Produced by David Widger
By Charles Dudley Warner
England has played a part in modern history altogether out of proportionto its size. The whole of Great Britain, including Ireland, has onlyeleven thousand more square miles than Italy; and England and Wales aloneare not half so large as Italy. England alone is about the size of NorthCarolina. It is, as Franklin, in 1763, wrote to Mary Stevenson in London,"that petty island which, compared to America, is but a stepping-stone ina brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one's shoes dry."
A considerable portion of it is under water, or water-soaked a good partof the year, and I suppose it has more acres for breeding frogs than anyother northern land, except Holland. Old Harrison says that the NorthBritons when overcome by hunger used to creep into the marshes till thewater was up to their chins and there remain a long time, "onlie toqualifie the heats of their stomachs by violence, which otherwise wouldhave wrought and beene readie to oppresse them for hunger and want ofsustinance." It lies so far north—the latitude of Labrador—that thewinters are long and the climate inhospitable. It would be severely coldif the Gulf Stream did not make it always damp and curtain it withclouds. In some parts the soil is heavy with water, in others it is onlya thin stratum above the chalk; in fact, agricultural production couldscarcely be said to exist there until fortunes made in India and in otherforeign adventure enabled the owners of the land to pile it knee-deepwith fertilizers from Peru and elsewhere. Thanks to accumulated wealthand the Gulf Stream, its turf is green and soft; figs, which will notmature with us north of the capes of Virginia, ripen in sheltered nooksin Oxford, and the large and unfrequent strawberry sometimes appears uponthe dinner-table in such profusion that the guests can indulge in oneapiece.
Yet this small, originally infertile island has been for two centuries,and is today, the most vital influence on the globe. Cast your eye overthe world upon her possessions, insular and continental, into any one ofwhich, almost, England might be dropped, with slight disturbance, as youwould transfer a hanging garden. For any parallel to her power andpossessions you must go back to ancient Rome. Egypt under Thotmes andSeti overran the then known world and took tribute of it; but it was atemporary wave of conquest and not an assimilation. Rome sent her lawsand her roads to the end of the earth, and made an empire of it; but itwas an empire of barbarians largely, of dynasties rather than of peoples.The dynasties fought, the dynasties submitted, and the dynasties paid thetribute. The modern "people" did not exist. One battle decided the fateof half the world—it might be lost or won for a woman's eyes; the flightof a chieftain might settle the fate of a province; a campaign mightdetermine the allegiance of half Asia. There was but one compact,disciplined, law-ordered nation, and that had its seat on the Tiber.
Under what different circumstances did England win her position! Beforeshe came to the front, Venice controlled, and almost monopolized, thetrade of the Orient. When she entered upon her career Spain was almostomnipotent in Europe, and was in possession of more than half the Westernworld; and besides Spain, England had, wherever she went, to contend fora foothold with Portugal, skilled in trade and adventure; and withHolland, rich, and powerful on the sea. That is to say, she meteverywhere civilizations old and technically her superior. Of the rulingpowers, she was the least in arts and arms. If you will take time to fillout this picture, you will have some conception of the marvelousachievem