any time disposed to declare all their most formidable opponents in the minority incapable of taking their seats?

The King of course was delighted. His letters to Lord North at this time are full of the kind of complacency with which a dull arbitrary man sees the success of his projects. He begins by expressing his opinion "that it is highly proper to apprize you that the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes appears to be very essential, and must be effected." Then, "Nothing could afford me greater pleasure than your account of the great majority last night," when Wilkes's petition was taken into account. On another occasion: "It gives me great pleasure that you have so far got through the fatiguing business." When the alteration in the return was finally voted, the King wrote that "the House of Commons, having in so spirited a manner felt what they owe to their own privileges, as well as to the good order of this country and metropolis, gives me great satisfaction, and must greatly tend to destroy that outrageous licentiousness that has been so successfully raised by wicked and disappointed men;" and finally assured his minister that "the House of Commons has with becoming dignity supported their own privileges"-George III's ignorance

and station raised him super grammaticam-" without which they could not subsist." Lastly, in the manner of the most inimitable beadle, “It is now my duty with firmness to see the laws obeyed, which I trust will by degrees restore good order, without which no state can flourish."

David Hume, as if to illustrate and justify Burke's uniform contempt for speculative philosophers in practical politics, writing to Dr. Blair, says among other things, that "this madness about Wilkes excited first indignation, then apprehension; but has gone to such a height, that all other sentiments with me are buried in ridicule. This exceeds the absurdity of Titus Oates and the Popish Plot, and is so much more disgraceful to the nation, as the former folly being derived from religion; flowed from a source which has from uniform prescription acquired a right to impose nonsense on all nations and ages. But the present extravagance is peculiar to ourselves, and quite risible." 2 This is neither the first nor the last time that a learned man has seen nothing but what is quite risible in the instinctive sympathies of the prole

1 Correspondence of George III. with Lord North, i. 2-10. Edited by W. B. Donne.

2 Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 422.

tarians with resistance to an oppressive and lawless oligarchy. Wilkes was but a poor hero, it is true, yet he was a better man than the vile Sandwich,— first his accomplice, and then his betrayer; he was politically as respectable as Lord North, who pandered to the passions of a vulgar monarch quite as recklessly as Wilkes at any time pandered to the passions of a vulgar mob. The violent riots to which the proceedings against Wilkes gave rise, are described by historians in the usual way, as outbreaks of wicked popular rage and extravagance, unaccountable in their origin, and indefensible in their nature and progress. Students are imposed upon by vague talk about the frenzy of the multitude, as if that were an adequate and exhaustive explanation of a rising which at one time was very near being a revolt. The London multitude grew zealous for Wilkes, for the same reason that made the Roman multitude grow zealous for Clodius. Wilkes, it is true, had written filthy verses, and Clodius had been found peeping at the mysteries of the Bona Dea. The crowd, perhaps, cared no more about this than their betters cared about the villanies of Sandwich, or in after days. about the carouses and debaucheries of the Prince of Wales. They were themselves sunk in misery,

oppressed by cruel and barbarous laws, the victims of every curse that it is in the power of gross misrule to inflict. For this reason they made common cause with one who was accidentally a more conspicuous sufferer. Wilkes was quite right when he vowed that he was no Wilkite. As is often the case, the masses were better than their leader. "Whenever the people have a feeling," Burke once said, "they commonly are in the right they sometimes mistake the physician.” Franklin, who was then in London, was of opinion that if George III. had had a bad character, and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of the kingdom. Character had less to do with the result than the fact that George III. had the military and material strength of the Government to back him, a strength which he agreed with Lord Weymouth in thinking could never be brought into play soon enough. And after all, if we can only get out of the glare of the Throne, we may agree that on the whole the patricians had about as little to be proud of in George III. as the mob had in Wilkes.

It is impossible to see the meaning of the troubles which sprang from the contest between Wilkes and the oligarchic Lower House more clearly and fully

than Burke saw it. Perhaps it would be difficult to characterise it more truly. "I am not one of those," he began, "who think that the people are never wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people." Nay, experience perhaps justifies him in going further. When popular discontents are prevalent, something has generally been found amiss in the constitution or the administration. "The people have no interest in disorder. When they go wrong, it is their error, and not their crime." And then he quotes the famous passage from the Memoirs of Sully, which both practical politicians and political students should bind about their necks, and write upon the tables of their hearts, "Les révolutions qui arrivent dans les grands états ne sont point un effet du hazard, ni du caprice des peuples. Pour la populace, ce n'est jamais par envie d'attaquer qu'elle se soulève, mais par impatience de souffrir." This was the secret of Wilkism. It was the protest of the people. against the corruption and oppression of its oligarchic

1 Present Discontents, Works, i. 125, b.