England and the English [pp. 233-247]

ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH.
what end? Disaster-defeat ruin! Was this to be the condition of a people, who, after the first great drama of the war
at Manasses, when the invading hosts were shattered, congratulated themselves through their favorite writers that the war
was at an end andindependence achieved, and that in the language of Shakespeare, gentlemen
"Now abed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks
That fought with us."
But I will quote some of the words of confidence which were
then uttered by Southern writers:
"We have assumed all along, that the battle of Manasses determines the fate of the war and secures our independence.
Not only has that battle demoralized and disorganized the
Federal army, (which is returning home as its term of service
expires, much faster than raw and worthless recruits can come
in their places,) but it has also divided and demoralized the
cabinet, the congress, the press and the people of the North!"
ART. II.-ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH.
GEOGRAPHICALLY, we know that England is small, and yet
while in England, it is only by a resolute effort of abstraction
that we realize to ourselves it is small. We arc oppressed
by such a pageantry of wealth, taste, solidity and power, that
the glamour of unlimited territory falls spontaneously upon us.
Her countless ships, her innumerable railroads, her coercive
workshops, whose smoke darkens the air, and whose fabrics engorge the warehouses of the world, her palaces, her achievements in science, her collections of art, and her splendid literature arouse such a tyrannical impression of Empire, that it is only
by turning to the atlas and putting the imagination into the
custody of numerical fetters, we realize that England is no
larger than South Carolina and Georgia.
Nature seems to have entered into an amicable conspiracy
with the wonderful race which inhabits this island, to make it
the greatest country in Christendom. Its climate is exceptional.
Regarded by the light of the latitude at which England is
placed, it has no business whatever with the marvelous temperature, which broods over it like a Goddess of Plenty. By virtue of situation it is under atmospheric obligation to bear
sealed months of snow and ice, but by a princely largesse of nature, this obligation is gratuitously canceled. That magical
Mississippi of the Ocean, the Gulf Stream, sweeps athwart its
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