instead of Scotland, and had therefore
not Mill's educational advantages. He tried energetically, and not
unsuccessfully, to improve his mind, but he never quite surmounted the
weakness of the self-educated man, and had no special literary talent.
His writing, in fact, is dull and long-winded, though he has the merit
of judging for himself, and of saying what he thinks.

Place had been a member of the Corresponding Society, and was at one
time chairman of the weekly committee. He had, however, disapproved of
their proceedings, and retired in time to escape the imprisonment
which finally crushed the committee. He was now occupied in building
up his own fortunes at Charing Cross. When, during the second war, the
native English Radicalism began again to raise its head, Place took a
highly important share in the political agitation. Westminster, the
constituency in which he had a vote, had long been one of the most
important boroughs. It was one of the few large popular
constituencies, and was affected by the influences naturally strongest
in the metropolis. After being long under the influence of the court
and the dean and chapter, it had been carried by Fox during the
discontents of 1780, when the reform movement took a start and the
county associations were symptoms of a growing agitation. The great
Whig leader, though not sound upon the question of reform, represented
the constituency till his death, and reform dropped out of notice for
the time. Upon Fox's death (13th September 1806) Lord Percy was
elected without opposition as his successor by an arrangement among
the ruling families. Place was disgusted at the distribution of 'bread
and cheese and beer,' and resolved to find a truly popular candidate.
In the general election which soon followed at the end of 1806 he
supported Paull, an impecunious adventurer, who made a good fight, but
was beaten by Sir J. Hood and Sheridan. Place now proposed a more
thorough organisation of the constituency, and formed a committee
intended to carry an independent candidate. Sir Francis Burdett, a
typical country gentleman of no great brains and of much aristocratic
pride, but a man of honour, and of as much liberal feeling as was
compatible with wealth and station, had sat at the feet of the old
Radical, Home Tooke. He had sympathised with the French revolution;
but was mainly, like his mentor, Tooke, a reformer of the English
type, and a believer in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rig