366 Now was that glorious parliament come to a period, not more fatal! to itselfe then to the three nations, whose sunne of libeJ>ty then sett, and all their glorie gave place to the fowlest mists that ever overspread a miserable people: A new parliament .was to be chosen, and the county of Nottingham yett had such respect for CoiL Hutchinson, that they fixt their eies on him to be their knight, but Mr. William Pierrepont having a greate desire to bring in his sonne-in-law, the Lord Haughton, to be his fellow knight, the collonell would not come into the town.e 'till the election was past; which if he had, he had bene chosen without desiring it, for many people came, and when they saw he w.ould not stand, returned and voted for none, among whom were fifty freeholders of the towne of Newark. Sometime before the writts for the new elections came, the towne of Nottingham, as almost all the rest of the island, began to grow mad, and declare themselves so, in their desires of the king. The z If the change in politics was great, the change in morals was much greater: statutes have since retrieved the error:i committed in the former; it is doubtful whether the national character in taste and morals has ever freed itself from the taint it then received. Under the. patronage and example of the king, wit put decency to flight; religion and patriotism, veneration of God and the love of our country, the two noblest affections of the mind, were dragged through the mire of doggrel rhimes, under the pretence of deriding hypocrisy; under the notion of gaiety and good fellowship, profligacy and sensuality gained a footing which they have never quilted, but still maintain their ground, by the dangerous secret then taught them of reducing all by invidious surmises and unjust depreciations nearly to the level of their own baseness. · The plays and other wr itings of those days are tinctured with an air of rakishness which often appears affected ~nd misplaced; it was the pol ite ridicu le of the Spectators which put this folly out of countenance and practice. Some modern wits have attempted to revive it, and byt-for the general turn to philosoph ical enquiry they would probably succeed. Those who reason cannot but see that shameless depravity is a very . bad substitute for even simulated virtue.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=