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where the grossest licentiousness found its grossest example in the person of the sovereign. Profligate as private life naturally is in all the dominions of a religion where every crime is rated by a tariff, and where the confessional relieves every man of his conscience, the conduct of Louis XIV. had made profligacy the actual pride of the throne. The feeble and frivolous Charles was more a Frenchman than an Englishman; more a courtier than a king; and fitter to be a page in the seraglio than either. The royal robe on the shoulders of such a monarch, instead of concealing his vices, only made them glitter in the national eyes; and the morals of England might have been irretrievably stained, but for that salutary judgment which interposed between the people and the dynasty, and by driving James into an ignominious exile, placed a man of principle on the throne. Unfortunately, the reign of William was too busy and too brief to produce any striking change in the habits of the people. His whole policy was turned to the great terror of the time, the daring ambition of France. He fought on the outposts of Europe. All his ideas were Continental. The singular constitution of his nature gave him the spirit of a warrior, combined with the seclusion of a monk. Solitary even in camps, what must he be in the trivial bustle of a court?--and, engrossed with the largest interests of nations, what interest could he attach to the squabbles of rival professors of licentiousness, to giving force to a feeble drama, or regulating the decorum of factions equally corrupt and querulous, and long since equally despised and forgotten? The reign of Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The "gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the plantations. The wit of the past age was also rude, vulgar, and pointless to the polished sarcasm of Pope, or even to the reckless sting of Swift. Yet manners were still coarse, and the Queen complained of Harley's coming to her after dinner,--"troublesome, impudent, and _drunk_." Her court exhibited form without dignity, and her
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