SHOOTING NIAGARA: AND AFTER ?1

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I.

THERE probably never was since the Heptarchy ended, or almost since it began, so hugely critical an epoch in the history of England as this we have now entered upon, with universal self-congratulation and flinging-up of caps; nor one in which, with no Norman Invasion now ahead, to lay hold of it, to bridle and regulate it for us (little thinking it was for us), and guide it into higher and wider regions, the question of utter death or of nobler new life for the poor Country was so uncertain. Three things seem to be agreed upon by gods and men, at least by English men and gods; certain to happen, and are now in visible course of fulfilment.

course,

1o Democracy to complete itself; to go the full length of its towards the Bottomless or into it, no power now extant to prevent it or even considerably retard it,-till we have seen where it will lead us to, and whether there will then be any return possible, or none. Complete "liberty" to all persons; Count of Heads to be the Divine Court of Appeal on every question and interest of mankind; Count

1 Reprinted from Macmillan's Magazine, for August 1867. With some Additions and Corrections.

of Heads to choose a Parliament according to its own heart at last, and sit with Penny Newspapers zealously watching the same; said Parliament, so chosen and so watched, to do what trifle of legislating and administering may still be needed in such an England, with its hundred-and-fifty millions 'free' more and more to follow each his own nose, by way of guide-post in this intricate world.

2o That, in a limited time, say fifty years hence, the Church, all Churches and so-called religions, the Christian Religion itself, shall have deliquesced,-into "Liberty of Conscience," Progress of Opinion, Progress of Intellect, Philanthropic Movement, and other aqueous residues, of a vapid badly-scented character;-and shall, like water spilt upon the ground, trouble nobody considerably thenceforth, but evaporate at its leisure.

3o That, in lieu thereof, there shall be Free Trade, in all senses, and to all lengths: unlimited Free Trade,which some take to mean, 'Free racing, ere long with unlimited speed, in the career of Cheap and Nasty;'—this beautiful career, not in shop-goods only, but in all things temporal, spiritual and eternal, to be flung generously open, wide as the portals of the Universe; so that everybody shall start free, and everywhere, under enlightened popular suffrage,' the race shall be to the swift, and the high office shall fall to him who is ablest if not to do it, at least to get elected for doing it.

These are three altogether new and very considerable achievements, lying visibly ahead of us, not far off,—and so extremely considerable, that every thinking English creature is tempted to go into manifold reflections and inquiries upon them. My own have not been wanting, any time these thirty years past, but they have not been of a joyful or triumphant nature; not prone to utter themselves; in

deed expecting, till lately, that they might with propriety lie unuttered altogether. But the series of events comes swifter and swifter, at a strange rate; and hastens unexpectedly, 'velocity increasing' (if you will consider, for this too is as when the little stone has been loosened, which sets the whole mountain-side in motion) as the square of the time-so that the wisest Prophecy finds it was quite wrong as to date; and, patiently, or even indolently waiting, is astonished to see itself fulfilled, not in centuries as anticipated, but in decades and years. It was a clear prophecy, for instance, that Germany would either become honourably Prussian or go to gradual annihilation: but who of us expected that we ourselves, instead of our children's children, should live to behold it; that a magnanimous and fortunate Herr von Bismarck, whose dispraise was in all the Newspapers, would, to his own amazement, find the thing now doable; and would do it, do the essential of it, in a few of the current weeks? That England would have to take the Niagara leap of completed Democracy one day, was also a plain prophecy, though uncertain as to time.

II.

The prophecy, truly, was plain enough this long while : Δόγμα γὰρ αὐτῶν τίς μεταβάλλει; “For who can change the opinion of these people!" as the sage Antoninus notes. It is indeed strange how prepossessions and delusions seize upon whole communities of men; no basis in the notion they have formed, yet everybody adopting it, everybody finding the whole world agree with him in it, and accept it as an axiom of Euclid; and, in the universal repetition and reverberation, taking all contradiction of it as an insult, and a sign of malicious insanity, hardly to be borne

with patience. "For who can change the opinion of these people?" as our Divus Imperator says. No wisest of mortals. This people cannot be convinced out of its "axiom of Euclid" by any reasoning whatsoever; on the contrary, all the world assenting, and continually repeating and reverberating, there soon comes that singular phenomenon, which the Germans call Schwärmerey (enthusiasm is our poor Greek equivalent), which means simply 'Swarmery,' or the Gathering of Men in Swarms,' and what prodigies they are in the habit of doing and believing, when thrown into that miraculous condition. Some big Queen Bee is in the centre of the swarm; but any commonplace stupidest bee, Cleon the Tanner, Beales, John of Leyden, John of Bromwicham, any bee whatever, if he can happen, by noise or otherwise, to be chosen for the function, will straightway get fatted and inflated into bulk, which of itself means complete capacity; no difficulty about your Queen Bee: and the swarm once formed, finds itself impelled to action, as with one heart and one mind. Singular, in the case of human swarms, with what perfection of unanimity and quasireligious conviction the stupidest absurdities can be received as axioms of Euclid, nay as articles of faith, which you are not only to believe, unless malignantly insane, but are (if you have any honour or morality) to push into practice, and without delay see done, if your soul would live! Divine commandment to vote ("Manhood Suffrage,”-Horsehood, Doghood ditto not yet treated of); universal "glorious Liberty" (to Sons of the Devil in overwhelming majority, as would appear); count of Heads the God-appointed way in this Universe, all other ways Devil-appointed; in one brief word, which includes whatever of palpable incredibility and delirious absurdity, universally believed, can be uttered or imagined on these points, "the equality of men,"