interest prevailed, the general ridicule which attended their inconsistent conduct, all served to complete their confusion. Upon recollection, they saw nothing so eligible in the present crisis as silence and submission; they hoped much from the assistance of France, and still more from the popularity and counsels of the Pretender. This unfortunate man seemed to possess all the qualities of his father; his pride, his want of perseverance, and his attachment to the catholic religion. He was but a poor leader, therefore, unfit to conduct so desperate a cause; and, in fact, all the sensible part of the kingdom had forsaken it as irretrievable.

Pursuant to the act of succession, George the First, son of Ernest-Augustus, first elector of Brunswick, and the princess Sophia, grand-daughter to James the First, ascended the British throne. His mature age, he being now fifty-four years old, his sagacity and experience, his numerous alliances, the general tranquillity of Europe, all contributed to establish his interests, and to promise him a peaceable and happy reign. His virtues, though not shining, were solid; he was of a very different disposition from the Stuart family, whom he succeeded. These were known to a proverb for leaving their friends in extremity; George, on the contrary, soon after his arrival in England, was heard to say, “ My maxim is, never to abandon my friends, to do justice to all the world, and to fear no man.” To these qualifications of resolution and perseverance, he joined great application to business. However, one fault with respect to England remained behind; he studied the interest of those subjects he had left more than of those he came to govern.

The queen had no sooner resigned her breath, than the privy-council met, and three instruments were produced, by which the elector appointed several of his

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known adherents to be added as lords justices to the seven great officers of state. Orders also were immediately issued for proclaiming George king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The regency appointed the earl of Dorset to carry him the intimation of his accession to the crown, and to attend him in his journey to Eng· land. They sent the general officers, in whom they could confide, to their posts; they reinforced the garrison of Portsmouth, and appointed the celebrated Mr. Addison secretary of state. To mortify the late mi. - nistry the more, lord Bolingbroke was obliged to wait every morning in the passage, among the servants, with · his bag of papers, where there were persons purposely placed to insult and deride him. No tumult appeared ; no commotion arose against the accession of the new king; and this gave a strong proof that no rational measures were ever taken to obstruct his exaltation.

The king first landed at Greenwich, where he was received by the duke of Northumberland, captain of the life-guard, and the lords of the regency. From the landing place, he walked to his house in the park, accompanied by a great number of the nobility and other persons of distinction, who expected to make their court in this reign, in consequence of their turbulence and opposition in the last. When he retired to his bed-chamber, he sent for such of the nobility as had distinguished themselves by their zeal for his succession. But the duke of Ormond, the lord-chancellor, and the lord-treasurer, found themselves excluded. The earl of Oxford, the next morning, presented himself with an air of confidence, supposing that his rupture with Bolingbroke would compensate for his former conduct. But he had the mortification to remain a considerable time unnoticed

among the crowd; and then was permitted to kiss the king's hand, without being honoured with any

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cumstance of peculiar respect. To mortify him still more, the king expressed uncommon regard for the duke of Marlborough (who had just come from the continent), as well as for all the leaders of the Whig party. The king of a faction is but the sovereign of half his subjects. Of this, however, the new-elected monarch did not seem sensible. It was his misfortune, and con

sequently of the nation, that he was hemmed round by men who soured him with all their own interests and prejudices. Only the zealots of a party were now admitted into employment. The Whigs, while they pretended to secure the crown for their king, were with all possible arts confirming their own interests, extending their connexions, and giving laws to their sovereign. An instantaneous and total change was made in all the offices of trust, honour, or advantage. The Whigs governed the senate and the court; whom they would, they oppressed; bound the lower orders of people with severe laws, and kept them at a distance by vile distinctions; and then taught them to call this-liberty.

These partialities soon raised great discontent among the people; and the king's attachment considerably increased the number of mal-contents. The clamour of the supposed danger of the church was revived; and the people only seemed to want a leader to excite them to insurrection. Birmingham, Bristol, Norwich, and Reading, still remembered the spirit with which they had declared for Sacheverel: and now the cry was, "Down with the Whigs, and Sacheverel for ever!" During these commotions, which were fomented by every art, the Pretender himself continued a calm spectator on the continent. Then was the time for him to have struck his greatest blow; but he only sent over his emissaries to disperse his ineffectual manifestoes, and delude the unwary. In these papers he observed, that the late

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queen had intentions of calling him to the crown. expostulated with his people upon the injustice they had done themselves in proclaiming a foreign prince for their sovereign, contrary to the laws of the country, that gave to him only the real claim. Copies of a printed address were sent to the dukes of Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Argyle, and other noblemen of the first distinc tion, vindicating his right to the crown, and complaining of the injustice of his people. Yet though he still complaimed of their conduct, he never took one step to reform his own, or to correct that objection upon which his father had forfeited the throne. He still continued to profess the truest regard to the catholic religion; and instead of concealing his sentiments on that head, gloried in his principles. He expected to ascend the throne against a very powerful opposition, and that by professing the very same principles by which it had been lost.

But, however odious the popish superstition was to the bulk of the people at that time, the principles of the dissenters were equally displeasing. It was against them and their tenets that mobs were excited, and riots became frequent. How violent soever the conduct of either party seemed to be, yet their animosities were founded upon religion, and they committed every excess upon principles that had their foundation in some mistaken virtue. It was now said by the Tories, that impiety and heresy were daily gaining ground under a Whig administration. It was said that the bishops were so lukewarm in favour of the church, and so ardent in pursuit of temporal advantages, that every vice was rearing its head without control. The doctrines of the true religion were left exposed on every side, and open to the attacks of the dissenters and Socinians on one part, and of the catholics on the other. The lower orders of the clergy sided with the people in these com

plaints: they pointed out to the ministry several tracts. written in favour of Socinianism and Arianism. The court not only refused to punish the delinquents, but silenced the clergy themselves, and forbade their future disputations on such topics. This injunction answered the immediate purpose of the ministry; it put a stop to the clamours of the populace, fomented by the clergy: but it produced a worse disorder in its train; it produced a negligence in all religious concerns. Nothing can be more impolitic in a state than to hinder the clergy from disputing with eath other; they thus become more animated in the cause of religion, and, which side soever they defend, they become wiser and better as they carry on the dispute. To silence argument in the clergy, is to encourage them in sloth and neglect; if religion be not kept awake by opposition, it sinks into silence, and no longer continues an object of public

concern.

The parliament being dissolved, another was called A. D. by a very extraordinary proclamation. In this 1715. the king complained of the evil designs of men disaffected to his succession, and of their having misre-. presented his conduct and principles. He expressed hopes that his subjects would send up to parliament the fittest persons to redress the present disorders ; he entreated that they would elect such in particular as had expressed a firm attachment to the protestant succession when it was in danger. It was thus that this monarch was tutored, by the faction around him, to look with an evil eye on subjects that never opposed the succession-subjects that detested a popish monarch, and whose only fault was a desire of being governed rather by the authority of a king than a junto of their fellow-subjects who assumed his power. In the election of this important parliament, uncommon vigour was