But those qualities, though widely diffused among the great body of the people, were seldom to be found in the class with which William was best acquainted.

The standard of honour and virtue among our public men was, during his reign, at the very lowest point.

His predecessors had bequeathed to him a court foul with all the vices of the Restoration, a court swarming with sycophants, who were ready, on the first turn of fortune, to abandon him as they had abandoned his uncle.

Here and there, lost in that ignoble crowd, was to be found a man of true integrity and public spirit.

Yet even such a man could not long live in such society without much risk that the strictness of his principles would be relaxed, and the delicacy of his sense of right and wrong impaired.