JAMES THE SECOND

137

port only to four or five sycophants despised by their pro- cjj-O’-fession and their country.* 1687- 1

To all men not utterly blinded by passion these difficultiesappeared insuperable. The most unscrupulous slaves ofpower showed signs of uneasiness. Dryden muttered that theKing would only make matters worse by trying to mend them,and sighed for the golden days of the careless and good-natured Charles.** Even Jeffreys wavered. As long as howas poor, he was perfectly ready to face obloquy and publichatred for lucre. But he had now, by corruption and ex-tortion, accumulated great riches; and he was more anxiousto secure them than to increase them. His slackness drew onhim a sharp reprimand from the royal lips. In dread of beingdeprived of the Great Seal, he promised whatever was re-quired of him: butBarillon, in reporting this circumstance toLewis, remarked that the King of England could place littlereliance on any man who had any thing to lose. ***

Nevertheless James determined to persevere. The James lie-

■t termines

sanction of a Parliament was necessary to his system. The to pack asanction of a free and lawful Parliament it was evidently im-possible to obtain: but it might not be altogether impossibleto bring together by corruption, by intimidation, by violentexertions of prerogative, by fraudulent distortions of law, anassembly which might call itself a Parliament, and might bewilling to register any edict of the Sovereign. Returning. officers must be appointed who would avail themselves of the

* Three lists framed at this lime are extant; one in the French ar-chives, the other two in the archives of the Portland family. In theselists every peer is entered under one of three heads, For the Repeal ofthe Test, Against the Repeal, and Doubtful. According to one listthe numbers were, 31 for, 86 against, and 20 doubtful; according to an-other, 33 for, 87 against, and 19 doubtful; according to the third, 35 for,

92 against, and 10 doubtful. Copies of the three lists are in the Mackin-tosh MSS.

** There is in the British Museum a letter of Dryden to Etherege,dated Feb. 1688. I do not remember to have seen it in print. “Oh,"says Dryden, “that our monarch would encourage noble idleness by hisown example, as he of blessed memory did before him. For my mindmisgives me that he will not much advance his affairs by stirring."

*” Barillon > 1C87 ‘