se which was to be taken before the public eye.
During a short time the Queen was generally blamed. But the charm of her
temper and manners was irresistible; and in a few months she regained
the popularity which she had lost. [192]

It was a most fortunate circumstance for Marlborough that, just at the
very time when all London was talking about his disgrace, and trying to
guess at the cause of the King's sudden anger against one who had
always seemed to be a favourite, an accusation of treason was brought by
William Fuller against many persons of high consideration, was strictly
investigated, and was proved to be false and malicious. The consequence
was that the public, which rarely discriminates nicely, could not, at
that moment, be easily brought to believe in the reality of any Jacobite
conspiracy.

That Fuller's plot is less celebrated than the Popish plot is rather the
fault of the historians than of Fuller, who did all that man could do
to secure an eminent place among villains. Every person well read in
history must have observed that depravity has its temporary modes, which
come in and go out like modes of dress and upholstery. It may be doubted
whether, in our country, any man ever before the year 1678 invented and
related on oath a circumstantial history, altogether fictitious, of
a treasonable plot, for the purpose of making himself important by
destroying men who had given him no provocation. But in the year 1678
this execrable crime became the fashion, and continued to be so during
the twenty years which followed. Preachers designated it as our peculiar
national sin, and prophesied that it would draw on us some awful
national judgment. Legislators proposed new punishments of terrible
severity for this new atrocity. [193] It was not however found necessary
to resort to those punishments. The fashion changed; and during the last
century and a half there has perhaps not been a single instance of this
particular kind of wickedness.

The explanation is simple. Oates was the founder of a school. His
success proved that no romance is too wild to be received with faith by
understandings which fear and hatred have disordered. His slanders were
monstrous; but they were well timed; he spoke to a people made credulous
by their passions; and thus, by impudent and cruel lying, he raised
himself in a week from beggary and obscurity to luxury, renown and
power. He had once eked out the small tithes of a miserable vicara