THE ENGLAND OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND NOW.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 763, 14 January 1871, Page 2

THE ENGLAND OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND NOW.

The kingdom of Elizabeth is so great in song, in science, and in adventure, that we are apt to forget how small it was in fact. The companions of Shakspere, of Bacon, of Raleigh, are so famous in story, that they fire our hemisphere of thought like the stars in a summer sky. In the time of Elizabeth, England was the sole home of English-speaking men and women. It was a narrow country, tenanted by a small family of swns; and in mere size of territory and extent of population we were regarded by some speculators as a sixth-rate power.

Spain was then parr mount. France was nearly her equal, and claimed to be her superior. The Holy Roman Empire was the first St ate in rank, and, perhaps, the third in actual power. Turkey, which in thosn da\s stood a;arr, splendid, meleonc, mysterious, was not less formidable in the East, than was Spain in the West. These few countries held the world in fee. All other powers, though sometimes exercising influence, were of importance only as the allies of either Germany, Spain, or France. Savoy gained a sphere by throwing herself between France and Spain, just as her interests prompted ■ er to arm aud act. Venice acquired importance as a Christian naval power in the Levant. But the North was yet dark and silent. Prussia was still a desert of sand and pools. Russia was a forest of larch and pines. Sweden gave only fitful signs of life. Holland was crippled by war ; the Rhine provinces were divided by religious feuds. England claimed, it is true, a place among the foremost nations; but her claim, which certainly looked ridiculous on a map, was only too often rejected by France and Spain as a practical joke. < The whole of England was not English. In Cornwall a remnant of the uncient race could not read Bacon's Essays, could not hear and understand Shakspere's plays. West of Gloucester, in the South, and Chester, in the North, very few persons could use the English tongue. All the Welsh used Welsh; all the Highland Scots used Gaelic ; all the Irishry used Erse. When Elizabeth came to'her crown, fewer people spoke English than now reside within the limits of London. Thrice as many living men s.ioke French ; five limes as many spoke Gvrman ; seven tiuies as many spoke Spanish. How stand these points ot comparison now ? A man speculating on material data only as to the charce of any one race ever coming to a practical mastery of the world would, in the days of Charles the Fifth, undoubtedly have given that chance to the Spaniards. The earth seemed theirs to mould it as they would. Madrid was the centre of a vast system of rule, which embraced Europe on the right hand, America on the left. Spam was but the home country, so to speak, of this great: empire; Germany was the chief province; America the main colony. But the empire was established in Sicily, in Flanders, in the Milanese, as firmly as in .Jamaica, in the Caribbean Sea, and on the Pacific shores. Toe Rhine and the Danube were treated as Spanish rivers Spainish was the fashionable speech at Naples, at Quito, at Brussels, at Mexico, at Vienna, as well as in the courtly circles nearer home. It was the language ol trade as well as of compliment and of diploaracy—the only tongue ever heard beyond the Line and beyond the Cape. " What is true of the idiom is also true of the coinage. Spanish money was the circulating medium of the world. English merchants, when they first sent '•ut vessels to Cam bay, were obliged to exchange their unrecognised native coins for those Spanish doubloons—the magnificent coinage of a magnificent empire—which were known to every tr.ir'er in the East.

Since that day what a change! From the time of Charles the Fifth, though the population of Spain itself has probably increased, the area of Spanish-speuking country has greatly diminished, and that to our own all but exclusive profit. Under Elizabeth we began to grow. Then we left off fighting France—a pastime which had illustrated our capacity for war, which had carried us into French vineyards once or twice in every century", but which had been wasting our money ant our manhood in a contest without end. We could not hope to conquer France and hold it in easy fee. When we gave up the attempt, and turned our strength towards the sea-coast of the new world in the West, we began to thrive in a way as only such keen politicians as Raleigh had ever dreamt Wo had fought the French with sword and lance; we fought the Spaniards with spade and plough. We had. done well enough with the first in Picardy and Guienne ; we did still better with the second on the James Jiiver, and in the neighborhood of Plymouth liock. In time, we drove the Spaniard out of North America, and, in some measure out of the West Indies. We kept him away from the Cape, and we superseded the doubloons in Hindustan. In fact, we upset the speculations of those who could have given the chance of mastery to the Spaniard, and the small lamilv of three million islanders have belied the whole globe with our colonies.

■ Nor is this great triumph all. We nave done more than spread ourselves abroad and multiply uniil we liave become "' many nations " ; for we have not only grown from three millions of people, into eighty millions at least, with a rate of growth

which will make us a hundred and ten millions in twenty year*, three hundred millions in a hundred jears, hut have drawn into our current a good many alien forces. The language of Shakspere is spoken hy millions of men whose fathers, in Shakspere's day, spoke Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Erse. These men have been fused into an English mwuld. Whether they live in America or in Australia, they have been induced to adopt a new idiom, a new law, a new habit.