have been seen always on the opposite sides of any question that could affect the constitution and government of a free country?

"The real and proper topic for lamentation and reproach is not, exactly, that men are often violent and systematic in their opposition to each other, but that they do not adopt their principles with sufficient care, and then follow them up with sufficient sincerity and honor. Moderate men, as they call themselves, and men of no party, as they profess themselves to be, will generally be found to be men who take little concern, or are but ill-informed, on political subjects; and if they are members of the legislature, they are pretty uniformly observed, as they are of no party, forsooth, to take care to be of that party which is the strongest-to be of the minister's party (be he who he may), and to benefit by their neutrality. It is possible, indeed, for men to be of no party, and to assume the high station of real patriots; and even when they are of a party, to remain patriots, by refusing to sanction those measures of the party which they disapprove. This is, perhaps, the highest possible ambition of an intelligent and virtuous man, but such an eminence can only be attained on one hard condition, that of never receiving a favor from those in power. conclude by observing, that the causes of political animosity were, in those times, very peculiarly weighty and animating. The questions that lay often between the parties were, in reality, what family was to possess the throne; whether the title to the crown was to be founded on divine and hereditary right, or on the principles of an original contract, that is, whether on arbitrary or free principles; whether the religion established in the country was to be certainly Protestant, or probably Roman Catholic; in a word, whether principles decidedly favorable, or principles clearly hostile, to the civil and religious liberties of the country, were to be maintained and established."

.I

CHAPTER VIII.

PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

Section I. The Moral Condition of the People.

1. THE LOW ESTATE OF THE CLERGY. The moral instruction of the people was very uneven at different parts of the Stuart period, nd in different places at the same time. Indeed, the condition of the authorised instructors of the people was very unfavorable, owing in part to their low worldly estate. In Gregory's Scheme of Income and Expenditure for the year 1688, the average income of the “eminent clergy" is given as £72, and that of the lesser clergymen" as £50; that is, according to the same scheme, the latter received about onefourth more than an artizan, the former little more than a small freeholder. Macaulay states the income of the church at that time as only about one-seventh of what it is at present. The same writer draws the following word-picture of the condition of the rural clergy: "Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. As children multiplied and grew, the household of the priest became more and more beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plainly in the thatch of his parsonage, and in his single cassock. Often it was only by toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dungcarts, that he could obtain daily bread; nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the bailiffs from taking his concordance and his inkstand in execution. It was a white day on which he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up like the children of the neighboring peasantry. His boys followed the plough; and his girls went out to service. Study he found impossible, for the advowson of his living would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theologial library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky if he had ten or twelve dogeared volumes among the pots and pans on his shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect might be expected to rust in so unfavorable a situation.

Further, the political condition of the country was unfavorable to the clergy, during most of this period. From the first there were divisions in the church itself. Many of the clergy were favorable to changes in church discipline, and hence there were frequent cases of insubordination, and a general want of hearty allegiance to the Establishment. It was indeed to remedy this state of things, that Laud entered with so much zeal on, what appeared to him, so absolutely necessary to the welfare of the church. The Puritan ascendency came, and filled the churches with a diversified priesthood, made up to a great extent of men unlearned and fanatical. Nor were things much improved at the Restoration. Religion", so writes a church

dignitary, "was itself the most fertile cause of contention, and fos tered every evil passion with which the human breast is corrupted. Fanaticism and a false discipline had promoted the cause of hypocrisy and irreligion, and debauchery and vice followed in their train; but party feeling seemed likely to have destroyed whatever portion of Christianity remained, had not God in mercy raised up a body of men, whom the very dangers and difficulties of the times tended to educate; and whose virtues and experience were matured by the opposition which they were obliged to encounter." There were however, during the whole period, many clergymen both good and learned. The former were to be found, here and there, all over the country, the latter principally at the universities, the cathedrals, and in the capital.

After the Revolution the churches are said to have been better supplied, though the clerical staff is acknowledged to have been still of an inferior kind. Both Burnet and Atterbury testify to a want of attention to clerical duties. The former writes, "I have observed the clergy in all places through which I have travelled-Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Dissenters, but of them all, our clergy is much the most remiss in their labors in private, and the least severe in their lives"; the latter speaks of the relaxation and decay of the discipline of the church, and states that "a due regard to religious persons, places, and things, has scarce in any age been more wanting". Lord Mahon attributes the decline in the Establishment after the Revolution, to the political divisions of that period: "Thus, then, in the whole period since 1688, except the four last years of Queen Anne, a large proportion of the clergy were in a state of dissatisfaction and opposition to the Ministers, if not to the Sovereign. From this unnatural alienation between the Church and State, there soon followed another between the higher and lower clergy. The new government, as might be supposed, selected its bishops from its small minority of partisans, rather than from the unfriendly majority; and thus it happened that most of the clergy came to be on one side, and most of the bishops on the other. The result was a total decay of dis

cipline; for where there is no confidence and cordiality, discipline can only be enforced by harsh measures, and these were repugnant to the gentle spirit of the bishops. They therefore allowed their authority to sleep, except in the rare cases of gross irregularity; they had seldom any labor of love, and their fatherly guidance was no more."

