Such was the disposition now beginning to prevail among the English, that, instead of feasting and public spectacles, the methods anciently practised to gain the populace, nothing so effectually ingratiated an ambitious leader with the public as these fanatical entertainments.

And as the Puritanical preachers frequently inculcated in their sermons the doctrine of resistance to the civil magistrate, they prepared the minds of their hearers for those seditious projects which Essex was secretly meditating.[**] * Cabala, p.

79.
** Birch's Memoirs, vol.ii.p.

463.

Camden, p.