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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap. House; and lie had preached to large congregations at aless, meeting in Moorfields. He had also published some theo-logical treatises which may still be found in the dusty recessesof a few old libraries; but, though texts of scripture werealways on his lips, those who had pecuniary transactions withhim soon found him to be a mere swindler.

At length he turned his attention almost entirely fromtheology to the worst part of politics. He belonged to theclass whose office it is to render in troubled iimes to ex-asperated parties those services from which honest men shrinkin disgust and prudent men in fear, the class of fanaticalknaves. Violent, malignant, regardless of truth, insensibleto shame, insatiable of notoriety, delighting in intrigue, intumult, in mischief for its own sake, he toiled during manyyears in the darkest mines of faction. He lived amonglibellers and false witnesses. He was the keeper of a.secretpurse from which agents too vile to be acknowledged receivedhire, and the director of a secret press whence pamphlets,bearing no name, were daily issued. He boasted that he hadcontrived to scatter lampoons about the terrace of Windsor,and even to lay them under the royal pillow. In this way oflife he was put to many shifts, was forced to assume manynames, and at one time had four different lodgings in differentcorners of London. He was deeply engaged in the RyeHouse Plot. There is, indeed, reason to believe that he wasthe original author of those sanguinary schemes which broughtso much discredit on the whole Whig party. When the con-spiracy was detected and his associates were in dismay, hebade them farewell with a laugh, and told them that they werenovices, that he had been used to flight, concealment anddisguise, and that he should never leave off plotting while helived. Ho escaped to the Continent. But it seemed thateven on the Continent he was not secure. The English envoysat foreign courts were directed to be on the watch for him.