their summer beauty, had deferred his departure in order to mark his
respect for Tillotson. The crowd which lined the streets greeted the new
Primate warmly. For he had, during many years, preached in the City; and
his eloquence, his probity and the singular gentleness of his temper
and manners, had made him the favourite of the Londoners. [46] But the
congratulations and applauses of his friends could not drown the roar of
execration which the Jacobites set up. According to them, he was a thief
who had not entered by the door, but had climbed over the fences. He was
a hireling whose own the sheep were not, who had usurped the crook of
the good shepherd, and who might well be expected to leave the flock
at the mercy of every wolf. He was an Arian, a Socinian, a Deist, an
Atheist. He had cozened the world by fine phrases, and by a show of
moral goodness: but he was in truth a far more dangerous enemy of the
Church than he could have been if he had openly proclaimed himself a
disciple of Hobbes, and had lived as loosely as Wilmot. He had taught
the fine gentlemen and ladies who admired his style, and who were
constantly seen round his pulpit, that they might be very good
Christians, and yet might believe the account of the Fall in the book
of Genesis to be allegorical. Indeed they might easily be as good
Christians as he; for he had never been christened; his parents were
Anabaptists; he had lost their religion when he was a boy; and he had
never found another. In ribald lampoons he was nicknamed Undipped John.
The parish register of his baptism was produced in vain. His enemies
still continued to complain that they had lived to see fathers of the
Church who never were her children. They made up a story that the Queen
had felt bitter remorse for the great crime by which she had obtained a
throne, that in her agony she had applied to Tillotson, and that he had
comforted her by assuring her that the punishment of the wicked in
a future state would not be eternal. [47] The Archbishop's mind was
naturally of almost feminine delicacy, and had been rather softened than
braced by the habits of a long life, during which contending sects and
factions had agreed in speaking of his abilities with admiration and of
his character with esteem. The storm of obloquy which he had to face for
the first time at more than sixty years of age was too much for him. His
spirits declined; his health gave way; yet he neither flinched from his
duty