Misc Writings and Speeches, vol 3 | Page 8

my power to forward it." It is to be remembered that he who
wrote thus was a man bound to set to the church of which he was
overseer an example of strict probity; that he had repeatedly sworn
allegiance to the House of Brunswick; that he had assisted in placing
the crown on the head of George I., and that he had abjured James III.,
"without equivocation or mental reservation, on the true faith of a
Christian."
It is agreeable to turn from his public to his private life. His turbulent
spirit, wearied with faction and treason, now and then required repose,
and found it in domestic endearments, and in the society of the most
illustrious of the living and of the dead. Of his wife little is known: but
between him and his daughter there was an affection singularly close
and tender. The gentleness of his manners when he was in the company
of a few friends was such as seemed hardly credible to those who knew
him only by his writings and speeches. The charm of his "softer hour"
has been commemorated by one of those friends in imperishable verse.
Though Atterbury's classical attainments were not great, his taste in
English literature was excellent; and his admiration of genius was so

strong that it overpowered even his political and religious antipathies.
His fondness for Milton, the mortal enemy of the Stuarts and of the
church, was such as to many Tories seemed a crime. On the sad night
on which Addison was laid in the chapel of Henry VII., the
Westminster boys remarked that Atterbury read the funeral service with
a peculiar tenderness and solemnity. The favourite companions,
however, of the great Tory prelate were, as might have been expected,
men whose politics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He lived on friendly
terms with Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With Prior he had a close
intimacy, which some misunderstanding about public affairs at last
dissolved. Pope found in Atterbury, not only a warm admirer, but a
most faithful, fearless, and judicious adviser. The poet was a frequent
guest at the episcopal palace among the elms of Bromley, and
entertained not the slightest suspicion that his host, now declining in
years, confined to an easy chair by gout, and apparently devoted to
literature, was deeply concerned in criminal and perilous designs
against the government.
The spirit of the Jacobites had been cowed by the events of 1715. It
revived in 1721. The failure of the South Sea project, the panic in the
money market, the downfall of great commercial houses, the distress
from which no part of the kingdom was exempt, had produced general
discontent. It seemed not improbable that at such a moment an
insurrection might be successful. An insurrection was planned. The
streets of London were to be barricaded; the Tower and the Bank were
to be surprised; King George, his family, and his chief captains and
councillors, were to be arrested; and King James was to be proclaimed.
The design became known to the Duke of Orleans, regent of France,
who was on terms of friendship with the House of Hanover. He put the
English government on its guard. Some of the chief malecontents were
committed to prison; and among them was Atterbury. No bishop of the
Church of England had been taken into custody since that memorable
day when the applauses and prayers of all London had followed the
seven bishops to the gate of the Tower. The Opposition entertained
some hope that it might be possible to excite among the people an
enthusiasm resembling that of their fathers, who rushed into the waters
of the Thames to implore the blessing of Sancroft. Pictures of the
heroic confessor in his cell were exhibited at the shop windows. Verses

in his praise were sung about the streets. The restraints by which he
was prevented from communicating with his accomplices were
represented as cruelties worthy of the dungeons of the Inquisition.
Strong appeals were made to the priesthood. Would they tamely permit
so gross an insult to be offered to their cloth? Would they suffer the
ablest, the most eloquent member of their profession, the man who had
so often stood up for their rights against the civil power, to be treated
like the vilest of mankind? There was considerable excitement; but it
was allayed by a temperate and artful letter to the clergy, the work, in
all probability, of Bishop Gibson, who stood high in the favour of
Walpole, and shortly after became minister for ecclesiastical affairs.
Atterbury remained in close confinement during some months. He had
carried on his correspondence with the exiled family so cautiously that
the circumstantial proofs of his guilt, though sufficient to produce
entire moral conviction, were not sufficient to justify