force of many-sided oppression, and until long after the accession of George III. had scarcely a consciousness of political existence. As long as the great bulk of the nation could be equated to zero, the Episcopal monopolists had no motive for cultivating the good-will of the Presbyterians, who like the Roman Catholics maintained their religion, with the trivial exception of the _Regium Donum_, by their own resources, and who differed from them in being not persecuted, but only disabled. And this monopoly, which drew from the sacred name of religion its title to exist, offered through centuries an example of religious sterility to which a parallel can hardly be found among the communions of the Christian world. The sentiment, then, which animated the earlier efforts of the Parliament might be _Iricism_, but did not become patriotism until it had outgrown, and had learned to forswear or to forget, the conditions of its infancy. Neither did it for a long time acquire the courage of its opinions; for, when Lucas, in the middle of the century, reasserted the doctrine of Molyneux and of Swift, the Grand Jury of Dublin took part against him, and burned his book.[84] And the Parliament,[85] prompted by the Government, drove him into exile. And yet the smoke showed that there was fire. The infant, that confronted the British Government in the Parliament House, had something of the young Hercules about him. In the first exercises of strength he acquired more strength, and in acquiring more strength he burst the bonds that had confined him. "Es machte mir zu eng, ich mussie fort."[86] The reign of George IV. began with resolute efforts of the Parliament not to lengthen, as in England under his grandfather, but to shorten its own commission, and to become septennial. Surely this was a noble effort. It meant the greatness of their country, and it meant also personal self-sacrifice. The Parliament which then existed, elected under a youth of twenty-two, had every likelihood of giving to the bulk of its members a seat for life. This they asked to change for a _maximum_ term of seven years. This from session to session, in spite of rejection after rejection in England, they resolutely fought to obtain. It was an English amendment which, on a doubtful pretext; changed seven years to eight. Without question some acted under the pressure of constituents; but only a minority of the members had constituents, and popular exigencies from such a quarter might have been bought off by an occasional vote, and could not have induced a war with the Executive and with England so steadily continued, unless a higher principle had been at work.