
 has anticipated by many years matters that are now being 
 discussed as within the range of practical execution \ and 
 the New Unionists rise up and bless him. 
 
 §10. The Unemployed and Old- Age Pensions, 
 
 Next comes the great problem of the unemployed. They, 
 
 he suggests, should at once be received at the nearest 
 
 Government school, and set to such work as it appeared, 
 
 1 Unto This Last, Preface. 
 
2i6 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 on trial, they were fit for, at a fixed rate of wages deter- 
 minable every year. If ignorant they should be taught, and 
 if weak duly tended; but with idlers he would have no 
 mercy. " Being found objecting to work they should be 
 set, under compulsion of the strictest nature, to the more 
 painful and degrading forms of necessary toil, especially to 
 that in mines and other places of danger, and the due wages 
 of such work be retained — cost of compulsion first abstracted 
 — to be at the workman's command, so soon as he has 
 come to sounder mind respecting the laws of employment." 
 Would that this scheme could be applied to the idlers of 
 every rank in life. 
 
 Lastly — and this is interesting in view of the present dis- 
 cussion of national pensions and compulsory provision for 
 old age — Ruskin would have comfort and home provided 
 for the old and destitute ; " which provision " — and this is 
 the point — "when misfortune had been by the working of 
 such a system sifted from guilt, would be honourable instead 
 of disgraceful to the receiver ; " for " it ought to be quite as 
 natural and straightforward a matter for a labourer to take 
 his pension from his parish, because he has deserved well 
 of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension 
 from his country, because he has deserved well of his 
 country." 
 
 These four points form " the most of the political creed " 
 at which Ruskin wishes his readers and hearers to arrive. 
 Education, Government workshops. Work for the unemployed, 
 Old-Age Pensions — not after all a very outrageous programme 
 for to-day, but, when it was put forth exactly forty years 
 ago (1862), laughed at and denounced as revolutionary and 
 ridiculous enough. Yet now every point is being eagerly 
 discussed, and probably they will all soon be attempted. 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 217 
 
 § II. The Housing of the Poor, 
 
 Besides these definitely formulated articles of faith, we 
 notice in Ruskin's works very clear and distinct demands 
 for other reforms as well. The housing of the working-classes 
 and the poor is one of them. Now on this subject it is 
 interesting to notice his action in regard to the formation 
 of the Alexandra Park, to the purchase of which he was 
 asked to contribute, and would not. " I will resist to the 
 utmost of my power," he said in Fors Clavigera^ *'all 
 schemes founded on the vile modern notion that you (the 
 working-classes) are to be crowded in kennels till you are 
 nearly dead, that other people may make money by your 
 work, and then to be taken out in squads by tramway and 
 railway to be revived and refined by science and art. Your 
 first business is to make your homes healthy and delightful ; 
 then keep your wives and children there, and let your 
 return to them be your daily * holy day ' . . . . Once for 
 all, I wish your homes to be comfortable and refined." 
 
 The first duty of the State and those who constitute it, 
 is that of *' letting in light where there is now darkness ; 
 especially mindful to give entrance to beams of light into 
 poor rooms, back streets, and crowded alleys " ; it is not 
 the duty of the State to provide what magazine-writers are 
 fond of calling '' lungs for the people," but rather to make 
 it possible for people to use their own lungs healthily in 
 and about their own homes, instead of rendering the air 
 of our cities so foul and poisonous that even to breathe it 
 is a misery, and to live in it a disease. Few people, 
 indeed, realize how utterly unhealthy and positively danger- 
 ous are the conditions of life in many large towns. In 
 Liverpool, for instance, there were some streets so disgrace- 
 
2i8 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 fully insanitary that a well-known Liverpool Friendly Society ^ 
 would not allow any one living therein to be enrolled 
 among its members. If there were two or three such 
 proscribed streets it would be unfortunate, but, as things 
 go now-a-days, not very surprising. But when we heai 
 that the number was not two or three, nor two or three score, 
 but one hundred and sixty-seven, we feel (or ought to feel) 
 that such a state of things is a disgrace to anything ventur- 
 ing to call itself civilization. Well may Ruskin declare he 
 would rather have pure and healthy homes for the poor 
 than let them live in streets like these and be carted out 
 occasionally to a ** people's park " for a breath of fresh air. 
 
