help of a company of musketeers. Such relics of the barbarism of the
darkest ages were to be found within a short walk of the chambers where
Somers was studying history and law, of the chapel where Tillotson was
preaching, of the coffee house where Dryden was passing judgment on
poems and plays, and of the hall where the Royal Society was examining
the astronomical system of Isaac Newton. [126]

Each of the two cities which made up the capital of England had its
own centre of attraction. In the metropolis of commerce the point of
convergence was the Exchange; in the metropolis of fashion the Palace.
But the Palace did not retain influence so long as the Exchange. The
Revolution completely altered the relations between the Court and the
higher classes of society. It was by degrees discovered that the King,
in his individual capacity, had very little to give; that coronets
and garters, bishoprics and embassies, lordships of the Treasury and
tellerships of the Exchequer, nay, even charges in the royal stud and
bedchamber, were really bestowed, not by him, but by his advisers.
Every ambitious and covetous man perceived that he would consult his own
interest far better by acquiring the dominion of a Cornish borough, and
by rendering good service to the ministry during a critical session,
than by becoming the companion, or even the minion, of his prince. It
was therefore in the antechambers, not of George the First and of
George the Second, but of Walpole and of Pelham, that the daily crowd
of courtiers was to be found. It is also to be remarked that the same
Revolution, which made it impossible that our Kings should use the
patronage of the state merely for the purpose of gratifying their
personal predilections, gave us several Kings unfitted by their
education and habits to be gracious and affable hosts. They had been
born and bred on the Continent. They never felt themselves at home in
our island. If they spoke our language, they spoke it inelegantly and
with effort. Our national character they never fully understood. Our
national manners they hardly attempted to acquire. The most important
part of their duty they performed better than any ruler who preceded
them: for they governed strictly according to law: but they could not be
the first gentlemen of the realm, the heads of polite society. If ever
they unbent, it was in a very small circle where hardly an English face
was to be seen; and they were never so happy as when t