EPILOGUE

SINCE the last words of the last chapter were written, great events have occurred. Russia has become a republic. The United States has taken its place side by side with Russia, Great Britain, France, and Italy in that world struggle for government of the people, by the people, and for the people which began among the Anglo-Saxons before the landing at Ebbsfleet. These events mean that English ideals, and hence English speech and English literature, in years to come will be more powerful than in the past. They mean that Byron's lines,

"For Freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won,"

are still alive. They mean that Wordsworth saw clearly when he wrote:

"We must be free or die, who speak the tongue

That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held."

They invest with fresh significance the words of Shelley:

"But war's a game which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at."

And, above everything else, they mean, as the inspired peasant sang, that man to man, the world o'er, shall brithers be, for a' that." As Tennyson says,

"The old order changeth, giving place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

The maxim, "From God the king, from the king the law," is supplanted by the essentially nobler, more truly philosophical, and altogether English and Saxon maxim, "The voice of the people is the voice of God."