or admired in Ireland. In fact, his chief merits are real obstacles to popularity in a land where religious and political enmities are usually supported, approved, and inspired with the credulity, eloquence, and enthusiasm of a past age.

CHAPTER XVII

AT

CONCLUDING REMARKS

T the beginning of the 20th century Englishmen should be the best educated people the world has yet seen. The political triumph of Christianity in late years has greatly promoted this result. No non-Christian power is now really formidable. Asia, north and south, is either ruled or influenced more and more by Russia and England, and for many years Egypt also has been under British control. This vast political supremacy of European Christians over countries hitherto independent of them both enlightens and enriches the cities of Europe with antiquarian knowledge, geographical discovery, and classic confirmation. No Asiatic, African, or native American race has acquired much political power for many years.

of

European arms, laws, rule, and influence are steadily increasing throughout the known world, all opposition to them gradually diminishing through the progress time. The history and political position of Britain afford probably more means of acquiring general

knowledge than any other country has possessed since the fall of the Roman empire.

The wisdom of ancient writers in lands far from Britain has been combined with a vast increase of general knowledge and antiquarian discovery. While the Jewish Scriptures are preserved as a precious religious inheritance transmitted to both Christians and Mohammedans, the geography, literature, and history of the old world have been recently more thoroughly examined than ever before.

The instruction and attraction of classical literature always encouraged and rewarded even mediæval, but especially modern European travellers, students, and translators. In western Europe for centuries literature has been more and more connected with and enriched by fresh discoveries and acquisitions.

Ancient Greek, Roman, and Hebrew literature have long been little studied in either Athens, Rome, or Jerusalem. In modern European capitals, London especially, they are far more appreciated, far better known, and far more money devoted to their republication, safety, and examination. The best Greek, Latin, and Hebrew scholars are now found in England or Germany. Neither Italians nor modern Greeks rival British and German students of their ancestral literature in learning, industry, or taste.

The best educated, most wealthy, and influential Jews have long resided in western Europe. Some of their race visit or dwell in Jerusalem from historical interest, piety, or curiosity, but their wealth, enterprise, and talents are devoted to European

countries, and more, perhaps, to England than to any other.

During the 19th century the increasing intercourse of Europe with Asia and Africa, the travels, labours, and researches of Layard, Rawlinson, and other f writers, chiefly English, German, and Italian, alike extend and confirm the classic knowledge bequeathed by antiquity.

Though some foreign travellers, scholars, and antiquarians, like Schliemann and Maspero, fairly rival British explorers and discoverers, yet their works promptly translated into English, and the encouragement given them by British influence and approval, surely place England in the proud position of chief patron, protector, and general promoter of European intellectual enterprise. British literary research, often aided by foreign scholars, finds in the old world, once mostly comprised in the vast Roman Empire, a still increasing amount of antiquarian knowledge.

Egypt, "the mother of Athens "I and Grecian learning, Troy, the scene of the first and noblest poem ever written, Nineveh and other places of most ancient historic interest, have, in the last century, revealed more of their buried secrets than ever, through the literary test, resources, and examination of accomplished Europeans. Egypt, especially in the past century, seems the chief scene of European research, guided by literary study and rewarded by European appreciation.

Its Mohammedan and Coptic natives can only Lord Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii."