"ENGLAND AS IT WAS, AS IT IS, AND AS IT MAY BE."

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1582, 25 March 1887, Page 3

"ENGLAND AS IT WAS, AS IT IS, AND AS IT MAY BE."

Mr William Morris gave tSe first of a new peries of lectures on " England ae it w.ib, as it in, and as it may be," at Keltnseott House, Hammersmith, one Sunday evening. " I am no patriot, " he paid, " in the sense in which the word is g* nerally used ; but I am not ashamed to own that I love the land I live in witi something of the pas.s'on of a lover. Such a passion, however, ought not to be so absorbing as to make us forget what owe to other countries. Oa the contrary, this affection for our parish and the people in it, though it be called egotism, may even be useful to us and to others. " Then followed a picture of what has been in early England, Mr Morris observing that the man must be hard to move indeed who is not moved at the eight of the ruins at Stonehenge. With the first R*man invasion came also the great tax-gathering machine called civilisation, destroyed the freedom of the early inhabitants. The English, the Jutes, and the Saxjns, bold pirates from the shores of the Baltic, next fell upon our island, and gave us a new set of pictures to look upon. Bough, predatory, and crue', the civilisation they spread was commercial, and their chief characteristic, therefore, was vulgarity. The literature,

however, which they brought with them was particularly valuable, for the language of their earliest poems wts not only still uucorrupted, but their literature rt fl cted the iniuds of the people who produced it. " Beowulf" is worthy of a great people in all respects. Nowhere does it lack the epic quality of putting clear pictures before the reader's eye; it breathes the very spirit of courageous freedom. [ndeed, the stylo is so clear and vigorous that it is plain the people really believed that tho life they were living was a continuous poem. Cjnfilent of immortality, they realised that they were part of the great corporation of humanity. This was the faith, the con dition of life to which the race had attlined no rights without duties, and no duties without ri ;hts wh»n the. corruption of the city, the unit of civilization under the Roman empire, found its way into the country, and began clearing away the farmsteads o* <owns of thn generic tribes, then he feudal system begau to creep upon the country. Moreover, Christianity was introduced, but as yet there is no sign of the new religion having made any mark on the poats, literature in English being then mostly in the hands of tho monks, Meanwhile E.igland was destined to become a part of EiKorto, aud by the time that the English had got fa'rly settled the Northmen foil on the island and gave it no rest. These new invaders were called Danes, but the first comers came from Norway. Tne English not b<ung a seafaring peop'e were unable to resist the attacks of their new tneray, who came not only to pillage but to settle, and altogether they set about their work in a business way. Th'-s* Danes bad succeeded in reducing the country to a state of pure confusion, when a king of of pure and stainless character arose in the person of Alfred. He was the only man of genius who ever held an official position in England, except perhaps Crimwell, and h-> r"Btor-?d order in the land. Mr Morris then gave a brief account of England down to the Normau Conquest. Meanwhile, he observed that the art of the English was necessarily under foreign infleuce, and resetted that ther* was no storyteller to tell the story of the battle of Hastings.