ted the opinions
which she chose for him. To one of her simple and faithful heart,
allegiance to any sovereign but the one was impossible. To serve King
William for interest's sake would have been a monstrous hypocrisy and
treason. Her pure conscience could no more have consented to it than to
a theft, a forgery, or any other base action. Lord Castlewood might have
been won over, no doubt, but his wife never could: and he submitted his
conscience to hers in this case as he did in most others, when he was
not tempted too sorely. And it was from his affection and gratitude
most likely, and from that eager devotion for his mistress, which
characterized all Esmond's youth, that the young man subscribed to this,
and other articles of faith, which his fond benefactress set him. Had
she been a Whig, he had been one; had she followed Mr. Fox, and turned
Quaker, no doubt he would have abjured ruffles and a periwig, and have
forsworn swords, lace-coats, and clocked stockings. In the scholars'
boyish disputes at the University, where parties ran very high,
Esmond was noted as a Jacobite, and very likely from vanity as much as
affection took the side of his family.

Almost the whole of the clergy of the country and more than a half of
the nation were on this side. Ours is the most loyal people in the world
surely; we admire our kings, and are faithful to them long after they
have ceased to be true to us. 'Tis a wonder to any one who looks back at
the history of the Stuart family to think how they kicked their
crowns away from them; how they flung away chances after chances; what
treasures of loyalty they dissipated, and how fatally they were bent on
consummating their own ruin. If ever men had fidelity, 'twas they; if
ever men squandered opportunity, 'twas they; and, of all the enemies
they had, they themselves were the most fatal.

When the Princess Anne succeeded, the wearied nation was glad enough to
cry a truce from all these wars, controversies, and conspiracies, and
to accept in the person of a Princess of the blood royal a compromise
between the parties into which the country was divided. The Tories
could serve under her with easy consciences; though a Tory herself,
she represented the triumph of the Whig opinion. The people of England,
always liking that their Princes should be attached to their own
families, were pleased to think the Princess was faithful to hers; and
up to the very last day and hour of her reign, and but