and his admiration of genius was so strong that it overpowered
even his political and religious antipathies. His fondness for
Milton, the mortal enemy of the Stuarts and of the church, was
such as to many Tories seemed a crime. On the sad night on which
Addison was laid in the chapel of Henry VII., the Westminster
boys remarked that Atterbury read the funeral service with a
peculiar tenderness and solemnity. The favourite companions,
however, of the great Tory prelate were, as might have been
expected, men whose politics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He
lived on friendly terms with Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With
Prior he had a close intimacy, which some misunderstanding about
public affairs at last dissolved. Pope found in Atterbury, not
only a warm admirer, but a most faithful, fearless, and judicious
adviser. The poet was a frequent guest at the episcopal palace
among the elms of Bromley, and entertained not the slightest
suspicion that his host, now declining in years, confined to an
easy chair by gout, and apparently devoted to literature, was
deeply concerned in criminal and perilous designs against the
government.

The spirit of the Jacobites had been cowed by the events of 1715.
It revived in 1721. The failure of the South Sea project, the
panic in the money market, the downfall of great commercial
houses, the distress from which no part of the kingdom was
exempt, had produced general discontent. It seemed not
improbable that at such a moment an insurrection might be
successful. An insurrection was planned. The streets of London
were to be barricaded; the Tower and the Bank were to be
surprised; King George, his family, and his chief captains and
councillors, were to be arrested; and King James was to be