Whether Whigs or Tories were in power, it was always the great families who ruled.

For them the Church, at least in its higher branches, existed; and the difference between nobleman and commoner at Oxford is as striking as it is hideous to this generation.

For them also literature and the theatre made their display; and if Dr.Johnson could heap an immortal contumely upon the name of patron, we all know of the reverence he felt in the presence of the king.

Divine Right and non-resistance were dead, but they had not died without a struggle.

Freedom of the press and legal equality may have been obtained; but it was not until the passage of Fox's Libel Act that the first became secure, and Mr.and Mrs.Hammond have recently illumined for us the inward meaning of the second.