Concerning the immorality of our forefathers, many hints must necessarily, in the course of this work, escape, without any intention of enlarging upon so disagreeable a subject. There is little doubt but that the free strictures of the public press, conjoined with the influence and example of the court, served greatly to check the misrule and reckless profligacy which, even in the sober days of William, had been accounted spirited and fashionable by the young nobility and their sycophants. The “Hectors,” a species of the bravo genus, were the illustrious predecessors of the “Mohawks,”[487] whose inglorious courses have been the subjects of so much admirable satire from Addison,[488] and who have gradually subsided into a description of creature less dangerous, though perhaps equally reprehensible and offensive. The female portion of the community, among the higher ranks, are described by a contemporary writer to have been the slaves of punctilio and ceremony, and to have sat, in all the stateliness of their costume, “silent as statues”[489] in the company of men,—amongst whom alone cultivation of the intellect, in those days, had become general. No sooner was a settled monarchy established, and the country relieved from the dreaded dangers of a second civil war, than literature revived, and resumed the flourishing aspect, though not the sound and vigorous condition, to which, in the days of Elizabeth, it had happily attained. The impoverished state of a great portion of the country, and the decay of many ancient and once wealthy families, rendered the pursuit of literature essential as a profession to those who preferred walking in the paths of science, or following the footsteps of the Muses, to the perilous duties of a soldier, or to the service of a church torn by contentions, and threatened with hourly destruction. The profession of letters is supposed to have been at its height of prosperity during the middle and latter part of the reign of Anne. Some unpleasant peculiarities, however, attended its exercise. Since those days, the extension of education, and the general taste for knowledge which has consequently been diffused, have gradually effected a considerable change in the position of literary men. The lettered and the scientific are now able to rise to fame independent of individual patronage, excepting in instances of extreme poverty, by which the exertions are either shackled or turned into different and inferior channels.