knight, he might be elected to Parliament as "knight (or member) of the shire." Many a squire would have found it impossible to administer even the simple office of justice of the peace had it not been for the clever coaching of his clerk. In almost every case his pretensions to learning were very slight. He had had perhaps a year or so at the University, but even there he had devoted himself more to roystering than to learning, and when he had returned to his estates he was usually quite willing to settle back into his old ignorance. His knowledge of law was drilled into him by his clerk; as for a knowledge of literature, he was content to pick up from some book popular in the country regions a few proverbial expressions, with which he flavored his conversation on all occasions.1 1"'But that Sir Roger may appear in this, as in other respects, above the average of his order, there is in Coverley Hall a library rich in 'divinity and MS. household receipts.' Sir Roger, too, had drawn many observations together out of his reading in Baker's Chronicle and other authors who always lie in his hall window'; and, however limited his own classic lore, it is certain that both in love and friendship he displayed strong literary sympathies. The perverse widow, whose cruelty darkened his whole existence, was a 'reading lady,' a 'desperate scholar,' and in argument 'as learned as the best philosopher in Europe,' one who, when in the country, 'does not run into dairies, but reads upon the nature of plants.' Besides the Spectator-to whom he eventually bequeathed his books-he indulged a platonic admiration for Leonora, a widow, formerly a celebrated woman, and still a very lovely woman, who turned all the passion of her sex into a love of books and retirement."-W. H. Wills 19. The Church. Besides its rents to the landlords, every farm had to pay one-tenth of its yearly produce to the support of the Church. This Church. was a great political institution. Membership in it, like the oath to support the Constitution, was a sign of patriotism, not of religious devotion. Parliament not only settled what the rites of the Church should be, but refused political office to any one who had not taken the communion according to those rites. The great prizes in the Church occasionally went to men of brilliant talents; quite as often, perhaps, to men who had family influence and a little cleverness of their own to back them; they seldom fell to men of religious earnestness. Many of the clergy spent their time enjoying the pleasures of London, and seldom saw the steeples of their own parish churches. Even of those who lived in their parishes, a large number gave most of their time to farming, hunting, drinking, and gambling. "I found a parson drunk," writes Dean Swift in one of his letters, "fighting with a seaman, and Patrick and I were so wise as to part them, but the seaman followed him to Chelsea, cursing at him, and the parson slipped into a house, and so I know no more. It mortified me to see a man of my coat1 so overtaken." The right of appointing a clergyman to any particular church belonged usually to some landed proprietor, who exercised it to repay a political favor, to push the fortunes of his own relations, or to satisfy his own whims. From 1 In the garb or livery of my profession. the duke to the squire, every landed proprietor had in his employ a domestic chaplain. On small country estates, this poor fellow was treated as a sort of man of all work. "In addition to digging for an hour or two daily in the garden or the orchard," says a historian of the period, he "was required to bring the hope of the family past the wearisome bitterness of his learning, to check the rent-book and the miller's score, to shoe the horses, to say grace at meals, and to withdraw as soon as the cheese and tarts made their appearance on the table." "I always keep a chaplain," wrote one bitter satirist, "to drink my foul wine for me." 20. The Whigs and the Tories. All through the eighteenth century, there were two great political parties in England, the Tories and the Whigs. The Tory wished all the powers of government to be in the hands of the landed families, which had inherited their wealth and their reputation from a remote past. The three things dear to a Tory's heart were old times, old families, and great estates. The Whig, on the other hand, cared little for old times; he respected wealth wherever it came from, and wished every prosperous man to have an honorable share in the government. Three-quarters of a century before, a quarrel similar to that between the Whigs and the Tories had begun between the Stuart kings of England on the one hand and the House of Commons on the other. They had fought against each other through two civil wars. Finally the House of Commons had triumphed, and set up a new line of sovereigns of their own choosing, but the Tory always looked back a bit wistfully to the time when the Stuarts were kings by sheer right of birth, and he suspected every Whig of being a republican in disguise. The Whig, on the other hand, was devotedly loyal to the new dynasty, and believed, with a good deal of justice, that the Tories were plotting to bring back the hated Stuart tyrants. The Tory's religious prejudices were affected by the political questions of the time, and he counted every political opponent an enemy of the Church. The Whig was a bigoted Protestant, and suspected his opponents of being Roman Catholics. Both parties were led by great rival families who handed down their intense jealousies of one another from generation to generation. The most important difference between them, however, was one of self-interest. The country gentry and the clergy were Tories because their interests were wrapped up in the preservation of the landed estates; the great merchants were Whigs because their prosperity was dependent on the growing commerce of England. The intensity of party feeling it would be hard to describe. When the Tories came into power, a Tory mob burned Whig chapels and religious meeting-houses; later, courtiers and fine ladies aired their personal and political quarrels before the Queen, and even the editors of the Spectator, hard as they had labored to introduce goodnature and kindness into political life, could not escape the spirit of the times. Their long and earnest friendship ended in political differences and personal bitterness. 21. The War. During much of this time, England was waging a brilliant but protracted war against France and Spain. To fill up her navy, ships' crews were kidnapping able-bodied men from the streets; to fill up her armies, the recruiting sergeant was going through the country districts, gathering in the criminals from the jails and coaxing honest men, when drunk, to enlist for a few shillings. These men were led by active young fellows of good family, who had bought their lieutenancies or captaincies for some hundreds of pounds, and over them all was the great but dishonest commander, Marlborough. Brilliant as were some of the English victories, the majority of the people were growing tired of the war. Taxes were heavy, and the corruption among the army officers was becoming more and more scandalous. From the start, it had been a Whig war, for it was bound to increase the West Indian commerce of England; but the Tories were now in power and in their eyes the war appeared to be doing little good. It was at this juncture that the greatest of the English allies, the Austrian general, Prince Eugene, visited England to change, if he could, the current of English feeling. At first it seemed as if he might be successful. Even the Tories received him with homage, for they could not forget his military skill and courage, and he never ventured on the streets without being surrounded by eager crowds. With all his courtesy and skill, however, his arguments finally gave offense. Tory society gave him the cold shoulder, and men who made their living by writing Tory pam |