" So true is it that Conservatives are all lovers of
peace and quiet, that (May 29th, 1715) "last night a good part of the
Presbyterian meeting-house in Oxford was pulled down. The people ran
up and down the streets, crying, King James the Third! The true
king! No Usurper. In the evening they pulled a good part of the
Quakers' and Anabaptists' meeting-houses down. The heads of houses
have represented that it was begun by the Whiggs." Probably the
heads of houses reasoned on a priori principles when they arrived at
this remarkable conclusion.
In consequence of the honesty, frankness, and consistency of his
opinions, Mr. Hearne ran his head in danger when King George came to
the throne, which has ever since been happily settled in the
possession of the Hanoverian line. A Mr. Urry, a Non-juror, had to
warn him, saying, "Do you not know that they have a mind to hang you
if they can, and that you have many enemies who are very ready to do
it?" In spite of this, Hearne, in his diaries, still calls George I.
the Duke of Brunswick, and the Whigs, "that fanatical crew." John,
Duke of Marlborough, he styles "that villain the Duke." We have had
enough, perhaps, of Oxford politics, which were not much more
prejudiced in the days of the Duke than in those of Mr. Gladstone.
Hearne's allusions to the contemporary state of buildings and of
college manners are often rather instructive. In All Souls the Whigs
had a feast on the day of King Charles's martyrdom.
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