ence
to religion was an obstacle which Wesley found much more difficult to
overcome than the brutal ignorance of the inmates of Newgate. After
listening to a sermon by Whitefield, Bolingbroke complimented the
preacher by saying that he had "done great justice to the divine
attributes." The Duchess of Buckingham's remarks on the preaching of
the Methodists, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, are an amusing
commentary on the times. "I thank your ladyship for the information
concerning the Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most
repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect
toward their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks
and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you
have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.
This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that
your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with
high rank and good-breeding."[187] High rank and good-breeding,
however, in the society of which the Duchess of Buckingham was so
proud, were not considered inconsistent with habitual drunkenness,
indecency, and profanity. The vices which "the common wretches that
crawl the earth" practised in addition to these, her Grace would have
had difficulty in mentioning.

Still, in the latter half of the eighteenth century is to be traced a
continual improvement, which is reflected in contemporary fiction. As a
remarkable example of the change which took place may be mentioned the
instance of the Earl of March. "As Duke of Queensberry, at nearer
ninety than eighty years of age, he was still rolling in wealth, still
wallowing in sin, and regarded by his countrymen as one whom it was
hardly decent to name, because he did not choose, out of respect for
the public opinion of 1808, to discontinue a mode of existence which in
1768 was almost a thing of course" among the higher ranks.[188]

[Footnote 184: Wilson's "Memoirs of Daniel Defoe."]

[Footnote 185: For the diary of Thomas Turner, see "Glimpses of our
Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 31-52.]

[Footnote 186: For these manifestations, see Wesley's "Journal," and
Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. II, chap.
ix.]

[Footnote 187: Lecky, "Hist. of England in the 18th Century," vol. ii,
chap. 9.]

[Footnote 188: See Trevelyan's "Early History of Charles James Fox,"
Harper's ed., p. 75.]

II.

In 1759, were publ