ted with its institutions. The political machinery provided a
sufficient channel for the really efficient force of public opinion.
There was as yet no large class which at once had political aspirations
and was unable to gain a hearing. England was still in the main an
agricultural country: and the agricultural labourer was fairly
prosperous till the end of the century, while his ignorance and
isolation made him indifferent to politics. There might be a bad squire
or parson, as there might be a bad season; but squire and parson were as
much parts of the natural order of things as the weather. The farmer or
yeoman was not much less stolid; and his politics meant at most a choice
between allegiance to one or other of the county families. If in the
towns which were rapidly developing there was growing up a discontented
population, its discontent was not yet directed into political channels.
An extended franchise meant a larger expenditure on beer, not the
readier acceptance of popular aspirations. To possess a vote was to have
a claim to an occasional bonus rather than a right to influence
legislation. Practically, therefore, parliament might be taken to
represent what might be called 'public opinion,' for anything that
deserved to be called public opinion was limited to the opinions of the
gentry and the more intelligent part of the middle classes. There was no
want of complaints of corruption, proposals to exclude placemen from
parliament and the like; and in the days of Wilkes, Chatham, and Junius,
when the first symptoms of democratic activity began to affect the
political movement, the discontent made itself audible and alarming. But
a main characteristic of the English reformers was the constant appeal
to precedent, even in their most excited moods. They do not mention the
rights of man; they invoke the 'revolution principles' of 1688; they
insist upon the 'Bill of Rights' or Magna Charta. When keenly roused
they recall the fate of Charles I.; and their favourite toast is the
cause for which Hampden died on the field and Sidney on the scaffold.
They believe in the jury as the 'palladium of our liberties'; and are
convinced that the British Constitution represents an unsurpassable
though unfortunately an ideal order of things, which must have existed
at some indefinite period. Chatham in one of his most famous speeches,
appeals, for example, to the 'iron barons' who resisted King John, and
contrasts them with the silken