uld be tolerated. The Treasurer had been succeeded by a
board, of which a Papist was the head. The Privy Seal had been entrusted
to a Papist. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had been succeeded by a man
who had absolutely no claim to high place except that he was a Papist.
The last person whom a government having in view the general interests
of the empire would have sent to Dublin as Deputy was Tyrconnel. His
brutal manners made him unfit to represent the majesty of the crown. The
feebleness of his understanding and the violence of his temper made him
unfit to conduct grave business of state. The deadly animosity which he
felt towards the possessors of the greater part of the soil of Ireland
made him especially unfit to rule that kingdom. But the intemperance of
his bigotry was thought amply to atone for the intemperance of all his
other passions; and, in consideration of the hatred which he bore to the
reformed faith, he was suffered to indulge without restraint his hatred
of the English name. This, then, was the real meaning of his Majesty's
respect for the rights of conscience. He wished his Parliament to remove
all the disabilities which had been imposed on Papists, merely in
order that he might himself impose disabilities equally galling on
Protestants. It was plain that, under such a prince, apostasy was the
only road to greatness. It was a road, however, which few ventured to
take. For the spirit of the nation was thoroughly roused; and every
renegade had to endure such an amount of public scorn and detestation,
as cannot be altogether unfelt even by the most callous natures.

It is true that several remarkable conversions had recently taken place;
but they were such as did little credit to the Church of Rome. Two
men of high rank had joined her communion; Henry Mordaunt, Earl of
Peterborough, and James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. But Peterborough, who
had been an active soldier, courtier, and negotiator, was now broken
down by years and infirmities; and those who saw him totter about the
galleries of Whitehall, leaning on a stick and swathed up in flannels
and plasters, comforted themselves for his defection by remarking that
he had not changed his religion till he had outlived his faculties.
[226] Salisbury was foolish to a proverb. His figure was so bloated
by sensual indulgence as to be almost incapable of moving, and this
sluggish body was the abode of an equally sluggish mind. He was
represented in popular lamp