 § 12. TJie Land Jor the Nation, 
 
 Now, as most people know who have studied the economics 
 of rent, the question of the housing of the poor is connected 
 not too remotely with the vast subject that underlies all 
 others, the land. While our land system remains as it is, 
 and public opinion allows the owner of land to extort a 
 fancy rent merely because the land is needed for some 
 useful purpose instead of being left idle and unproductive, 
 there is little hope that we shall be able to afford to build 
 houses for the poor with a little breathing-space round them. 
 Nor, while the present system divorces the labourer from 
 the land on which he toils, and refuses him any reasonable 
 hope of ever acquiring any for his own use, is there much 
 hope that the steady influx of the agricultural population 
 into the slums of the towns will be lessened. Ruskin is, 
 of course, dissatisfied with our present land and rent system. 
 He would have us see more closely to it. "The right 
 action of a State respecting its land is to secure it in various 
 1 Circular of October 13th, 1886. 
 
THE LAND FOR THE NATION. 219 
 
 portions to those of its citizens who deserve to be trusted 
 with it, according to their respective desires and proved 
 capacities .... for the most part leaving them free, but 
 interfering in cases of gross mismanagement or abuse of 
 power." 
 
 It would be a curious and interesting, if somewhat cruel, 
 experiment to discover how many of our present landowners 
 ** deserve to be trusted" with land, or have "proved 
 capacities ' for the use of it. The towns, more than the 
 country, could furnish plenty of examples of owners guilty 
 of "gross mismanagement" and "abuse of power," more 
 especially in the poorer quarters. This, however, in passing. 
 It is more to the point to quote Carlyle's strenuous declar- 
 ation, that "properly speaking the Land belongs to these 
 two : to the Almighty God, and to all his Children of Men 
 that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work t^ 
 well on it. . . . A nation's life depends upon its Land." ^ 
 It needs a Carlyle and a Ruskin to remind us of that ; for 
 indeed our national life, in so far as it depends upon land 
 which is not national, but only private property, seems at 
 present in no very satisfactory state. Yet Ruskin beheves that 
 the great old famiHes of landowners, " which always ought 
 to be and in some measure, however decadent, still truly 
 are the noblest monumental architecture of the kingdom," 
 would, even under a diiferent land-system than the present, 
 have their uses in showing how men may live a stately and 
 beautiful and noble life; and indeed he would grant to 
 them in perpetuity so much land " as may enable them to 
 live thereon with all circumstance of state and outward 
 nobleness ; but their income must in no wise be derived 
 from the rents of it." 
 
 Past and Present ^ bk. iii. ch. viii.j Unworking Aristocracy. 
 
220 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 § 13. The Guild of St. George, 
 
 These being Ruskin's social theories, one may naturally 
 look for a moment with curiosity at the practical shape to 
 which he once attempted to reduce them when he founded 
 the Guild of Saint George. He made the appeal for the 
 formation of this Guild in Fors Clavigera^ asking : " Will 
 any give the tenth of what they have and of what they 
 earn — not to emigrate with, but to stay in England with ; 
 and do what is in their hands and hearts to make her a 
 happy England? . . . The object of such fund being to 
 begin and gradually — no matter how slowly — to increase 
 the buying and securing of land in England, which shall 
 not be built upon but cultivated by Englishmen, with their 
 own hands, and such help of force as they can find in wind 
 and wave ... If any help come to me, it is to be on the 
 following conditions : — We will try to make some small 
 piece of English ground beautiful, peaceful, and fruitful. 
 We will have no steam-engines upon it, and no railroads. 
 We will have no untended or unthought-of creatures on it ; 
 none wretched but the sick ; none idle but the dead. We 
 will have no liberty upon it; but instant obedience to 
 known law and to appointed persons. No equality upon it ; 
 but recognition of every betterness that we can find, and 
 reprobation of every worseness." 
 
 Such was the scheme, — to secure some spot where a 
 simple and beautiful life might still be possible. It has not 
 succeeded to any great extent, and has been vigorously 
 denounced as Utopian, even by those who admired the 
 writings and teachings of its founder. But it was Utopian 
 only in the sense that it gave the present generation credit 
 for a greater desire of simplicity and beauty in life than it 
 
RUSKIN'S LATER LIFE. 221 
 
 possesses ; and because such external and material schemes 
 of reform must first be actuated by a corresponding reform 
 of men's feelings and ideals. 
 
 § 14. Ruskin's Later Life. 
 
