me," said he, "prefer none but the godly? Here is Dick Ingoldsby," continued be, "who can neither pray nor preach; yet I will trust him before you all." The saints were so severely stung with this sarcasm, that they immediately set about the dismission of Richard, and having prevailed on him to dissolve the parliament, on which alone he could have relied for assistance, three days afterwards they compelled him to sign his resignation.

Of the events which led to the overthrow of the fluctuating governments, cabals, and parties, that succeeded each other so rapidly after the dismission of Richard, and, in a few months, led to the restoration of the royal family, the reader will find so ample an account in Canto II. Part III. and the notes attached to it, that it would be superfluous here to enlarge upon them.

The object of this discourse is not so much to write the history of those times, as to give detached views of individuals, and sketches of the characters of the age. Butler is sometimes neglected as an obscure writer, because the vices and follies which he lashed are almost forgotten. Indeed it is scarcely possible to understand his humour without a very intimate acquaintance with the transactions of the era in which he lived. When that is attained, every difficulty then vanishes, and we no longer doubt the resemblance of the pictures he has drawn.

The philosophic Hume, speaking of the state of manners and arts under the commonwealth, says, "No people could undergo a change more sudden and entire in their manners than did the English nation during this period. From tranquillity, concord, submission, sobriety, they passed in an instant to a state of faction, fanaticism, rebellion, and almost frenzy. The violence of the English parties exceeded any thing which we can now imagine: Had they continued but a little longer, there was just reasou to dread all the horrors of

the ancient proscriptions and massacres. The military usurpers, whose authority was founded on palpable injustice, and was supported by no national party, would have been impelled by rage and despair into such sanguinary measures; and, if these furious expedients had been embraced on one side, revenge had naturally pushed the other party, after a return of power, to retaliate upon their enemies. No social intercourse was maintained betwixt the parties; no marriages or alliance contracted. The Royalists, though oppressed, harassed, persecuted, disdained all affinity with their masters. The more they were reduced to subjection, the greater superiority did they affect over those usurpers, who, by violence and injustice, had acquired an ascendant over them. The manners of the two factions were as opposite as those of the most distant nations. "Your friends, the Cavaliers," said a Parliamentarian to a Royalist, are very dissolute and debauched."-"Yes," replied the Royalist, "they have the infirmities of men: but your friends, the Roundheads, have the vices of devils, tyranny, rebellion, and spiritual pride." Riot and disorder, it is certain, notwithstanding the good example set them by Charles the First, prevailed very much among his partizans. Being commonly men of birth and fortune, to whom excesses are less pernicious than to the vulgar, they were too apt to indulge themselves in all pleasures, particularly those of the table. Opposition to the rigid preciseness of their antagonists increased their inclination to good-fellowship; and the character of a man of pleasure was affected among them as a sure pledge of attachment to the church and monarchy. Even when ruined by confiscations and sequestrations, they endeavoured to maintain the appearance of a careless and social jollity. "As much as hope is superior to fear," said a poor and merry cavalier,

66 so much is our situation preferable to that of our enemies. We laugh while

they tremble."

VOL, I.

"The gloomy enthusiasm," continues this animated historian," which prevailed among the parliamentary party, is surely the most curious spectacle presented by any history; and the most instructive, as well as entertaining, to a philosophical mind. All recreations were, in a manner, suspended by the rigid severity of the Presbyterians and Independents. Horse-racing and cock-matches were prohibited as the greatest enormities. Even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian. The sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave of fence. Colonel Hewson, from his pious zeal, marched with his regiment into London, and destroyed all the bears which were kept for the diversion of the citizens." This adventure seems to have given birth to the fiction of Hudibras.

Though the English nation be naturally candid and sincere, hypocrisy prevailed among them, beyond any example, in ancient or modern times. The religious hypocrisy, it may be remarked, is of a peculiar nature; and, being generally unknown to the person himself, though more dangerous, it implies less falsehood than any other species of insincerity. The Old Testament, preferable to the New, was the favorite of all the sectaries. The eastern poetical style of that compo sition made it more easily susceptible of a turn which was agreeable to them.

