Thus had sound social doctrines been re-established in England; thus had the nation been reinstated.  At the same time a correct taste in literature was reviving.  Shakespeare was despised, Dryden admired. “Dryden is the greatest poet of England, and of the century,” said Atterbury, the translator of “Achitophel.”  It was about the time when M. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, wrote to Saumaise, who had done the author of “Paradise Lost” the honour to refute and abuse him, “How can you trouble yourself about so mean a thing as that Milton?” Everything was falling into its proper place:  Dryden above, Shakespeare below; Charles II. on the throne, Cromwell on the gibbet.  England was raising herself out of the shame and the excesses of the past.  It is a great happiness for nations to be led back by monarchy to good order in the state and good taste in letters.

That such benefits should be misunderstood is difficult to believe.  To turn the cold shoulder to Charles II., to reward with ingratitude the magnanimity which he displayed in ascending the throne—­was not such conduct abominable?  Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie had inflicted this vexation upon honest men.  To sulk at his country’s happiness, alack, what aberration!

We know that in 1650 Parliament had drawn up this form of declaration:  “I promise to remain faithful to the republic, without king, sovereign, or lord.”  Under pretext of having taken this monstrous oath, Lord Clancharlie was living out of the kingdom, and, in the face of the general joy, thought that he had the right to be sad.  He had a morose esteem for that which was no more, and was absurdly attached to things which had been.

To excuse him was impossible.  The kindest-hearted abandoned him; his friends had long done him the honour to believe that he had entered the republican ranks only to observe the more closely the flaws in the republican armour, and to smite it the more surely, when the day should come, for the sacred cause of the king.  These lurkings in ambush for the convenient hour to strike the enemy a death-blow in the back are attributes to loyalty.  Such a line of conduct had been expected of Lord Clancharlie, so strong was the wish to judge him favourably; but, in the face of his strange persistence in republicanism, people were obliged to lower their estimate.  Evidently Lord Clancharlie was confirmed in his convictions—­that is to say, an idiot!

The explanation given by the indulgent, wavered between puerile stubbornness and senile obstinacy.

The severe and the just went further; they blighted the name of the renegade.  Folly has its rights, but it has also its limits.  A man may be a brute, but he has no right to be a rebel.  And, after all, what was this Lord Clancharlie?  A deserter.  He had fled his camp, the aristocracy, for that of the enemy, the people.  This faithful man was a traitor.  It is true that he was a traitor to the stronger, and faithful to the weaker; it is true that the camp repudiated by him was the conquering camp, and the camp adopted by him, the conquered; it is true that by his treason he lost everything—­his political privileges and his domestic hearth, his title and his country.  He gained nothing but ridicule, he attained no benefit but exile.  But what does all this prove?—­that he was a fool.  Granted.