The last part of the eighteenth century saw the invention of spinning and weaving machines, the introduction of steam engines to furnish power, the wider use of coal, the substitution of the factory system for the home production of cloth, and the impairment of the home by the employment of women and children for unrestricted hours in the factories. The long reign of George III., interrupted by periods of insanity, ended in 1820. The next two kings were his sons, George IV. (1820-1830) and William IV. (1830-1837). During these two reigns the spirit of reform was in the air. The most important reforms were (1) the revision of the criminal laws, which had prescribed death for some two hundred offenses, including stealing as much as five shillings; (2) the removal of political disabilities from Catholics, so that for the first time since 1673 they could hold municipal office and sit in Parliament; (3) the Reform Bill of 1832, which (_a_) extended the franchise to the well-to-do middle classes but not to those dependent on day labor, (_b_) gave a fairer apportionment of representatives in Parliament and abolished the so-called "rotten boroughs," _i.e._ those districts which with few or no inhabitants had been sending members to Parliament, while the large manufacturing cities in the north were without representatives; (4) the final bill in 1833 for the abolition of slavery; (5) child labor laws, which ordered the textile factories to cease employing children under nine years of age, prescribed a legal working day of eight hours for children between nine and thirteen, and of twelve hours for those between thirteen and eighteen; (6) the improvement of the poor laws. The increased interest in human rights and welfare is the most important characteristic of this entire period, but most especially of the reigns of George IV. and William IV. Sir Robert Peel, the elder, although an employer of nearly a thousand children, felt the spirit of the time enough to call the attention of Parliament to the abuses of child labor. As we shall see, this new spirit exerted a strong influence on literature. Influence of the New Spirit on Poetry.--The French Revolution stirred the young English poets profoundly. They proclaimed the birth of a new humanity of boundless promise. The possibilities of life again seemed almost as great as in Elizabethan days. The usually sober-minded Wordsworth exclaimed:-- "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!"[1] In the age of Pope, the only type of man considered worthy a place in the best literature was the aristocrat. The ordinary laborer was an object too contemptible even for satire. Burns placed a halo around the head of the honest toiler. In 1786 he could find readers for his _The Cotter's Saturday Night_; and ten years later he proclaimed thoughts which would have been laughed to scorn early in the century:--