rival dogma of the divine right of the people. The reigning monarch held
his crown neither of God nor of the nation, but of a parliament
controlled by a ruling class. The Whig aristocracy had done a priceless
service to English liberty. It was full of political capacity, and by no
means void of patriotism; but it was only a part of the national life.
Nor was it at present moved by political emotions in any high sense. It
had done its great work when it expelled the Stuarts and placed William
of Orange on the throne; its ascendency was now complete. The Stuarts
had received their death-blow at Culloden; and nothing was left to the
dominant party but to dispute on subordinate questions, and contend for
office among themselves. The Troy squires sulked in their
country-houses, hunted foxes, and grumbled against the reigning dynasty;
yet hardly wished to see the nation convulsed by a counter-revolution
and another return of the Stuarts.

If politics had run to commonplace, so had morals; and so too had
religion. Despondent writers of the day even complained that British
courage had died out. There was little sign to the common eye that under
a dull and languid surface, forces were at work preparing a new life,
material, moral, and intellectual. As yet, Whitefield and Wesley had not
wakened the drowsy conscience of the nation, nor the voice of William
Pitt roused it like a trumpet-peal.

It was the unwashed and unsavory England of Hogarth, Fielding, Smollett,
and Sterne; of Tom Jones, Squire Western, Lady Bellaston, and Parson
Adams; of the "Rake's Progress" and "Marriage à la Mode;" of the lords
and ladies who yet live in the undying gossip of Horace Walpole,
be-powdered, be-patched, and be-rouged, flirting at masked balls,
playing cards till daylight, retailing scandal, and exchanging double
meanings. Beau Nash reigned king over the gaming-tables of Bath; the