ry. Besides, all great changes have the
same effect upon commonwealths that thunder has upon liquors, making the
dregs fly up to the top: the lowest plebeians rise to the head of
affairs, and there preserve themselves by representing the nobles and
other friends to the old government, as enemies to the public. The
encouraging of new mysteries and new deities, with the pretences of
further purity in religion, hath likewise been a frequent topic to
mislead the people. And, not to mention more, the promoting false reports
of dangers from abroad, hath often served to prevent them from fencing
against real dangers at home. By these and the like arts, in conjunction
with a great depravity of manners, and a weak or corrupt administration,
the madness of the people hath risen to such a height as to break in
pieces the whole frame of the best instituted governments. But however,
such great frenzies being artificially raised, are a perfect force and
constraint upon human nature, and under a wise steady prince, will
certainly decline of themselves, settling like the sea after a storm, and
then the true bent and genius of the people will appear. Ancient and
modern story are full of instances to illustrate what I say. In our own
island we had a great example of a long madness in the people, kept up by
a thousand artifices like intoxicating medicines, till the constitution
was destroyed; yet the malignity being spent, and the humour exhausted
that served to foment it; before the usurpers could fix upon a new
scheme, the people suddenly recovered, and peaceably restored the old
constitution.

From what I have offered, it will be easy to decide, whether this late
change in the dispositions of the people were a new madness, or a
recovery from an old one. Neither do I see how it can be proved that such
a change had in any circumstance the least symptoms of madness, whether
my description of it be right or no. It is agreed, that the truest way of
judging the dispositions of the people in the choice of their
representatives, is by computing the county-elections; and in these, it
is manifest that five in six are entirely for the present measures;
although the court was so far from interposing its credit, that there was
no change in the admiralty, not above one or two in the lieutenancy, nor
any other methods used to influence elections.[4] The free unextorted
addresses[5] sent some time before from every part of the kingdom,
plainly shewed