ry to postpone to a more
convenient season all thought of executing the treaty of Dover, and to
cajole the nation by pretending to return to the policy of the Triple
Alliance. Temple, who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived
in seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from his
hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was concluded with
the United Provinces; and he again became ambassador at the Hague, where
his presence was regarded as a sure pledge for the sincerity of his
court.

The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas Osborne,
a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons, shown eminent
talents for business and debate. Osborne became Lord Treasurer, and was
soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a man whose character, if tried
by any high standard of morality, would appear to merit approbation. He
was greedy of wealth and honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of
others. The Cabal had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments,
an art still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to
which it was brought in the following century. He improved greatly on
the plan of the first inventors. They had merely purchased orators:
but every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the new
minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was
not without the feelings of an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did
he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget the
interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed,
to exalt the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt
it were widely different from those which had been contemplated by
Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establishing arbitrary power, by
calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the kingdom to the
rank of a dependent principality, never entered into his mind. His plan
was to rally round the monarchy those classes which had been the firm
allies of the monarchy during the troubles of the preceding generation,
and which had been disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the
court. With the help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the
country gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might,
he conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute
sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had
been.

Prompted by these feelings, Danby