en to whom the
people looked for guidance. A man conversant with affairs expressed to
Pepys his opinion that nothing could be done with 'a lazy Prince, no
Council, no money, no reputation at home or abroad,' and Pepys also
gives the damning statement which is in harmony with all we know of the
king, that he 'took ten times more care and pains in making friends
between my Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out,
than ever he did to save his kingdom.'

There was nothing in the brief reign of James, a reign for ever made
infamous by the atrocious cruelty of Jeffreys, that calls for comment
here, but the Revolution, despite the undoubted advantages it brought
with it, among which must be mentioned the abolition of the censorship
of the press, brought also an element of discord and of political
degradation. The change was a good one for the country, but it caused a
large number of influential men to renounce on oath opinions which they
secretly held, and it led, as every reader of history knows, to an
unparalleled amount of double-dealing on the part of statesmen, which
began with the accession of William and Mary and did not end until the
last hopes of the Jacobites were defeated in 1746. The loss of principle
among statesmen, and the bitterness of faction, which seemed to increase
in proportion as the patriotic spirit declined, had a baleful influence
on the latter days of the seventeenth century and on the entire period
covered by the age of Pope. The low tone of the age is to be seen in the
almost universal corruption which prevailed, in the scandalous
tergiversation of Bolingbroke, and in the contempt for political
principle openly avowed by Walpole, who, as Mr. Lecky observes, 'was
altogether incapable of appreciating as an element of political
calculation the force which moral sentiments exercise upon mankind.'[2]

The enthusiasm and strong passions of the first half of the seventeenth
century, which had been crushed by the Restoration, were exchanged for a
state of apathy that led to self-seeking in politics and to scepticism
in religion. There was a strong profession of morality in words, but in
conduct the most open immorality prevailed. Virtue was commended in the
bulk of the churches, while Christianity, which gives a new life and aim
to virtue, was practically ignored, and the principles of the Deists,
whose opinions occupied much attention at the time, were scarcely more
alien to the Chris