had then become desperate, and
that instead of betraying he did everything in his power to screen his
old associates." The cause of the Stuarts had not become, even then, so
utterly desperate as to prevent many brave men from laying down their
lives for it. Thirty years had to pass away before the last blow was
struck for that cause of the Stuarts which Harcourt by solemn oath
abjured forever. Such credit as he is entitled to have, because he
protected rather than betrayed his old associates, we are free to give
him, and it stands a significant illustration of the political morality
of the time that such comparative credit is all that his enthusiastic
biographer ventures to claim for him.

[Sidenote: 1714--Lords and Commons]

The House of Lords had then two hundred and seven members, many of whom,
being Catholics, were not permitted to take any part in public business.
That number of Peers is about in just proportion to the population of
England as it was then when compared with the Peers and the population of
England at present. In the House of Commons there were at the same time
five hundred and fifty-eight members. England sent in five hundred and
thirteen, and Scotland, which had lately accepted the union, returned
forty-five. It need hardly be said that at that time Ireland had her own
Parliament, and sent no members to Westminster. A great number of the
county family names in the House of Commons were just the same as those
which we see at present. The Stanhopes, the Lowthers, the Lawsons, the
Herberts, the Harcourts, {52} the Cowpers, the Fitzwilliams, the Cecils,
the Grevilles; all these, and many others, were represented in Parliament
then as they are represented in Parliament now. Then, as more lately,
the small boroughs had the credit of returning, mostly of course through
family influence, men of eminence other than political, who happened to
sit in the House of Commons. Steele sat for Stockbridge, in "Southampton
County," as Hampshire was then always called, Addison for Malmesbury,
Prior for East Grinstead. There were no reports of the debates, nor
printed lists of the divisions. Questions of foreign policy were
sometimes discussed with doors strictly closed against all strangers,
just as similar questions are occasionally, and not infrequently,
discussed in the Senate of the United States at present. The pamphlet
supplied in some measure the place of the newspaper report and the
newspaper lea