the court. They had indeed no light work to perform. In three
days a country party was to be organized. The difficulty of the
task is in our age not easily to be appreciated; for in our age
all the nation may be said to assist at every
deliberation of the Lords and Commons. What is said by the
leaders of the ministry and of the opposition after midnight is
read by the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of
Northumberland and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and
the Highlands of Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore,
the stages of legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of
faction, the opinions, temper, and style of every active member
of either House, are familiar to hundreds of thousands. Every man
who now enters Parliament possesses what, in the seventeenth
century, would have been called a great stock of parliamentary
knowledge. Such knowledge was then to be obtained only by actual
parliamentary service. The difference between an old and a new
member was as great as the difference between a veteran soldier
and a recruit just taken from the plough; and James's Parliament
contained a most unusual proportion of new members, who had
brought from their country seats to Westminster no political
knowledge and many violent prejudices. These gentlemen hated the
Papists, but hated the Whigs not less intensely, and regarded the
King with superstitious veneration. To form an opposition out of
such materials was a feat which required the most skilful and
delicate management. Some men of great weight, however, undertook
the work, and performed it with success. Several experienced Whig
politicians, who had not seats in that Parliament, gave useful
advice and information. On the day preceding that which had been
fixed for the debate, many meetings were held at which the
leaders instructed the novices; and it soon appeared that these