2. A BAD PUBLIC EXAMPLE. The low condition of morals during the Stuart period, was not wholly due to the want of a better educated and more active clergy. In high places, the example was cor rupting to an extreme degree. James I. was of loose, low habits, and his language obscene and disgusting. Oaths were constantly in his mouth, and the influence of a king brought the vice into fashion Some of the scenes enacted in the court of the first James are not ₤t to be repeated. The influence of Charles I. was better, inasmuch he discouraged the indecency which had characterised the court of his father, yet the cavaliers were notorious for their profligacy of man ners. After the Restoration, religion and morality seemed to be de funct; the court set the model for the most abandoned morals, an the statesmen for want of good faith. On the continent, it became s proverbial saying, " He swears like a Briton, is as drunk as an Eng

lishman, and as lewd and profane as a Londoner". And even after the Revolution, there existed, as is evident from the entire history of the reigns of William and Anne, a shameful want of public honesty.

3. THE MORAL TONE OF THE NATION DEGRADED. It can be a matter of no surprise, that with an inferior clergy, a bad example in the higher circles, and a fitful condition of public affairs, if the notices we have of public morals during this period, should be unfavorable. In the large towns, London in particular, a numerous class subsisted upon plunder, gained by force or craft. Indeed, there is scarcely a mode of dishonesty current in the present day, but was then known and practised with dexterity. Cutpurses, for purses were then hung at the waist, formed a regular professson, and schools existed in London for training novices. Others, with sweets, allured children to their haunts, where they made such changes in their appearance, that they could no longer be recognised, and then shipped them off to the Plantations to be disposed of as slaves. In the practice of kidnapping, Bristol had a bad notoriety, as may be seen in the "Lives of the Norths"; only in this case it was done by the mayor and aldermen abusing their authority, to ship off and sell the petty offenders that came before them, under pretence that it was the only way by which the culprits could save their necks. On the high roads, bands of men numbering from ten to forty, armed with steel pikes and other weapons, rendered travelling almost impossible; whoever was under the necessity, waited till a considerable party had gathered with the intention of pursuing the same route. Towards the close of the period public attention was directed to the great increase of drinking habits among the people. In London, spirits were sold at stalls and carried about on barrows. A few years later, a committee of the magistrates of Middlesex, reported that Geneva and other strong waters were sold by retail at every tenth house in some parishes, in others at every seventh, and in one, at every fifth house; and this in addition to what was sold in the streets.

All through the period there was a want of refinement of feeling, even among those classes where it might have been expected. "There is," observes Macaulay, "scarcely a page of the history, or lighter literature of the seventeenth century, which does not contain some proof that our ancestors were less humane than their posterity. The discipline of workshops, of schools, of private families, though not more efficient than at present, was infinitely harsher. Masters, well born and bred, were in the habit of beating their servants. Pedagogues knew no way of imparting knowledge but by beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent station, were not ashamed to beat their wives. The implacability of hostile factions was such as we can scarcely conceive. Whigs were disposed to murmur because Strafford was suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled and insulted Russell as his coach passed from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. As little mercy was shown by the populace to sufferers of a humbler rank. If an offender was put in the pillory, it was well if he escaped with life from the shower of brickbats and paving stones. If he was tied to the cart's tail, the crowd pressed round him, imploring the hangman to give it the fellow well, and make him howl. Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell on court-days. for the purpose of

seeing the wretched women, who beat hemp there, whipped. A man pressed to death for refusing to plead, a woman burned for coining, excited less sympathy than is now felt for a galled horse or an overdriven ox."

Deficient in moral tone, as the seventeenth century undoubtedly was, it would be an error to conclude that it was altogether bad; Burnet says of "the men of trade and business, they are generally speaking, the best body in the nation; generous, sober, and charitable, and that the inhabitants of cities had more knowledge, more zeal, and more charity, with a great more devotion", than the people in the country. It is moreover a sign of improvement, that in 1692, there was founded the Society for the Reformation of Manners, intended to secure the better observance of the Sabbath, to check the dissolute morals of the people, and to abolish the haunts of vice in the metropolis. The year 1698 saw the birth of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. "Its original design was to propagate religion in the Plantations, to secure the pious education of the poor at home, and to reclaim those that err in the fundamentals of Christianity. By the year 1701, it had procured considerable donations, and had transmitted the same to the plantations in libraries, bibles, and other books, with a voluntary maintenance for the several ministers to be employed in the plantations." In 1701, was instituted the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, for the purpose of securing a maintenance for an orthodox clergy, and making other provision for the propagation of the gospel in the plantations, colonies, and factories. As this was one of the objects of the Christian Knowledge Society, a transfer of that branch of the original design was made. "These societies were mainly the result of the unwearied labor of Dr. Thomas Bray (born in Shropshire 1656, educated at Hart-hall, Oxford, and died 1720) a man of indefatigable energy, unbounded charity, and exemplary life".

Section II. The Intellectual condition of the People.

1. EDUCATION of the superioR CLASSES. For the purposes of a higher education, two additional colleges were founded at Oxford. Wadham in 1611, by Nicholas Wadham of Somersetshire, to have a warden, fifteen fellows, and fifteen scholars; and Pembroke in 1620, so called from the Earl of Pembroke, then Chancellor of the University, to have a master, fourteen fellows, and thirty scholars. In 1657, College was founded at Durham by Oliver Cromwell, who endowed it with property taken from the cathedral clergy, but at the Restoration the dean and chapter resumed their lands and the college ceased. The education of the higher classes is said to have been almost limited to a little Latin and less Greek, beaten in by a "lashing master", resulting as Macaulay says in learning less solid and profound than at an earlier or a later period, though he adds, that to speak Latin well was a much more common accomplishment than it our time. The proper finish of a superior education is thus described in the Spectator. "Nothing is more frequent, than to take from grammar and taw, and under the tuition of some poor scholar who is willing to be banished for thirty pounds a-year and a little victuals, send him crying and snivelling into foreign countries. Thus he