 We have only a few lines left in which to record the 
 public incidents of Ruskin's life. We have seen him as 
 the critic and exponent of Art, living in Venice, and 
 sending forth from his Italian home the wondrous discourses 
 on Art and Life that have been, in the truest sense, a 
 revelation to those of his generation. In 1851 he arose 
 and defended the band of young artists — Burne Jones, Noel 
 Paton, Ford Madox Brown, Millais, Holman Hunt, and 
 Rossetti and others — whom his teaching had inspired, men 
 known to fame now as the Pre-Raphaelites and producers 
 of the best art of this day. He lectured in London, 
 Manchester, and Edinburgh on Architecture and other 
 branches of art, and in 1867 was appointed Rede lecturer 
 at Cambridge and received an honorary degree. Then in 
 1870 he was called back from Venice to be Slade Professor 
 of Art at his own University of Oxford, and held the post 
 till 1884. The most noticeable work he issued during this 
 period was Aratra Pentelici^ a repubHcation in 1872 of his 
 Oxford lectures of two years before. He gave also the 
 sum of ;£5,ooo to form an endowment to pay a master of 
 drawing in the Taylor galleries. His lectures at Oxford 
 were among the great events of the term, and drew crowds 
 of listeners, many curious, many disparaging, and a few 
 appreciative. Many of his discourses had to be delivered 
 twice, as it was impossible to accommodate his audiences. 
 As a lecturer he was, when the present writer heard him in 
 1883, perhaps disappointing ; for he had not the doubtful 
 
222 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 gift of oratory, and only occasionally allowed himself to 
 flash into enthusiasm. Yet nearly all who heard him 
 remained unsatisfied till they had procured and read both 
 those lectures and most of his other works ; and that is 
 possibly as good a test as any of his effect upon his listeners. 
 But he was compelled by the ill-health that so frequently 
 befell him to resign his professorship and retire to his 
 country home in the Lake country, Brantwood near 
 Coniston, ** a country cottage amplified into something like 
 a mansion on the steep lake shore," opposite the rocky 
 heights of the Coniston Fells, where he lived till his death 
 in January 1900. 
 
 § 15. Wealth and Life. 
 
 We have left to the last the most important part of 
 Ruskin's teaching — that which is more lasting and truer 
 than his political creed or any mechanical reforms, the 
 reform of our national ideal of wealth, and the reform 
 first and foremost of our own selves. For as to wealth, 
 have we not got an altogether false notion of it? "The 
 essence of wealth is in its power over man, and the 
 grandeur of wealth is to make man better and happier." 
 Does our modern system do that ? Do we understand at all 
 what wealth means ? or that it lies in men and men's souls 
 and in our national life? "Perhaps it may even appear," 
 says Ruskin, " that the persons themselves are the wealth . . 
 In fact, it may be discovered that the true veins of wealth 
 are purple — and not in R.ock but in Flesh — perhaps even 
 that the final outcome and consummation of all wealth is 
 in the producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright- 
 eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures. Our modern 
 wealth, I think, has rather a tendency the other way ; most 
 political economists appearing to consider multitudes of 
 
WEALTH AND LIFE. 223 
 
 human creatures not conducive to wealth, or at least 
 conducive to it only by remaining in a dim-eyed and 
 narrow-chested state of being. Nevertheless it is open, 
 I repeat, to serious question, whether, among national 
 manufactures, that of Souls of a good quality may not at 
 last turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one?" That 
 manufacture will bring us at the last true wealth; and, 
 for other reforms, it depends mainly upon ourselves. "I 
 beg you most solemnly," he says in Fors Clavigera, speak- 
 ing to working-men, but not to them only, *' to convince 
 yourselves of the partly comfortable, partly formidable fact, 
 that your prosperity is in your own hands. Only in a 
 remote degree does it depend on external matters, and, 
 least of all, on forms of Government," And again, in 
 Unto This Last the same doctrine is taught unhesitatingly : 
 "All effectual advancement towards the true felicity of the 
 human race must be by individual, not public, effort. 
 Certain general measures may aid, certain revised laws 
 guide, such advancement ; but the measure and law which 
 first have to be determined are those of each man's home." 
 And in thus reforming first of all ourselves we must set 
 before us the three great principles of Admiration, Hop^ 
 and Love : " Admiration — the power of discerning and 
 taking delight in what is beautiful in visible Form and lovely 
 in human Character; and, necessarily, striving to produce 
 what is beautiful in form and become what is lovely in 
 character. Hope — the recognition, by true Foresight, of 
 better things to be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves 
 or by others ; necessarily issuing in the straightforward and 
 undisappointable effort to advance, according to our proper 
 power, the gaining of them." Then, lastly, Love — "Love 
 both of family and neighbour, faithful and satisfied." 
 
