was hardly a single bankruptcy to be heard of in a year, and in such a case the bankrupt had a mark of infamy upon him that he could never wipe off. Drunkenness fornication, profane swearing, and every kind of debauchery, were justly deemed infamous, and universally discountenanced. The clergy were laborious to excess in preaching and praying, and catechising youth and visiting their parishes. The magistrates did their duty in suppressing all kinds of games, stage-plays, and abuses in publick-houses. There was not a play acted on any theatre in England for almost twenty years. The Lord’s day was observed with unusual reverence; and there were a set of as learned and pious youths training up in the university as had ever been known. So that if such a reformation of manners had been obtained under a legal administration they would have deserved the character of the best of times.” “But when the legal constitution was restored, there returned with it a torrent of debauchery and wickedness. The times which followed the restoration were the reverse of those that preceded it; for the laws which had been enacted against vice for the last twenty years being declared null, and the magistrates changed, men set no bounds to their licentiousness. A proclamation indeed was published against those loose and riotous cavaliers, whose loyalty consisted in drinking health and railing at those who would not revel with them: but in reality the king was at the head of these disorders, being devoted to his pleasures, and having given himself up to an avowed course of lewdness; his bishops and chaplains said, that he usually came from his mistresses apartments to church, even on sacrament days.” Yet he was, on earth, the supreme head of the church, and that church the best constituted in the world. It must need, surely, be well, extremely well constituted (and so must any body) not to be contaminated, disordered, or distracted with, or by such a head.