Nor should we here forget the enduring character of those peaceful victories won in modern times by discovery and invention, of which multiplied mementoes are afforded in the treasures of the Hyde Park Palace. Most favourably do they stand out in contrast with the evanescent nature of military power and valour. “To whatever part of the vision of modern times,” says sir Humphry Davy, “you cast your eyes, you will find marks of superiority and improvement, and I wish to impress upon you the conviction that the results of intellectual labour or scientific genius are permanent, and incapable of being lost. Monarchs change their plans, governments their objects, a fleet or an army effect their object, and then pass away: but a piece of steel touched by the magnet preserves its character for ever, and secures to man the dominions of the trackless ocean.” All the discoveries of knowledge and their application to practical uses are of this description, and we joyfully compare them with the mouldering trophies of the warrior. The spoils of Cressy and Poictiers have long since perished—even the power which Edward and his soldiers established in France soon declined and disappeared, and long since left behind it only a name in history—but the results of scientific study and artistic toil, which have produced the Great Exhibition of 1851, are destined, we doubt not, to last to a remote period, and to improve the condition and adorn the dwellings of unborn millions of the human family.
In closing this chapter, we may remark that unlike the martial gathering at the tournament of Windsor, the concourse of British subjects at the present festival no longer exhibits the distinctions of feudal society. Lordship and vassalage have happily become numbered among the things that are past. Whatever purposes they might subserve at a certain period, they were badges of imperfect civilization, and have given place to a condition of social order in which, though a graduated scale of rank very properly obtains, the equal rights of men as intellectual and moral beings are beginning to be acknowledged. In this “passage” of arts, “not arms,” the humblest are permitted to display their skill;—not as aforetime, when the contest was confined to the men of high descent, the poorest workman may place his productions beside those of the richest sons of fortune. The man who can make no boast of gentle blood, who can appeal to no roll of ancestry, whose name is but of yesterday, who simply, by dint of using his brains and his muscles, his thoughts and ten fingers, has raised himself into notice is permitted and encouraged to contend with the highest born for the prize of honour in these pacific and generous rivalries. This is not among the least pleasing of the contrasts between past and present.