286

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

ClIAP.

XVIII.

1682 .

Oates had obtained his liberty, his pardon, and a pension whichmade him a much richer man than nineteen twentieths of themembers of that profession of which he was the disgrace. Buthe W'as still unsatisfied. He complained that he had now lessthan three hundred a year. In the golden days of the Plot hehad been allow'ed three times as much, had been sumptuouslylodged in the palace, had dined on plate and had been clothedin silk. He clamoured for an increase of his stipend. Nay, hewas even impudent enough to aspire to ecclesiastical prefer-ment, and thought it hard that, -while so many mitres were dis-tributed, he could not get a deanery, a prebend, or even aliving. He missed no opportunity of urging his pretensions.He haunted the public offices and the lobbies of the Houses ofParliament. He might be seen and heard every day, hurrying,as fast as his uneven legs would carry him, between CharingCross and Westminster Hall, puffing with haste and self im-portance, chattering about what he had done for the goodcause, and reviling, in the style of the boatmen on the river,all the statesmen and divines w'hom he suspected of doing himill offices at Court, and keeping him back from a bishopric.When he found that there was no hope for him in the Estab-lished Church, he turned to the Baptists. They, at first,received him very coldly; but he gave such touching accountsof the wonderful work of grace which had been wrought in hissoul, and vowed so solemnly, before Jehovah and the holyangels, to be thenceforth a burning and shining light, that itwas difficult for simple and well meaning people to think himaltogether insincere. He mourned, he said, like a turtle. Onone Lord’s day he thought he should have died of grief at beingshut out from fellowship with the saints. He was at lengthadmitted to communion: but before he had been a year amonghis new friends they discovered his true character, and solemnlycast him out as a hypocrite. Thenceforth he became the mortal