iversities, which ought to be the centres of light diffusing
itself throughout the whole nation, the training-grounds of those who
are to be the trainers of their fellow men, we have the evidence of such
different kinds of men as Swift, Defoe, Gray, Gibbon, Johnson, John
Wesley, Lord Eldon, and Lord Chesterfield all agreeing on this point,
that both the great Universities were neglectful and inefficient in the
performance of their proper work. If we ask what was the state of the
highest classes, we find that there were sovereigns on the throne whose
immorality rivalled that of the worst of the Stuarts without any of
their redeeming qualities, without any of the grace and elegance and
taste for literature and the fine arts which to a certain extent
palliated the vices of that unfortunate race; we find political morality
at its lowest ebb; we find courtiers and statesmen living in open
defiance of the laws of morality; we find luxury without taste, and
profligacy without refinement predominant among the highest circles. If
we ask what was the state of the lower classes, we find such notices as
these in a contemporary historian: '1729-30. Luxury created necessities,
and these drove the lower ranks into the most abandoned wickedness. It
was unsafe to travel or walk in the streets.' '1731. Profligacy among
the people continued to an amazing degree.'[683] These extracts, taken
almost at haphazard from the pages of a contemporary, are confirmed by
abundance of testimony from all quarters. The middle classes were
confessedly better than those either above or below them.[684]
Nevertheless, there are not wanting indications that the standard of
morality was not high among them. For example, it is the middle class
rather than those above or below them who set the fashion of popular
amusements. What, then, was the character of the amusements of the
period? The stage, if it was a little improved since the wild days of
the Restoration, was yet so bad that even a lax moralist like Lord
Hervey was obliged to own in 1737, 'The present great licentiousness of
the stage did call for some restraint and regulation.'[685] Such brutal
pastimes as cock-fighting and bull-baiting were everywhere popular.
Drunkenness was then, as now, a national vice, but it was less
disreputable among the middle classes than it happily is at
present.[686] What was the state of literature? Notwithstanding the
improvement which such writers as Addison and Steele had