The Pleasures of England | Page 2

isle; for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of Learning and of the Arts;--faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverent and ephemeral visions--faithful servant of time-tried principles, under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strange valour, of goodwill towards men?"
The fifteen years that have passed since I spoke these words must, I think, have convinced some of my immediate hearers that the need for such an appeal was more pressing than they then imagined;--while they have also more and more convinced me myself that the ground I took for it was secure, and that the youths and girls now entering on the duties of active life are able to accept and fulfil the hope I then held out to them.
In which assurance I ask them to-day to begin the examination with me, very earnestly, of the question laid before you in that seventh of my last year's lectures, whether London, as it is now, be indeed the natural, and therefore the heaven-appointed outgrowth of the inhabitation, these 1800 years, of the valley of the Thames by a progressively instructed and disciplined people; or if not, in what measure and manner the aspect and spirit of the great city may be possibly altered by your acts and thoughts.
In my introduction to the Economist of Xenophon I said that every fairly educated European boy or girl ought to learn the history of five cities,--Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence, and London; that of London including, or at least compelling in parallel study, knowledge also of the history of Paris.
A few words are enough to explain the reasons for this choice. The history of Athens, rightly told, includes all that need be known of Greek religion and arts; that of Rome, the victory of Christianity over Paganism; those of Venice and Florence sum the essential facts respecting the Christian arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Music; and that of London, in her sisterhood with Paris, the development of Christian Chivalry and Philosophy, with their exponent art of Gothic architecture.
Without the presumption of forming a distinct design, I yet hoped at the time when this division of study was suggested, with the help of my pupils, to give the outlines of their several histories during my work in Oxford. Variously disappointed and arrested, alike by difficulties of investigation and failure of strength, I may yet hope to lay down for you, beginning with your own metropolis, some of the lines of thought in following out which such a task might be most effectively accomplished.
You observe that I speak of architecture as the chief exponent of the feelings both of the French and English races. Together with it, however, most important evidence of character is given by the illumination of manuscripts, and by some forms of jewellery and metallurgy: and my purpose in this course of lectures is to illustrate by all these arts the phases of national character which it is impossible that historians should estimate, or even observe, with accuracy, unless they are cognizant of excellence in the aforesaid modes of structural and ornamental craftsmanship.
In one respect, as indicated by the title chosen for this course, I have varied the treatment of their subject from that adopted in all my former books. Hitherto, I have always endeavoured to illustrate the personal temper and skill of the artist; holding the wishes or taste of his spectators at small account, and saying of Turner you ought to like him, and of Salvator, you ought not, etc., etc., without in the least considering what the genius or instinct of the spectator might otherwise demand, or approve. But in the now attempted sketch of Christian history, I have approached every question from the people's side, and examined the nature, not of the special faculties by which the work was produced, but of the general instinct by which it was asked for, and enjoyed. Therefore I thought the proper heading for these papers should represent them as descriptive of the Pleasures of England, rather than of its Arts.
And of these pleasures, necessarily, the leading one was that of Learning, in the sense of receiving instruction;--a pleasure totally separate from that of finding out things for yourself,--and an extremely sweet and sacred pleasure, when you know how to seek it, and receive.
On which I am the more disposed, and even compelled, here to insist, because your modern ideas of Development imply that you must all turn out what you are to be, and find out what you are to know, for yourselves, by the inevitable operation of your anterior affinities and inner consciences:--whereas the old idea of education was that the baby material of you, however accidentally or inevitably