n,
excluded the Stuarts and settled the succession to the throne of princes
who have since governed England upon the principle there laid down, not
of divine right, but of an original contract between prince and people,
the breaking of which by the prince may lawfully entail forfeiture of
the crown.]
[Footnote 6: James Stuart, son of James II, born June 10, 1688, was
then in the 23rd year of his age.]
[Footnote 7: The 'Rehearsal' was a witty burlesque upon the heroic
dramas of Davenant, Dryden, and others, written by George Villiers, duke
of Buckingham, the Zimri of Dryden's 'Absalom and Achitophel,' 'that
life of pleasure and that soul of whim,' who, after running through a
fortune of L50,000 a year, died, says Pope, 'in the worst inn's worst
room.' His 'Rehearsal', written in 1663-4, was first acted in 1671. In
the last act the poet Bayes, who is showing and explaining a Rehearsal
of his play to Smith and Johnson, introduces an Eclipse which, as he
explains, being nothing else but an interposition, &c.
'Well, Sir, then what do I, but make the earth, sun, and moon, come
out upon the stage, and dance the hey' ... 'Come, come out, eclipse,
to the tune of 'Tom Tyler'.'
[Enter Luna.]
'Luna': Orbis, O Orbis! Come to me, thou little rogue, Orbis.
[Enter the Earth.]
'Orb.' Who calls Terra-firma pray?
...
[Enter Sol, to the tune of Robin Hood, &c.]
While they dance Bayes cries, mightily taken with his device,
'Now the Earth's before the Moon; now the Moon's before
the Sun: there's the Eclipse again.']
[Footnote 8: The elector of Hanover, who, in 1714, became King George I.]
[Footnote 9: In the year after the foundation of the Bank of England,
Mr. Charles Montague,--made in 1700 Baron and by George I., Earl of
Halifax, then (in 1695) Chancellor of the Exchequer,--restored the
silver currency to a just standard. The process of recoinage caused for
a time scarcity of coin and stoppage of trade. The paper of the Bank of
England fell to 20 per cent. discount. Montague then collected and paid
public debts from taxes imposed for the purpose and invented (in 1696),
to relieve the want of currency, the issue of Exchequer bills. Public
credit revived, the Bank capital increased, the currency sufficed, and.
says Earl Russell in his Essay on the English Government and
Constitution,
'from this time loans were made of a vast increasing amount
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