150

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XXIV.

I HIS.

only too well for their own interest. In 1G95 adversity anddanger had made men amenable to that control to which itis the glory of free nations to submit themselves, the controlof superior minds. In 1G98 prosperity and security hadmade men querulous, fastidious and unmanageable. Thegovernment was assailed with equal violence from widelydifferent quarters. The opposition, made up of Toriesmany of whom carried Toryism to the length of Jacobitism,and of discontented Whigs some of whom carried Whiggismto the length of republicanism, called itself the Countryparty, a name which had been popular before the wordsWhig and Tory were known in England. The majorityof the late House of Commons, a majority which had savedthe State, was nicknamed the Court party. The Torygentry, who were powerful in all the counties, had specialgrievances. The whole patronage of the government, theysaid, was in Whig hands. The old landed interest, theold Cavalier interest, had now no share in the favours ofthe Crown. Every public office, every bench of justice,every commission of Lieutenancy, was filled with Bound-heads. The Tory rectors and vicars were not less exas-perated. They accused the men in power of systematicallyprotecting and preferring Presbyterians, Latitudinarians,Arians, Socinians, Deists, Atheists. An orthodox divine,a divine who held high the dignity of the priesthood andthe mystical virtue of the sacraments, who thought schismas great a sin as theft and venerated the Icon as much asthe Gospel, had no more chance of a bishopric or a deanery