power, and forgetting the injuries of the wife in order to
retain the influence of the Queen.

There can be no doubt that this policy had its reward. The King gave her
power, or at least never attempted to disturb the power belonging to her
rank, while it left him the full indulgence of his vices. She thus
obtained two objects--to the world she appeared a suffering angel, to
the King a submissive wife. In the mean time she managed both court and
King, possessed vast patronage, perhaps more general court popularity
than any Queen of the age; led a pleasant life, enjoying the sweets
without the responsibilities of royalty; and by judicious liberality of
purse, and equally dexterous flexibility of opinion, contrived to carry
some degree of public respect with her, while she lived, and be followed
by some degree of public regret to her grave.

But this example was productive of palpable evil. The example of the
higher ranks always operates powerfully on the lower. The toleration
exhibited by the highest female in the kingdom for the most notorious
vices, gave additional effect to that fashion of flexibility, which is
the besetting sin of polished times. If the Queen had firmly set her
face against the offences of her husband, or if she had shown the
delicacy of a woman of virtue in keeping aloof from all intercourse with
women whom the public voice had long marked as criminal, she might have,
partially at least, reformed the corruptions of her profligate period.

But this indifference to all the nobler feelings was the style of the
day. Religion was scarcely more than a form: its preachers were
partisans; its controversies were court feuds, its principles were
politics, and its objects were stoles and mitres. In an age when
Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and
Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the
cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a
subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate
of Christianity.

Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the correspondence in these
volumes is from clerical candidates for personal services; and if
singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the
influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame,
the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be
remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profe