SECTION II.

STATE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY DURING THE REIGN

OF QUEEN ANNE.

WILLIAM was succeeded by Anne, the younger daughter of James the second. The heads of the Stewarts seem always to have been filled with the prerogatives of the crown and as the blood of the Clarendon family ran likewise in her veins, we are not to wonder that she was a favourer of the tories, and a bigot to the established church. She was married to prince George of Denmark, a goodnatured easy man, but destitute of that strength and energy of mind which were needed to regulate hers. At her accession she found herself surrounded by a ministry of William's choosing, who had the power in their hands, and enjoyed the confidence of that part of the nation which approved of the revolution. Time therefore must elapse, and favourable circumstances occur, and men proper for her purpose be raised up, and presented to her, before she can place herself in the hands of such as may be more congenial to her wishes. The dissenters soon felt the influence of her accession; for in the very first year of her reign, a bill was brought into parliament to abridge their religious liberty, by putting a stop to occasional conformity.

An unwise, but a trifling occurrence, in the last reign had roused the more zealous sons of the church

to great indignation. Sir Humprey Edwin, while lord mayor of London, being a dissenter, carried the regalia of the city to a meeting-house at Pinner'shall". This needless act was considered as a very heinous crime, and generated as keen wrath in the hearts of many zealous churchmen as ever Achilles felt towards Agamemnon. Such a circumstance, unimportant in itself, kindled the flame of religious contention, and made it blaze to a height which it is now not easy to conceive. It may, however, probably be considered rather as a pretext than as a cause. An occasion of quarrel was sought for, and here it was found.

But if we trace the matter to the source, it will be discovered in the dispositions of a considerable number, both of the clergy and of the laity. The second James, by the precipitate measures which he adopted to introduce the Romish faith, completely terrified the English protestant priesthood, who fancied that they already saw a popish hierarchy usurping their benefices and their functions. To preserve their station was an object which lay very near their hearts. Feeling the need of the dissenters to take their side against Rome, they readily made them the most ample promise, even to a participation of their loaves and fishes. When the prince of Orange had chased James and the fears of popery away; along with the terrors of thousands of the clergy, the goodwill to the dissenters, which they so warmly felt in the day of their calamity, flew away also; and the dissenters were thankful to obtain a toleration of their religious worship. Of granting this, many of them began to repent, and seemed to think, that hereby they had exceeded "Calamy, p. 361.

in kindness. But William's known sentiments, and their influence on public opinion, supported by a body of men of liberal minds and superior talents, among the nobility, gentry, and higher orders in the church, restrained their malevolence, and kept things in a tolerably easy state during the monarch's life. But no sooner had Anne sat down on the throne, than they began to rouse began to rouse themselves; and the bill against occasional conformity was the first step towards the abrogation of the toleration act. The same gradual method of obtaining an object was pursued by the thirteenth and the fourteenth Louis of France, in respect to the edict of Nantes, from which their protestant subjects derived the exercise of their religion and their final success in its entire revocation, which happened in the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-five, was before the eyes of the enemies of religious liberty in England.

With the majority of the clergy, who envied the dissenters their liberty, a considerable number of the country gentlemen, and many of the nobility concurred. The influence of an established priesthood over these classes in society, is, at all times, great. A clergyman is usually the pædagogue of their childhood, the tutor of their youth, and the companion of their maturer years: he soothes their solitude, and partakes of their convivial hours. Their ideas on a variety of subjects they derive from his early instructions, and by him a tone, or way of thinking, is given to their minds which mingles itself with all the sentiments and conduct of future life. By strong minds, from the force of reflexion, and a proper improvement of intercourse with mankind, the effects of this influence may be thrown off; but the

generality of them it follows to the grave. Nor on this topic should the influence of the clergy on females, in the superior walks of society be unnoticed. To estimate the power which the clerical office, a liberal education, a highly cultivated mind, and elegant manners, must have upon the fair, is not difficult it must be both commanding and extensive. Their influence again on their husbands, and especially on their children, and on their relatives, and on a numerous class of acquaintances and dependants, spreads far and wide the opinions of the clergyman, the prime mover of the whole. Such, at all times, and in all countries, must be the state of things in a very considerable degree: but in the days of Charles, and James, and William, and Anne, it was ten-fold more so, than at present.

The person will find himself involved in error who conceives that the state of society, in the higher walks, was the same as it is now. More enlightened and well-informed men than the generality of the nobility and gentry of Great Britain are at present, were never found in the same walks of life in any country, or age. But, from the restoration to the accession of the house of Hanover, the state of that class in society was widely different. The change produced by the restoration, and the dereliction of the former habits of sobriety and application, for the gaiety, dissipation and boisterous mirth which accompanied the returning monarch, had the most unhappy influence on the dispositions and manners of the great. That there were always numerous individuals who shone with distinguished lustre for their intelligence and liberality is attested by every page of the history of England, But with

the greater part, the case was widely different. To the mass of country squires, and to many of their superiors, the hares on their fields, and the foxes in their thickets, were the chief objects of pursuit abroad and the kitchen and the cellar furnished the materials of enjoyment within doors. The cultivation of the mind was no part of their employment. Over such persons how easy was it for a man of talents and information to acquire a sway; for mind predominates over station. At that time too, the very office of a clergyman, without regard to personal character, carried with. it a degree of weight not easily to be conceived by those who live when the state of society, and of sentiments in social life, is so widely different. From a variety of causes, the charm of mere office, both ecclesiastical and civil, is now broken, and character is become of essential importance. It was not so then; office and character however, when combined, carried with them almost irresistible force.

Such was the spirit of multitudes of the superior orders of the country, and of a majority of the clergy, when the restraints of William's firmness for religious liberty were removed by his decease. Queen Anne's accession flattered their hopes of bringing back the days of Charles the second, by stripping dissenters both of their consequence, and of their legal existence. The first step was to bereave them of every office which they held under government ; and afterwards of all capacity of being employed in

* For an ample account of the manners of the great in those days, the reader is referred to Addison's description of the tory foxhunter. Chalmers's Preface to the Tatler; and Drake's Essays on the Spectator, &c.