courtiers which now compete for place and
pensions. The political reformers of the time, like religious reformers
in most times, conceive of themselves only as demanding the restoration
of the system to its original purity, not as demanding its abrogation.
In other words, they propose to remedy abuses but do not as yet even
contemplate a really revolutionary change. Wilkes was not a 'Wilkite,'
nor was any of his party, if Wilkite meant anything like Jacobin.

NOTES:

[2] 22 George III. c. 82.

[3] _Parl. Hist._ xxx. 787.

[4] _State Trials_, xxiv. 382.

II. THE RULING CLASS

Thus, however anomalous the constitution of parliament, there was no
thought of any far-reaching revolution. The great mass of the population
was too ignorant, too scattered and too poor to have any real political
opinions. So long as certain prejudices were not aroused, it was content
to leave the management of the state to the dominant class, which alone
was intelligent enough to take an interest in public affairs and strong
enough to make its interest felt. This class consisted in the first
place of the great landed interest. When Lord North opposed Pitt's
reform in 1785 he said[5] that the Constitution was 'the work of
infinite wisdom ... the most beautiful fabric that had ever existed
since the beginning of time.' He added that 'the bulk and weight' of the
house ought to be in 'the hands of the country-gentlemen, the best and
most respectable objects of the confidence of the people,' The speech,
though intended to please an audience of country-gentlemen, represented
a genuine belief.[6] The country-gentlemen formed the class to which not
only the constitutional laws but the prevailing sentiment of the country
gave the lead in politics as in the whole social system. Even reformers
proposed to improve the House of Commons chiefly by increasing the
number of county-members, and a county-member was almost necessarily a
country-gentleman of an exalted kind. Although the country-gentleman was
very far from having all things his own way, his ideals and prejudices
were in a great degree the mould to which the other politically
important class conformed. There was indeed a growing jealousy between
the landholders and the 'monied-men.' Bolingbroke had expressed this
distrust at an earlier part of the century. But the true representative
of the period was his successful rival, Walpole, a thorough
country-gentleman who had learned to understand t