xtortions of Morgan had so much out-heroded
Herod, that justice claimed a right of stripping the daw who had long
stalked in stolen trappings. Reduced, by repeated fines for
misdemeanors, to his primitive meanness, the little man lost all the
self-importance which had been the appendage of his greatness; and, from
being a happy, joyous person, who thought the world a very good world,
and all things going on as well as could be wished, he became a
discontented reviler, complaining that industry was unrewarded, and
talents left to perish on a dunghill. He gained a scanty support by
practising the basest chicane of his profession; and, after being
stripped of the affluence he had extorted from the rich, he contrived to
pick up the means of a bare existence, by inflaming the animosities, and
adding to the necessities of penury. Whether his death was hastened by a
want of the luxuries which indulgence had made indispensable, or by a
more summary process, is uncertain.

The prejudices which Barton had imbibed against the Liturgy and
discipline of the Church seemed to increase from a conscientious
apprehension that worldly motives might influence him to conformity. In
vain did Dr. Beaumont advise him to follow the example of the
apostolical Bernard Gilpin, who, "though he doubted as to some of the
articles to which he was required to subscribe, considered that, without
subscription, he could not serve in a Church which was likely to give
great glory to God, and that what he disliked was of smaller
consequence." His extraordinary integrity prevented his compliance; and
he told Dr. Beaumont that, finding himself incapable of refuting the
learning and weight of his arguments, he suspected that a secret desire
of worldly advancement had blunted his faculties; but of this he was
certain, that since he had refused assisting the Church, considered as a
civil institution, in the night of her calamity, he had no right to bask
in her sunshine. After this declaration, Dr. Beaumont's respect for the
rights of conscience made him for ever renounce the character of a
disputant; but during all the hardships to which Non-conformists were
exposed he steadily supported that of a friend. Barton found, in the
parsonage at Ribblesdale, a safe, honourable, and happy asylum from
the tempest which fell upon his party. His peaceable and friendly
disposition restrained him from every mark of enmity to the Church from
which he dissented; nor did he ever