The new urban civilization was rapidly creating a tradition of civic benevolence ...

The new urban civilization was rapidly creating a tradition of civic benevolence and government, but it had no tradition of civic magnificence.

To be anything, to be recognized as anything, to feel himself as anything in the State at large, the rich English townsman, unless he was a man of remarkable gifts and character, had still to escape from the seat and source of his wealth; to learn a new dialect and new interests; and he was more likely to magnify than to belittle the virtues of the life into which he and his wife

/ partner

yearned to be admitted, the life, beyond wealth, of power and consideration on the land. From time immemorial a place in the country had been the

crown of a merchant's

career, and from the first circle the impulse was communicated through all the spheres down to the solid centre of the ten-pound franchise and the suburban villa.

Within the limits thus marked out by instinctive deference, the electorate was free, and not, on the whole, ill qualified to make a general choice between parties and policies. Through its educated stratum, which was proportionately large as the electorate was still small, through the still costly newspapers written for that stratum, through the opportunities which the orders of the House still gave to private members,' it could maintain a fairly even pressure on Parliament, and the work of Parliament was correspondingly increased.

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