to listen; both parties were often sent
to prison.[238] It was about this time, after the sudden dissolution of
the parliament, that popular terror showed itself in various shapes,
and the spirit which then broke out in libels by night was assuredly the
same, which, if these political prognostics had been rightly construed
by Charles, might have saved the eventual scene of blood. But neither
the king nor his favourite had yet been taught to respect popular
feelings. Buckingham, after all, was guilty of no heavy political
crimes; but it was his misfortune to have been a prime minister, as
Clarendon says, "in a busy, querulous, froward time, when the people
were uneasy under pretensions of reformation, with some petulant
discourses of liberty, which their great impostors scattered among them
like glasses to multiply their fears." It was an age, which was
preparing for a great contest, where both parties committed great
faults. The favourite did not appear odious in the eyes of the king, who
knew his better dispositions more intimately than the popular party, who
were crying him down. And Charles attributed to individuals, and "the
great impostors," the clamours which had been raised.

But the plurality of offices showered on Buckingham rendered him still
more odious to the people:[239] had he not been created lord high
admiral and general, he had never risked his character amidst the
opposing elements, or before impregnable forts. But something more than
his own towering spirit, or the temerity of vanity, must be alleged for
his assumption of those opposite military characters.[240]

A peace of twenty years appears to have rusted the arms of our soldiers,
and their commanders were destitute of military skill. The war with
Spain was clamoured for; and an expedition to Cadiz, in which the duke
was reproached by the people for not taking the command, as they
supposed from deficient spirit, only ended in our undisciplined soldiers
under bad commanders getting drunk in the Spanish cellars, insomuch
that not all had the power to run away. On this expedition, some verses
were handed about, which probably are now first printed, from a
manuscript letter of the times; a political pasquinade which shows the
utter silliness of this "Ridiculus Mus."

VERSES ON THE EXPEDITION TO CADIZ.

There was a crow sat on a stone,
He flew away--and there was none!
There was a man that run a race,
When he ran fast--he ran a