was rejected, his republic cast aside; but the spirit which
culminated in him never sank again, never ceased to be a potent, though
often a latent and volcanic force in the country. Charles II. said that
he would never go again on his travels for anything or anybody; and he
well knew that though the men whom he met at Worcester might be dead,
still the spirit which warmed them was alive and young in others.

But the Cromwellian republic and the strict Puritan creed were utterly
hateful to most Englishmen. They were, if I may venture on saying so,
like the "Rouge" element in France and elsewhere--the sole
revolutionary force in the entire State, and were hated as such. That
force could do little of itself; indeed, its bare appearance tended to
frighten and alienate the moderate and dull as well as the refined and
reasoning classes. Alone it was impotent against the solid clay of the
English apathetic nature. But give this fiery element a body of
decent-looking earth; give it an excuse for breaking out on an
occasion, when the decent, the cultivated, and aristocratic classes
could join with it, and they would conquer by means of it, and it could
be disguised in their covering.

Such an excuse was found in 1688. James II., by incredible and
pertinacious folly, irritated not only the classes which had fought
AGAINST his father, but also those who had fought FOR his father. He
offended the Anglican classes as well as the Puritan classes; all the
Whig nobles, and half the Tory nobles, as well as the dissenting
bourgeois. The rule of Parliament was established by the concurrence of
the usual supporters of royalty with the usual opponents of it. But the
result was long weak. Our revolution has been called the minimum of a
revolution, because in law, at least, it only changed the dynasty, but
exactly on that account it was the greatest shock to the common
multitude, who see the dynasty but see nothing else. The support of the
main aristocracy held together the bulk of the deferential classes, but
it held them together imperfectly, uneasily, and unwillingly. Huge
masses of crude prejudice swayed hither and thither for many years. If
an able Stuart had with credible sincerity professed Protestantism
probably he might have overturned the House of Hanover. So strong was
inbred reverence for hereditary right, that until the accession of
George III. the English Government was always subject to the unceasing
attrition of a competitiv