But towards the middle of the eighteenth century comes the relapse. Jacobitism had blazed again. The factions were relit. Controversy wagged its tongue as before. Everywhere are evidences of want and misery, of low sedition and of strong drink. The tipsy Duke of Cumberland is the hero whose graces we are to admire. The 'Guards' march to Finchley' is the picture which may be trusted to convey a portraiture of the manners of the times. It is precisely at this conjuncture that Parliament enacted the last and most stringent of the measures by which it sought to place an embargo upon swearing. In the use of coarse and violent language women competed with the men. In 1756 on the occasion of the memorable trial concerning the fair fame of the Countess of Grosvenor, the letters of this lady were produced and read in court. We have Horace Walpole's authority for saying that the oaths with which they were plentifully besprinkled were far more masculine than they can be said to have been tender. The prince of the blood to whom they were addressed could swear volubly too, and his oaths we may feel assured were neither masculine nor tender. We of this generation can scarcely have any adequate notion of what the swearing has been which has prevailed in this country at different periods, and more particularly in the latter part of the reign of George II. So popular and so ungovernable was the habit, that there is hardly any rational means to be found for accounting for it. At this time there lived in an obscure village in Sussex a decent, well-to-do tradesman, whose shop, well stocked with broadcloth and homespun, was a centre of commerce for miles around. He was known to be a thriving man, and seems to have taken a leading part in the administration of parish affairs. Business was not so burdensome but that he found time to attend at every festive gathering, and to keep a well-written chronicle of his own and his neighbours' doings. This diary has of late years been unearthed, and a very pretty story it has to tell of the _bourgeois_ manner of life towards the meridian of the century.[48] One entry will speak for many of the same character. "February 5th, 1759.--In the evening I went down to the vestry; there was no business of moment to transact, but oaths and imprecations seemed to resound from all sides of the room. I believe if the penalty were paid assigned by the legislature by every person that swears that constitute our vestry, there would be no need to levy any tax to maintain our poor."