We used to be taught in our nurseries that, when "Old Daddy Longlegs wouldn't say his prayers," it was our duty to "Take him by the left leg and throw him downstairs;" and the student of folklore will be pleased to observe in this ditty the immemorial inclination of mankind to punish people who will not square their religion with ours. The spirit of religious persecution dies hard, but the decay of prejudice has sapped its strength. It does not thrive in the atmosphere of modern indifferentism, and admirable ladies who believe that Ritualists ride donkeys on Palm Sunday and sacrifice lambs on Good Friday find it difficult to revive the cry of "No Popery" with any practical effect. The decay of prejudice in the sphere of politics is even more remarkable than in that of religion. In old days, political agreement was a strong and a constraining bond. When people saw a clear right and wrong in politics, they governed their private as well as their public life accordingly. People who held the same political beliefs lived and died together. In society and hospitality, in work and recreation, in journalism and literature--even in such seemingly indifferent matters as art and the drama--they were closely and permanently associated. Eton was supposed to cherish a romantic affection for the Stuarts, and therefore to be a fit training place for sucking Tories; Harrow had always been Hanoverian, and therefore attracted little Whigs to its Hill. Oxford, with its Caroline theology and Jacobite tradition, was the Tory university; Cambridge was the nursing-mother of Whigs, until Edinburgh, under the influence of Jeffrey and Brougham, tore her babes from her breast. In society you must choose between the Duchess of Devonshire and the Duchess of Gordon, or, in a later generation, between Lady Holland and Lady Jersey. In clubland the width of St. James's Street marked a dividing line of abysmal depth; and to this day "Grillon's" remains the memorial of an attempt, then unique, to bring politicians of opposite sides together in social intercourse. On the one side stood Scott--where Burke had stood before him--the Guardian Angel of Monarchy and Aristocracy: on the other were Shelley and Byron, and (till they turned their coats) the emancipated singers of Freedom and Humanity. The two political parties had even their favourite actors, and the Tories swore by Kemble while the Whigs roared for Kean. Then, as now, the Tories were a wealthy, powerful, and highly-organized confederacy. The Whigs were notoriously a family party. From John, Lord Gower, who died in 1754, and was the great-great-great-grandfather of the present Duke of Sutherland, descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Harcourts, and Russells who walk on the face of the earth. It is a goodly company. Well might Thackeray exclaim, "I'm not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!"