224 CARLYLE AND RUSKIN. 
 
 And so may we obtain true wealth, wealth that is 
 symbolized for all time by the crown of wild olive. " This 
 such as it is, you may win while yet you live ; type of grey 
 honour and sweet rest. Free-heartedness, and graciousness, 
 and undisturbed rest, and requited love, and the sight of 
 the peace of others, and the ministry to their pain ; these 
 and the blue sky above you, and the sweet waters and 
 flowers of the earth beneath, and mysteries and presences 
 innumerable of living things — may yet be here your riches, 
 untormenting and divine, serviceable for the life that now 
 is; nor, it may be, without promise of that which is to 
 come." Such life is the only true wealth; for Life alone, 
 properly lived, is wealth : " There is no wealth but life — 
 life including all its powers of love, of joy, of admiration. 
 That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest 
 number of noble and happy human beings, and that man 
 is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own 
 life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, 
 both personally and by means of his possessions, over the 
 lives of others." 
 
 Social Reform : A Retrospect 
 
 Here we take leave of the last of our social reformers. 
 We have seen men of various periods and of various views 
 trying with what power of good was in them to alter for the 
 better the lives of their fellows. And, in doing so, they 
 have used or preached one of two methods, or, if wise, they 
 have inculcated both — the internal and the external, the 
 spiritual and the material, the moral and the mechanical. 
 William Langland, poor and obscure, uttering roughly the 
 
SOCIAL REFORM: A RETROSPECT. 225 
 
 woes of his time, yet saw that lord and villein, peer and 
 peasant, aHke must do their duty each for himself ere the 
 troubles of England would be lessened. John Ball, fierce 
 and courageous, believed that an outward change of social 
 conditions was enough, and died ere he or his fellows could 
 see his mistake. Sir Thomas More thought of man placed 
 in some ideal State, and forgot, perhaps, that be the State 
 never so ideal and perfect it will, without a change of 
 man's heart and mind, be ruined at the last. Wesley 
 knew and felt that a man's social salvation, as well as his 
 spiritual, depended on an internal and moral reformation. 
 Wilberforce, though he believed that also, yet hoped to 
 raise the negro by a mere change of his economic condition, 
 and had he lived would have been the first to realize how 
 utterly useless is an alteration of outward circumstances 
 without a corresponding elevation of inward aims and ideals. 
 In our own century the factory reformers have accentuated . 
 the outward elements of reform, Carlyle, Kingsley, and/ 
 Ruskin the inward and spiritual. Both are necessary^ 
 perhaps, yet of the two, it is the inward and spiritual 
 alone that will bring us social salvation. In the social 
 and industrial life, as well as in any other, a man must 
 in very truth be born again before he can attain the 
 heights of a new and nobler existence; and though the 
 process of birth in the womb of Time may be slow and 
 gradual, and perhaps even painful, there can be without 
 it no proper entrance into the world of Life 
 
NOTES ON AUTHORITIES. 
 
 The best authorities to consult as to Carlyle's and Ruskin's 
 views are naturally the works of the men themselves. Their 
 chief works dealing directly with social questions are: — 
 
 By Thomas Carlyle : 
 
 Chartism : London, 1 840. 
 
 Signs of the Times : an essay in the Edinburgh Review^ vol 
 
 xlix., 1829. 
 Cor7i Law Rhyjnes : in Edinburgh Review, vol. Iv., 1832. 
 Past and Present : London, 1843. 
 Latter- Day Pamphlets : London, 1850. 
 All now procurable in various editions from a shilling upwards. 
 
 By John Ruskin : 
 
 The Political Economy of Art : London, 1857. 
 
 Unto This Last, 1862. 
 
 The Crown of Wild Olive^ 1866. 
 
 Time and Tide, 1867 ; Fors Clavigera, various numbers 
 (1871-84), all procurable from George Allen, Orpington, 
 Kent. 
 
 For the facts about the life of Carlyle consult the monograph 
 in Scott's "Great Writers" Series by Dr. Garnett, and J. A. 
 Froude's history of the first forty years of Carlyle's life (London, 
 1882), and his History of Thomas Carlyle's life in London, 1834- 
 81 (London, 1884). Also Froude's edition of Carlyle's Reinini- 
 scetices (X-oridiOXi, 1881). 
 
