and hinted their suspicions that he had been from the beginning a
spy and a trepan.42 He employed the short and sad remains of his
life in turning the Consolation of Boethius into English. The
translation was published after the translator's death. It is
remarkable chiefly on account of some very unsuccessful attempts
to enrich our versification with new metres, and on account of
the allusions with which the preface is filled. Under a thin veil
of figurative language, Preston exhibited to the public
compassion or contempt his own blighted fame and broken heart. He
complained that the tribunal which had sentenced him to death had
dealt with him more leniently than his former friends, and that
many, who had never been tried by temptations like his, had very
cheaply earned a reputation for courage by sneering at his
poltroonery, and by bidding defiance at a distance to horrors
which, when brought near, subdue even a constant spirit.

The spirit of the Jacobites, which had been quelled for a time by
the detection of Preston's plot, was revived by the fall of Mons.
The joy of the whole party was boundless. The nonjuring priests
ran backwards and forwards between Sam's Coffee House and
Westminster Hall, spreading the praises of Lewis, and laughing at
the miserable issue of the deliberations of the great Congress.
In the Park the malecontents wore their biggest looks, and talked
sedition in their loudest tones. The most conspicuous among these
swaggerers was Sir John Fenwick, who had, in the late reign, been
high in favour and in military command, and was now an
indefatigable agitator and conspirator. In his exultation he
forgot the courtesy which man owes to woman. He had more than
once made himself conspicuous by his impertinence to the Queen.
He now ostentatiously put himself in her way when she took her