interruption."— Lynedoch, 4.
of ruder types tended to outproduce and undersell those already established. The genteel merchants of Bristol, mellowed by a hundred years of wealth and refinement, were no match for the products of pushing, hungry Liverpool, whose merchant captains were content with a seventh of the wages paid to their haughtier rivals. Those who had their way to make by a natural process caught up and ultimately outdistanced those with an inherited start. At first sight this seemed to threaten a progressive debasement of culture and social standards: the tough and the shover ever tending to shoulder out the gentleman and the fair dealer. Yet, as one bucket in the well of commerce fell, the other rose: the national passion for emulation consta ntly replanted the standards of quality in fresh soil; the greasy, aproned, clog-footed mechanic of one generation became the worthy merchant of the next. And if the process of cultural rise was not so quick as that of fall, the artistic and intellectual reserves of society were so vast that they could afford a good deal of dilution.
For in culture England had never stood higher, not even in the age of Shakespeare or that of Wren and Newton. Samuel Johnson had died in 1784 and Goldsmith ten years earlier. But in 1790 Reynolds, Romney, Gainsborough, Opie, Rowlandson, Stubbs and the young Lawrence were all painting. Cowper, Crabbe and Blake were writing poetry, Boswell was putting the last touches to the greatest biography in the language, and Gibbon had two years before finished its grandest history. Wordsworth was born in 1770, Coleridge in 1772, Turner, Jane Austen and Charles Lamb in 1775, Constable in 1776, Hazlitt in 1778, de Quincey in 1785 and Byron in 1788. Shelley was still to be born in 1792 and Keats in 1795. North of the border, where Adam Smith of Glasgow had established an international reputation as the first political economist of the age, Edinburgh was just entering upon her brief but glorious flowering of native wit as the northern Athens. Raeburn was beginning to paint, Dugald Stewart to lecture, Walter Scott was studying the romantic lore of his country and an Ayrshire ploughman, by name Robert Burns, had published his first volume. And in the realm of science the achievements of late eighteenth-century Britain were equally remarkable. Joseph Black the chemist, Hunter the founder of scientific surgery, Priestley the discoverer of oxygen, and Jenner who conquered the scourge of smallpox, are among its great names. It was an age of gold that had the Adam brothers as its architects, Cosway as its miniaturist, Hepplewhite and Sheraton as its cabinetmakers. In the drawing-rooms of London and of the lovely pastoral mansions that looked out on to the dreaming gardens of Repton and Capability Brown 1 a society moved, brocaded, white-stockinged and bewigged, more gracious, more subtle, more exquisitely balanced than any seen on earth since the days of ancient Greece.
Yet this society was governed by no fixed and absolute laws, confined by no insurmountable barriers. Under its delicate polish lay a heart of stout and, as the event was to prove, impenetrable oak. Its people were tough to the core. " I shall be conquered, I will not capitulate," cried Dr. Johnson as he wrestled with death, guiding the surgeon's blade with his own hand. The Duke of Portland at 68 underwent an operation for the stone and was seven minutes under the knife without a murmur. Diminutive Jacob Bryant, the great classical antiquary, asked by his sovereign what branch of activity he was most noted for at Eton, answered to the astonishment of his auditor: " Cudgelling, sir, I was most famous for that." Young girls wore sticks of holly in their bosoms to teach them to hold their heads high, old Edge of Macclesfield at 62 walked 172 miles in under fifty hours for a bet; the King rose daily at 4 a.m. and spent three hours on the government dispatch boxes before taking
of ruder types tended to outproduce and undersell those already established. The genteel merchants of Bristol, mellowed by a hundred years of wealth and refinement, were no match for the products of pushing, hungry Liverpool, whose merchant captains were content with a seventh of the wages paid to their haughtier rivals. Those who had their way to make by a natural process caught up and ultimately outdistanced those with an inherited start. At first sight this seemed to threaten a progressive debasement of culture and social standards: the tough and the shover ever tending to shoulder out the gentleman and the fair dealer. Yet, as one bucket in the well of commerce fell, the other rose: the national passion for emulation consta ntly replanted the standards of quality in fresh soil; the greasy, aproned, clog-footed mechanic of one generation became the worthy merchant of the next. And if the process of cultural rise was not so quick as that of fall, the artistic and intellectual reserves of society were so vast that they could afford a good deal of dilution.
For in culture England had never stood higher, not even in the age of Shakespeare or that of Wren and Newton. Samuel Johnson had died in 1784 and Goldsmith ten years earlier. But in 1790 Reynolds, Romney, Gainsborough, Opie, Rowlandson, Stubbs and the young Lawrence were all painting. Cowper, Crabbe and Blake were writing poetry, Boswell was putting the last touches to the greatest biography in the language, and Gibbon had two years before finished its grandest history. Wordsworth was born in 1770, Coleridge in 1772, Turner, Jane Austen and Charles Lamb in 1775, Constable in 1776, Hazlitt in 1778, de Quincey in 1785 and Byron in 1788. Shelley was still to be born in 1792 and Keats in 1795. North of the border, where Adam Smith of Glasgow had established an international reputation as the first political economist of the age, Edinburgh was just entering upon her brief but glorious flowering of native wit as the northern Athens. Raeburn was beginning to paint, Dugald Stewart to lecture, Walter Scott was studying the romantic lore of his country and an Ayrshire ploughman, by name Robert Burns, had published his first volume. And in the realm of science the achievements of late eighteenth-century Britain were equally remarkable. Joseph Black the chemist, Hunter the founder of scientific surgery, Priestley the discoverer of oxygen, and Jenner who conquered the scourge of smallpox, are among its great names. It was an age of gold that had the Adam brothers as its architects, Cosway as its miniaturist, Hepplewhite and Sheraton as its cabinetmakers. In the drawing-rooms of London and of the lovely pastoral mansions that looked out on to the dreaming gardens of Repton and Capability Brown 1 a society moved, brocaded, white-stockinged and bewigged, more gracious, more subtle, more exquisitely balanced than any seen on earth since the days of ancient Greece.
Yet this society was governed by no fixed and absolute laws, confined by no insurmountable barriers. Under its delicate polish lay a heart of stout and, as the event was to prove, impenetrable oak. Its people were tough to the core. " I shall be conquered, I will not capitulate," cried Dr. Johnson as he wrestled with death, guiding the surgeon's blade with his own hand. The Duke of Portland at 68 underwent an operation for the stone and was seven minutes under the knife without a murmur. Diminutive Jacob Bryant, the great classical antiquary, asked by his sovereign what branch of activity he was most noted for at Eton, answered to the astonishment of his auditor: " Cudgelling, sir, I was most famous for that." Young girls wore sticks of holly in their bosoms to teach them to hold their heads high, old Edge of Macclesfield at 62 walked 172 miles in under fifty hours for a bet; the King rose daily at 4 a.m. and spent three hours on the government dispatch boxes before taking
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