ajority
of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has
not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly
neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has
more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and
back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired
of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its
own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had
been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in
either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible.

When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed
to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a
large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended
gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. These,
with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small
power in the state. On the same side were the great body of the clergy,
both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached
to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable
classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less
decorous than themselves. The Puritan austerity drove to the king's
faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry,
splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went all who
live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic
poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists
well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism,
but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same
interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. The Queen, a daughter of
France, was of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly
attached to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a
Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion
with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger
toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the
opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the sanguinary
laws enacted against Papists in the reign of Elizabeth, would be
severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the
strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in general
acted with a c