infamy, corrupt the streams of justice, and by the most audacious cruelty, pervert the forms of law, that the blood of innocent persons might be shed, to gratify the appetite of a suspicious master?  Besides, there is always a danger that the religion which the King professes, will imperceptibly diffuse itself over a nation, though no violence is used to promote it.  The King, as he is the fountain of honour, so is he the fountain of fashion, and as many people, who surround a throne, are of no religion in consequence of conviction; it is but natural to suppose, that fashion would influence them to embrace the religion of the Prince, and in James II’s reign, this observation was verified; for the people of fashion embraced the Popish religion so very fast, in order to please the King, that a witty knight, who then lived, and who was by his education, and principles, a Papist, being asked by a nobleman what news? he made answer, I hear no news my lord, only, God’s Papists can get no preferment, because the King’s Papists swarm so thick.  This was a sententious, and witty observation, and it will always hold true, that the religion of the King will become the religion of people of fashion, and the lower stations ape their superiors.

Upon the coronation of King James ii. the two Parts of the Character of a Popish Successor, were, with the Exclusion Bill, on the 23d of April, 1685, burnt by the sub-wardens, and fellows of Merton College, Oxon, in a public bonfire, made in the middle of their great quadrangle.  During these contentions, Mr. Settle also published a piece called The Medal Revers’d, published 1681; this was an answer to a poem of Dryden’s called The Medal, occasioned by the bill against the earl of Shaftsbury being found ignoramus at the Old Baily, upon which the Whig party made bonfires, and ordered a medal to be struck in commemoration of that event.  Shaftsbury, who was by his principles a Whig, and who could not but foresee the miseries which afterwards happened under a Popish Prince, opposed the succession with all his power; he was a man of very great endowments, and being of a bustling tumultuous disposition, was admirably fitted to be the head of a party.  He was the leading man against the succession of the Duke of York, and argued in the House of Lords with great force against him, and what was more remarkable, sometimes in the Duke’s presence.  It is related, that at the Council-table, when his Majesty, and his Royal Brother were both present, something concerning the succession was canvassed, when Shaftsbury, not in the least intimidated, spoke his opinion with great vehemence against the Duke, and was answered with equal heat, but with less force, by the then lord chamberlain.  During this debate, the Duke took occasion to whisper the King, that his Majesty had a villain of a chancellor, to which the King merrily replied, oddsfish, York, what a fool you have of a chamberlain:  by which it appears, his Majesty was convinced that Shaftsbury’s arguments were the strongest.