Germains, who could make Dukes of Perth
and confer titular fiefs and garters as much as he liked, without the
unpleasant necessity of providing any substance behind the shadow. That
there should have been so much loyalty to him, under these disheartening
circumstances, seems to me, on the whole, creditable to poor human
nature. In this case it is due, at least in part, to that instinct of the
poor among the races of the North, where there was a long winter, and too
often a scanty harvest,--and the poor have been always and everywhere a
majority,--which made a deity of Wish. The _Acheronta-movebo_ impulse
must have been pardonably strong in old women starving with cold and
hunger, and fathers with large families and a small winter stock of
provision. Especially in the transition period from the old religion to
the new, the temptation must have been great to try one's luck with the
discrowned dynasty, when the intruder was deaf and blind to claims that
seemed just enough, so long as it was still believed that God personally
interfered in the affairs of men. On his death-bed, says Piers Plowman,
"The poore dare plede and prove by reson
To have allowance of his lord; by the law he it claimeth;
* * * * *
Thanne may beggaris as beestes after boote waiten
That al hir lif han lyved in langour and in defaute
But God sente hem som tyme som manere joye,
Outher here or ellis where, kynde wolde it nevere.
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