ess and solemnity. The favourite companions, however,
of the great Tory prelate were, as might have been expected, men whose
politics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He lived on friendly terms
with Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With Prior he had a close intimacy,
which some misunderstanding about public affairs at last dissolved.
Pope found in Atterbury, not only a warm admirer, but a most faithful,
fearless, and judicious adviser. The poet was a frequent guest at the
episcopal palace among the elms of Bromley, and entertained not the
slightest suspicion that his host, now declining in years, confined to
an easy chair by gout, and apparently devoted to literature, was deeply
concerned in criminal and perilous designs against the government.

The spirit of the Jacobites had been cowed by the events of 1715. It
revived in 1721. The failure of the South Sea project, the panic in the
money market, the downfall of great commercial houses, the distress
from which no part of the kingdom was exempt, had produced general
discontent. It seemed not improbable that at such a moment an
insurrection might be successful. An insurrection was planned. The
streets of London were to be barricaded; the Tower and the Bank were
to be surprised; King George, his family, and his chief captains and
councillors, were to be arrested; and King James was to be proclaimed.
The design became known to the Duke of Orleans, regent of France, who
was on terms of friendship with the House of Hanover. He put the English
government on its guard. Some of the chief malecontents were committed
to prison; and among them was Atterbury. No bishop of the Church of
England had been taken into custody since that memorable day when the
applauses and prayers of all London had followed the seven bishops to
the gate of the Tower. The Opposition entertained some hope that it
might be possible to excite among the people an enthusiasm resembling
that of their fathers, who rushed into the waters of the Thames to
implore the blessing of Sancroft. Pictures of the heroic confessor in
his cell were exhibited at the shop windows. Verses in his praise were
sung about the streets. The restraints by which he was prevented from
communicating with his accomplices were represented as cruelties worthy
of the dungeons of the Inquisition. Strong appeals were made to the
priesthood. Would they tamely permit so gross an insult to be offered to
their cloth? Would they suffer the ablest, the mo