 For Ruskin, read his own Prceterita, appearing in parts since 
 1885. There is also a work in preparation by his secretary, 
 W. G. Collingwood, entitled, John Ruskin, his Life and Work 
 (London: Methuen). 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abolition of slavery, io6 
 Agricultural labourer (19th cen- 
 tury), 158, 166 
 Agriculture, importance of (More), 
 
 49 
 
 Alton Locke (Kingsley), 168 
 Amusements, T^, 74 
 Apprentices in factories, II4 
 Ashley, Lord, 125 ; work in Parlia- 
 ment, 129 ; and see Shaftesbury 
 
 Ball, John, 14 ; his teaching, 15, 
 
 20, 25, 225 
 Beauty in social life, 209 
 Black Death, 3 
 Bristol Riots, The, 156 
 Butler, Bishop, 72, 90 
 
 Cambridge, Wilberforce at, 95 
 Kingsley at, 157 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 183, 225 ; early 
 life, 184 ; a schoolmaster, 185 ; 
 his struggles, 186 ; marriage, 
 188 ; on Signs of the Times ^ 189 ; 
 Sartor Resartus, 191 ;in London, 
 192 ; on Chartism, 193 ; his 
 chief teaching, 196 ; Past and 
 Present, 197 — 202 ; his closing 
 years, 203 
 
 Cash nexus, The, 195, 199, 211 
 
 Chartist Agitation, The, 162, 165, 
 
 193 
 Children, Employment of (fac- 
 tories), 113 — 115, 124, 128, 
 (general) 135, (mines) 139 
 
 Christian Prince^ The, 42 
 Christian Socialists, The, 172 
 Christianity, Decay of (i8th cen- 
 tury), 71 
 Coal-mines, Labour in, 139 
 Colet, Dean, 34, 37 
 Communities, Industrial, 149 
 Condition of England, see England 
 Co-operative Movement, The, 150, 
 
 172 
 Cruelties in factories, 114, 115, 124, 
 126, 127 
 
 Discovery, The era of, 33, 44 
 Dispensary, Medical (Wesley), 87 
 
 Education (Owen), 150 ; (Ruskin), 
 
 215 
 Edward IIL's reign, 2, 4, 18 
 Eighteenth century, The, 67 — 70 
 Eight-hours' day. The, 50, 52 
 England in 13th century, 3, 16 ; 
 in 15th century, 31 ; in i6th 
 century, 45 ; in i8th century, 
 67 — 74, 86 ; in 19th century, see 
 Factory Reform ; also 139, 140, 
 186, 193, 194, 197, 210 
 Erasmus, 38, 41, 42 
 
 Factory Acts, ii6, 119, 121, 129 
 Factory Reform, ill — 137; Owen, 
 116; efforts at, 118; Oastler, 
 119; agitation for, 121 ; Sadler, 
 124; Ashley, 131 
 
 Gambling, 73 
 
338 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 George I. and II., 70 
 
 Grind-cobbe, 23 
 
 Grocyn, 33 
 
 Guild of St. George, The, 220 
 
 Gurth the Swineherd, 202 
 
 Henry VIII., 40, 41, 60 
 Housing of the poor, 175, 217 
 Hythloday, Raphael, 43 
 
 Idlers, 51 
 
 Industrial Revolution, i, 105, iii 
 Industry, Modern, 210 
 Injustice of our social system, 55 
 
 Kingsley, Charles : early life, 155 ; 
 at Cambridge, 157 ; at Eversley, 
 158, 161 ; views on social ques- 
 tions, 160 ; Chartism, 162 ; as 
 " Parson Lot," 164 ; his Veasi, 
 166 ; A/ion Locke^ 167 ; oppo- 
 sition to him, 169 ; his work in 
 general, 171 ; on co-operation, 
 173; on sanitary reform, 174; 
 on housing of poor, 175 ; on 
 woman, 177 ; characteristics, 
 178; death, 179 
 
 Labour, Dignity of, 53 ; the fate 
 of, 56 
 
 Labour, Mediaeval, 3, 5 
 
 Labourer in the 14th century, 16 ; 
 in 15th century, 31, 56 ; in 
 i8th century, 86; in 19th cen- 
 tury, 140, 193, 194, 211 
 
