ne of life to which he had never been accustomed. Morrice,
his friend, was created secretary of state, and was supported more by
his patron's credit than by his own abilities or experience.

But the choice which the king at first made of his principal ministers
and favorites, was the circumstance which chiefly gave contentment to
the nation, and prognosticated future happiness and tranquillity.
Sir Edward Hyde, created earl of Clarendon, was chancellor and prime
minister; the marquis, created duke of Ormond, was steward of the
household, the earl of Southampton, high treasurer; Sir Edward Nicholas,
secretary of state. These men, united together in friendship, and
combining in the same laudable inclinations, supported each other's
credit, and pursued the interests of the public.

Agreeable to the present prosperity of public affairs was the universal
joy and festivity diffused throughout the nation. The melancholy
austerity of the fanatics fell into discredit together with their
principles. The royalists, who had ever affected a contrary disposition,
found in their recent success new motives for mirth and gayety; and it
now belonged to them to give repute and fashion to their manners. From
past experience it had sufficiently appeared, that gravity was very
distinct from wisdom, formality from virtue, and hypocrisy from
religion. The king himself, who bore a strong propensity to pleasure,
served, by his powerful and engaging example, to banish those sour
and malignant humors which had hitherto engendered such confusion. And
though the just bounds were undoubtedly passed, when men returned from
their former extreme, yet was the public happy in exchanging vices
pernicious to society, for disorders hurtful chiefly to the individuals
themselves who were guilty of them.

It required some time before the several parts of the state, disfigured
by war and faction, could recover their former arrangement; but the
parliament immediately fell into good correspondence with the king; and
they treated him with the same dutiful regard which had usually been
paid to his predecessors. Being summoned without the king's consent,
they received, at first, only the title of a convention; and it was not
till he passed an act for that purpose, that they were called by the
appellation of parliament. All judicial proceedings, transacted in the
name of the commonwealth or protector, were ratified by a new law. And
both houses, acknowledging the gu