The poets, like Pope, were singing of the small part of life which kings and laws may hope to cure; and that attitude is written in the general absence of economic legislation during the period.

Religiously, the Church exalted the _status quo_; and where, as with Wesley, there was revolt, its impetus directed the mind to the source of salvation in the individual act.

It may, indeed, be generally argued that the religious teachers acted as a social soporific.

Where riches accumulated, they could be regarded as the blessing of God; where they were absent their unimportance for eternal happiness could be emphasized.

Burke's early attack on a system which condemned "two hundred thousand innocent persons ...