fling into the Grand Canal, was free, because he had no king.  To curtail, for the benefit of a small privileged class, prerogatives which the Sovereign possesses and ought to possess for the benefit of the whole nation, was the object on which Spencer’s heart was set.  During many years he was restrained by older and wiser men; and it was not till those whom he had early been accustomed to respect had passed away, and till he was himself at the head of affairs, that he openly attempted to obtain for the hereditary nobility a precarious and invidious ascendency in the State, at the expense both of the Commons and of the Throne.

In 1695, Spencer had taken his seat in the House of Commons as member for Tiverton, and had, during two sessions, conducted himself as a steady and zealous Whig.

The party to which he had attached himself might perhaps have reasonably considered him as a hostage sufficient to ensure the good faith of his father; for the Earl was approaching that time of life at which even the most ambitious and rapacious men generally toil rather for their children than for themselves.  But the distrust which Sunderland inspired was such as no guarantee could quiet.  Many fancied that he was,—­with what object they never took the trouble to inquire,—­employing the same arts which had ruined James for the purpose of ruining William.  Each prince had had his weak side.  One was too much a Papist, and the other too much a soldier, for such a nation as this.  The same intriguing sycophant who had encouraged the Papist in one fatal error was now encouraging the soldier in another.  It might well be apprehended that, under the influence of this evil counsellor, the nephew might alienate as many hearts by trying to make England a military country as the uncle had alienated by trying to make her a Roman Catholic country.

The parliamentary conflict on the great question of a standing army was preceded by a literary conflict.  In the autumn of 1697 began a controversy of no common interest and importance.  The press was now free.  An exciting and momentous political question could be fairly discussed.  Those who held uncourtly opinions could express those opinions without resorting to illegal expedients and employing the agency of desperate men.  The consequence was that the dispute was carried on, though with sufficient keenness, yet, on the whole, with a decency which would have been thought extraordinary in the days of the censorship.

On this occasion the Tories, though they felt strongly, wrote but little.  The paper war was almost entirely carried on between two sections of the Whig party.  The combatants on both sides were generally anonymous.  But it was well known that one of the foremost champions of the malecontent Whigs was John Trenchard, son of the late Secretary of State.  Preeminent among the ministerial Whigs was one in whom admirable vigour and quickness of intellect were united to a not less admirable moderation and urbanity, one who looked on the history of past ages with the eye of a practical statesman, and on the events which were passing before him with the eye of a philosophical historian.  It was not necessary for him to name himself.  He could be none but Somers.