 Lais ser f aire ^ 195 
 
 Lanark mills (Owen), 1 16, 147 
 
 Landowners, 3, 4, 31, 46, 47, 175, 
 219 
 
 Land Question, The, 46, 47, 53, 
 175, 218 
 
 Langland, William, 6—14, 25, 
 225 
 
 Life and Wealth, 222 
 
 Manorial system, 32 
 Maurice, F. D., 159, 160 
 Mediaeval England, 2, 30, 202 
 
 Methodism, 92 
 
 Methodist Societies, 83 
 
 "Mohawks," The, 73 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 29, 225 ; early 
 
 life, 35 ; portrait of, 59 ; later 
 
 life, 60 ; death, 63 
 Morton, Cardinal, 35, 36, 45 
 
 Oastler, Richard, why he took up 
 factory reform, 119; his agita- 
 tion, 121 ; imprisoned, 133; 
 victory, 135; death, 137 
 
 Organization of Industry, 2CX), 213 
 
 Over-population, 53 
 
 Owen, Robert, 116; early life, 
 145 ; at Manchester, 146 ; at 
 Lanark, 116, 147; his industrial 
 schemes, 148 ; socialism, 149 j 
 death, 150 
 
 Oxford, More at, 37 ; Wesley at, 
 77 ; Shaftesbury at, 142 ; F. D. 
 Maurice at, 159 ; Ruskin at, 207 
 
 Oxford Reformers, The, 37 — 39 
 
 Parliament, Wilberforce in, 96 ; 
 
 Ashley in, 129 
 Parliament and social reform 
 
 (Carlyle), 195 
 Past and Present^ 197 
 Pauperism, Causes of, 46, 47 
 Peasants' Revolt, i, 6, 21—24 
 Pensions for old age, 216 
 Permanence, Carlyle on, 198 
 Piers the Plowman, 7 sqq.; its 
 
 teaching, 9 j summary of, 10 — 
 
 13 
 
 Pitt, William, 96 
 
 Poll Tax, 19 
 
 " Poor Priests," The, 5, 11, 19 
 
 Population, 53 
 
 Producers, 51 
 
 Profligacy, 72, 73 
 
 Reform, The basis of, 225 
 Renaissance, The, 32 — 34 
 Richard II., 19, 23 
 Riches, Wesley on, 89 
 Ruskin, John, 204 ; early life, 205 
 
INDEX. 
 
 329 
 
 at Oxford, 207 ; in Italy, 208 ; 
 Modern Painters, 208 ; other 
 works, 209 ; on industrial life, 
 210; modern industry, 211, its 
 two evils, 211, 213; on organiz- 
 ation of industry, 213 ; his pro- 
 posed reforms, 214 — 219 ; Guild 
 of St. George, 219; later life, 
 221 
 
 Sadler, M. T., 123 
 
 Sale of children (in England), 1 14, 
 
 118 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of {see Ashley), 
 
 138—145 ; early life, 141 ; at 
 
 Oxford, 142 ; work as reformer, 
 
 143 ; death, 145 
 Sharp, Granville, 100 
 Sheep-farming, 30, 46 
 Six-hours' day, A, 50 
 Slavery (negro), 99 ; slave-trade, 
 
 100 ; agitation against, 102, 104 ; 
 
 abolition, 104, 106 
 Slavery (English), 105, 115, 1 18, 
 
 126, 127 
 Socialism, 58, 149, 172 
 Somerset (the slave), loi 
 Strikes, 5 
 Sweating system, 168 
 
 Ten-hours' day, The, 123, 131, 136 
 
 Trade Unions (peasants), 6 
 Turner, J. M. W., 207—208 
 
 Unemployed, The, 215 
 Utopia, The, 42—57 
 
 Villeins and villeinage, 3, 4, 23, 
 24 
 
 Wat the Tyler, 21, 22 
 
 Wealth and Life, 222 
 
 Wesley, John, early life, 75; at 
 Oxford, 77 ; social reforms, 79 ; 
 visits Georgia, 81 ; conversion, 
 82 ; preaching, 85 ; work as 
 reformer, 86—89 ; general work, 
 and influence, 90 — 93 
 
 Whitefield, George, 78, 84, 91 
 
 Wiklif, 5 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 94— io7 J 
 early life, 95 ; in Parliament, 
 96 ; conversion, 97 ; takes up 
 the slavery question, 99; his 
 work, 102 ; death, 106 
 
 Woman's mission, 177 
 
 Wood, John, 120 
 
 Workshops, co-operative, 172 ; 
 Government, 215 
 
 Yeast {K\ngs\ty\ 166, 167 
 
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