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Chapter 2

Polıteía

Nothing is better suited for the maintenance of mores than an extreme subor-

dination of the young to the old. They are both restrained—the former by the

respect they have for the old; and the latter by the respect they have for

themselves.

—Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

O

ver three-quarters of a century ago, Lewis Namier prefaced his now

classic study The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III

with a brief discussion of the reasons why he had at least temporarily

abandoned an attempt to write a narrative history of British public life in the

age of the American Revolution. “Too much in eighteenth-century politics

requires explaining,” he explained.

Between them and the politics of the present day there is more resem-

blance in outer forms and denominations than in underlying realities; so

that misconception is very easy. There were no proper party organizations

about 1760, though party names and cant were current; the names and the

cant have since supplied the materials for an imaginary superstructure. A

system of non-Euclidean geometry can be built up by taking a curve for

basis instead of the straight line, but it is not easy for our minds to think

consistently in unwonted terms; Parliamentary politics not based on par-

ties are to us a non-Euclidean system, and similarly require a fundamental

readjustment of ideas and, what is more, of mental habits. A general expla-

nation registering the outstanding differences may be understood but

cannot be properly assimilated; one has to steep oneself in the political life

of a period before one can safely speak, or be sure of understanding, its

language.^1

With the advantage of hindsight, one may reasonably question whether Nam-

ier actually managed in the end to sort out the politics of late eighteenth-

century England. His failure no doubt owes much to the contempt he exhib-

ited for what he calls “party names and cant” and to his resulting neglect of the

central importance always occupied by opinion in political life. Even if one

were seriously to entertain the absurd supposition that public figures rarely