66

Among the numerous sects which sprung up in those fanatic times, that of the Quakers, perhaps, was the most extraordinary, as it has been the most lasting. The religion of the Quakers, like most others, began with the lowest vulgár, and, in its progress, came at last to comprehend people of better quality and fashion. George Fox, born at Drayton, in Lancashire, in 1624, was the founder of this sect. He was the son of a weaver, and was himself bound apprentice to a shoemaker. Feeling a stronger impulse towards spiritual con templations, than towards that mechanical profession, he left bis master, and went about the country, clothed in a leathern

doublet, a dress which he long affected, as well for its singularity as its cheapness. That he might wean himself from sublunary objects, he broke off all connections with his family and friends, and never dwelled a moment in one place, lest habit should beget new connections, and depress the sublimity of his ærial meditations. He frequently wandered into the woods, and passed whole days in hollow trees, without company, or any other amusement than his bible. Having reached that pitch of perfection as to need no other book, he soon advanced to another state of spiritual progress, and began to pay less regard even to that divine composition itself, His own breast, he imagined, was full of the same inspiration which had guided the prophets and apostles themselves; and by this inward light must every spiritual obscurity be cleared; by this living spirit must the dead letter be animated.

"When he had been sufficiently consecrated in his own imagination, he felt that the fumes of self-applause soon dissipate, if not continually supplied by the admiration of others; and he began to seek proselytes. Proselytes were easily gained, at a time when all men's affections were turned towards religion, and when the most extravagant modes of it were sure to be the most popular. All the forms of ceremony, invented by pride and ostentation, Fox and his disciples, from a superior pride and ostentation, carefully rejected; even the ordinary rites of civility were shunned, as the nourishment of carnal vanity and self-conceit. They would bestow no titles of distinction. The name of friend was the only salutation with which they indiscriminately accosted every one, To no person would they make a bow, or move their hat, or give any sign of reverence. Instead of that affected adulation, introduced into modern tongues, of speaking to individuals as if they were a multitude, they returned to the sim plicity of ancient language; and thee and thou were the only expressions which, on any consideration, they could be brought to employ.

1

Dress, too, a material circumstance, distinguished the members of this sect. Every superfluity and ornament was carefully retrenched: no plaits to their coat; no buttons to their sleeves; no lace, no ruffles, no embroidery. Even a button to the hat, though sometimes useful, yet not being always so, was universally rejected by them with horror and detestation.

The violent enthusiasm of this sect, like all high passions, being too strong for weak nerves to sustain, threw the preachers into convulsions, and shakings, and distortions in their limbs, and they thence received the appellation of Quakers. No fanatics ever carried farther the hatred to ceremonies, forms, orders, rites, and positive institutions. Even baptism and the Lord's supper, by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of Christianity, were disdainfully rejected by them. The very sabbath they profaned. The holiness of churches they derided; and they would give to those sacred edifices no other appellations than that of shops or steeple houses. No priests were admitted into their sect. Every one had received, from immediate illumination, a character much superior to the sacerdotal. When they met for divine worship, each rose up in his place, and delivered the extemporary inspirations of the Holy Ghost. Women also were admitted to teach the brethren, and were considered as proper vehicles to convey the dictates of the spirit. Sometimes a great many preachers were moved to speak at once: sometimes a total silence prevailed in their congregations.

To recount all the extravagancies of this singular sect would require a volume. Some of the early Quakers attempted to fast forty days, in imitation of Christ, and one of them bravely perished in the experiment. A female Quaker came naked into the church where the Protector sat, being moved by the spirit, as she said, to appear as a sign to the people. A number of them fancied that the renovation of all things had commenced, and that clothes were to be rejected, together