Of all men whose reputation was made or raised by the Popish Plot, none have since maintained their fame at so even a height as John Dryden. His person but not his name suffered from the changes of fortune, and at a distance of more than two centuries the sum of continuous investigation has little to add to the judgments passed on his times by the greatest of satirists. The flashes of Dryden’s insight illumine more than the light shed by many records. In politics, no less than in society, his genius had ample room. The Plot gave him a subject worthy of a master:— Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies To please the fools and puzzle all the wise: Succeeding times did equal folly call Believing nothing or believing all. This plot, which failed for want of common sense, Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence; For as, when raging fevers boil the blood. The standing lake soon floats into a flood, And every hostile humour which before Slept quiet in its channels bubbles o’er; So several factions from this first ferment Work up to foam and threat the government.[400] The lines are a witness against the two great parties whose intrigues were woven to menace the security of the English state. Oates’ false oaths ruined the hopes of the Roman Catholics: the designs of the English Whigs were grounded on them. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, was the first statesman to learn the art of organising support for policy from an entire nation. His course in life was determined by the belief that it is the business of a politician to succeed, and to that mass of mankind which is of the same opinion he should be at once apostle and martyr. No means which made for the end he had in view came amiss to his hand; by using good and bad alike, he won the power of drawing round him men who could make some show of virtuous conduct in company with scoundrels of the choicest villainy; and he used them with infinite address. From the age of twenty years he had lived in the glare of public life, ever rising on the tide, true to his own principles and false to all whom in their interest he could serviceably betray. In the Civil War he fought for the king and served him well. As a member of Barebones’ Parliament he was for Cromwell against the Saints. When the Protector threw the lot for absolute rule, it was in him that parliamentary government found its keenest supporter. To this course Shaftesbury remained faithful. The throne on which “foolish Ishbosheth” sat became more rickety under his attacks. When that shadow of his father vanished from the scene, he strove with success against the despotism of the army. He was sent by the Convention Parliament as one of the two commissioners to invite Charles II to return to his kingdom. Under the restored monarchy Shaftesbury found a fair and a wider field for the exercise of talents which he devoted to the cause of religious and political freedom and