178

HISTORY OP ENGLAND,

CHAP.

II.

'f,iM

Si'-ti.H.

*iE i

exalted the kingly office, relaxed the obligations of morality,

' and degraded religion into a mere affair of state. Hobbismsoon became an almost essential part of the character of thefine gentleman. All the lighter kinds of literature were deeplytainted by the prevailing licentiousness. Poetry stooped tobe the pandar of every low desire. Ridicule, instead ofputting guilt and error to the blush, turned her formidableshafts against innocence and truth. The restored Churchcontended indeed against the prevailing immorality, but con-tended feebly, and with half a heart. It was necessary to thedecorum of her character that she should admonish her erringchildren. But her admonitions were given in a somewhatperfunctory manner. Her attention was elsewhere engaged.Her whole soul was in the work of crushing the Puritans, andof teaching her disciples to give unto Cmsar the things whichwere Caesar’s. She had been pillaged and oppressed by theparty which preached an austere morality. She had beenrestored to opulence and honour by libertines. Little as themen of mirth and fashion were disposed to shape their livesaccording to her precepts, they were yet ready to fight kneedeep in blood for her cathedrals and palaces, for every lineof her rubric and every thread of her vestments. If the de-bauched Cavalier haunted brothels and gambling houses, heat least avoided conventicles. If he never spoke withoututtering ribaldry and blasphemy, he made some amends byhis eagerness to send Baxter and Howe to gaol for preachingand praying. Thus the clergy, for a time, made war onschism with so much vigour that they had little leisure to makewar on vice. The ribaldry of Etherege and Wycherley was,in the presence and under the special sanction of the head ofthe Church, publicly recited by female lips in female ears,while the author of the Pilgrim’s Progress languished in adungeon for the crime of proclaiming the gospel to the poor.It is an unquestionable and a most instructive fact that the