Men Who Have Made the Empire

The Epic of England has yet to be written. It may be that the fulness of time for writing it has not come yet or it may be that Britain is still waiting for her Homer and her Virgil. Perhaps the matured genius of a Rudyard Kipling that strong sweet Singer of the Seven Seas may some day address itself to the accomplishment of this most splendid of all possible tasks and then again it may be that it is his only to sound the prelude. That is a matter for the gods to decide in their own good time but this much is certain—that when this work has been worthily done the world will hear echoing through the ages such a thunder-song as has never stirred human hearts before.It will begin doubtless with the battle-cries of the old Sea-Kings of the North chanted to the music of their churning oars and the rush and roar of the foam swirling away under the bows of their longships and from them it will go on ringing and thundering through the centuries ever swelling in depth and volume as more and more of the races of men hear it rolling over the battle-fields of conquered lands until at last—as every loyal man of English speech must truly hope—the roar of the Last Battle has rolled away into eternal silence and north and south east and west the proclaiming of the Pax Britannica heralds the epoch of “The Parliament of Man the Federation of the World.”But in the meantime while we are waiting for the coming of the singer whose master-hand shall blend the song and story of Britain into an epic worthy of his magnificent theme materials may be gathered together old facts may be presented in new lights and the great characters who have played their parts in the most tremendous drama that has ever occupied the Stage of Time may be re-grouped in such fashion as will make their subtler relationships more plain and all this will make the great work readier to the hand of the Master when he comes.It is a portion of this minor work that I have set myself here to do. The making of a nation and the building of nations up into empires is humanly speaking the greatest and noblest work that human hands and brains can find to do for the making of an empire means in its ultimate analysis the substitution of order for anarchy of commerce for plunder of civilisation for savagery—in a word of peace for strife...- GEORGE GRIFFITH 1899