ind, but as an exciting game of mixed chance and skill, at which
a dexterous and lucky player may win an estate, a coronet, perhaps a
crown, and at which one rash move may lead to the loss of fortune and
of life. Ambition, which, in good times, and in good minds, is half a
virtue, now, disjoined from every elevated and philanthropic sentiment,
becomes a selfish cupidity scarcely less ignoble than avarice. Among
those politicians who, from the Restoration to the accession of the
House of Hanover, were at the head of the great parties in the state,
very few can be named whose reputation is not stained by what, in our
age, would be called gross perfidy and corruption. It is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that the most unprincipled public men who have taken
part in affairs within our memory would, if tried by the standard
which was in fashion during the latter part of the seventeenth century,
deserve to be regarded as scrupulous and disinterested.

While these political, religious, and moral changes were taking place in
England, the Royal authority had been without difficulty reestablished
in every other part of the British islands. In Scotland the restoration
of the Stuarts had been hailed with delight; for it was regarded as
the restoration of national independence. And true it was that the yoke
which Cromwell had imposed was, in appearance, taken away, that the
Scottish Estates again met in their old hall at Edinburgh, and that the
Senators of the College of Justice again administered the Scottish
law according to the old forms. Yet was the independence of the little
kingdom necessarily rather nominal than real; for, as long as the King
had England on his side, he had nothing to apprehend from disaffection
in his other dominions. He was now in such a situation that he could
renew the attempt which had proved destructive to his father without any
danger of his father's fate. Charles the First had tried to force his
own religion by his regal power on the Scots at a moment when both his
religion and his regal power were unpopular in England; and he had not
only failed, but had raised troubles which had ultimately cost him
his crown and his head. Times had now changed: England was zealous for
monarchy and prelacy; and therefore the scheme which had formerly been
in the highest degree imprudent might be resumed with little risk to
the throne. The government resolved to set up a prelatical church in
Scotland. The design was di