which are now situated as England then was, we shall probably see reason to abate something of the severity of censure with which it has been the fashion to visit those proceedings.  Yet when every allowance is made, the transaction is sufficiently offensive.  It is satisfactory to find that Lord Russell stands free from any imputation of personal participation in the spoil.  An age so miserably poor in all the moral qualities which render public characters respectable can ill spare the credit which it derives from a man, not indeed conspicuous for talents or knowledge, but honest even in his errors, respectable in every relation of life, rationally pious, steadily and placidly brave.

The great improvement which took place in our breed of public men is principally to be ascribed to the Revolution.  Yet that memorable event, in a great measure, took its character from the very vices which it was the means of reforming.  It was assuredly a happy revolution, and a useful revolution; but it was not, what it has often been called, a glorious revolution.  William, and William alone, derived glory from it.  The transaction was, in almost every part, discreditable to England.  That a tyrant who had violated the fundamental laws of the country, who had attacked the rights of its greatest corporations, who had begun to persecute the established religion of the state, who had never respected the law either in his superstition or in his revenge, could not be pulled down without the aid of a foreign army, is a circumstance not very grateful to our national pride.  Yet this is the least degrading part of the story.  The shameless insincerity of the great and noble, the warm assurances of general support which James received, down to the moment of general desertion, indicate a meanness of spirit and a looseness of morality most disgraceful to the age.  That the enterprise succeeded, at least that it succeeded without bloodshed or commotion, was principally owing to an act of ungrateful perfidy, such as no soldier had ever before committed, and to those monstrous fictions respecting the birth of the Prince of Wales which persons of the highest rank were not ashamed to circulate.  In all the proceedings of the convention, in the conference particularly, we see that littleness of mind which is the chief characteristic of the times.  The resolutions on which the two Houses at last agreed were as bad as any resolutions for so excellent a purpose could be.  Their feeble and contradictory language was evidently intended to save the credit of the Tories, who were ashamed to name what they were not ashamed to do.  Through the whole transaction no commanding talents were displayed by any Englishman; no extraordinary risks were run; no sacrifices were made for the deliverance of the nation, except the sacrifice which Churchill made of honour, and Anne of natural affection.