man of his age in civil wisdom, thought it strange that one party
should be in possession of the executive administration while the
other predominated in the legislature. Thus, at the beginning of
1699, there ceased to be a ministry; and years elapsed before the
servants of the Crown and the representatives of the people were
again joined in an union as harmonious as that which had existed
from the general election of 1695 to the general election of
1698. The anarchy lasted, with some short intervals of
composedness, till the general election of 1765. No portion of
our parliamentary history is less pleasing or more instructive.
It will be seen that the House of Commons became altogether
ungovernable, abused its gigantic power with unjust and insolent
caprice, browbeat King and Lords, the Courts of Common Law and
the Constituent bodies, violated rights guaranteed by the Great
Charter, and at length made itself so odious that the people were
glad to take shelter, under the protection of the throne and of
the hereditary aristocracy, from the tyranny of the assembly
which had been chosen by themselves.

The evil which had brought on so much discredit on representative
institutions was of gradual though of rapid growth, and did not,
in the first session of the Parliament of 1698, take the most
alarming form. The lead of the House of Commons had, however,
entirely passed away from Montague, who was still the first
minister of finance, to the chiefs of the turbulent and
discordant opposition. Among those chiefs the most powerful was
Harley, who, while almost constantly acting with the Tories and
High Churchmen, continued to use, on occasions cunningly
selected, the political and religious phraseology which he had
learned in his youth among the Roundheads. He thus, while high in