ile the attention of the upper clergy was largely absorbed by
thoughts of private profit and by the pursuit of worldly advancement,
the lower ranks were left in a position degrading alike to themselves
and to religion. In the country a clergyman was little above a peasant
in social consideration, and seldom equal to him in the comforts of
life. To eke out the sustenance of himself and family, hard labor in
his own garden was by no means the most menial of the services he was
obliged to perform. His wife was usually a servant-maid taken from a
neighboring country house, and the kitchen was his most common resort
when he visited the home of a squire. A private chaplain was little
above a servant. In London, many clergymen fell into the prisons
through debt or crime. From the ranks of the lower clergy were
recruited the "buck-parsons," so long a scandal to the church and to
public morality; and the large body of "Fleet parsons," of infamous
character, in the pay of gin shops and taverns, who, for a trifling
sum, performed what were legal marriages between boys and girls,
drunkards and runaways.

The corruption in political life, begun under the Restoration and
increased during the Revolution, was amplified and reduced to a system
under Walpole until government seemed to be based on bribery.
Ridiculing public spirit and disinterested motives in others, he bribed
George the Second with the promise of a large civil list, bribed Queen
Caroline with a large allowance, bribed members of Parliament with
sinecures, pensions, or with direct payment of money, and paid himself
with wealth and a peerage. Corruption was so firmly rooted as an engine
of power, that no serious discredit attached to it. So low had fallen
the standard of political honor, so widespread had become the spirit of
self-seeking and corruption among the ministers and in Parliament, that
"Love of our country," wrote Browne, "is no longer felt; and except in
a few minds of uncommon greatness, the principle of public spirit
exists not."[97] The dominating idea of political life was well put in
the words of the Marquis of Halifax: "Parties in a state, generally,
like freebooters, hang out false colors; the pretence is public good,
the real business is to catch prizes." Lord Hervey divided the Whig
party in 1727 into "Patriots and Courtiers, which was in plain English,
'Whigs in place,' and 'Whigs out of place.'"[98] The assertion of
disinterestedness met only with ri