y distasteful and defective. From 1832 to 1867 the Middle Class
had governed England, manipulating the Aristocracy through the medium of
the House of Commons; and the Aristocracy, though still occupying the
place of visible dignity, had its eye nervously fixed on the movement,
actual and impending, of the Middle Class. This system of government by
the predominance of the Middle Class, was not only distasteful to
culture, but was actually a source of danger to the State when it came
to be applied to Foreign Affairs. "That makes the difference between
Lord Grenville and Lord Granville." So it was to the shortcomings of the
Middle Class, from which he professed to be sprung and which he so
intimately knew, that he first addressed his social criticism. The essay
on "My Countrymen" immediately attracted notice. It was fresh, it was
lively, it put forth a new view, it gaily ran counter to the great mass
of current prejudice. He was frankly pleased by the way in which it was
received. It was noticed and quoted and talked about. He reported to his
mother that it was thought "witty and suggestive," "timely and true."
Carlyle "almost wholly approved of it," and Bright was "full of it." He
did not expect it to be liked by people who belonged to "the _old_
English time, of which the greatness and success was so immense and
indisputable that no one who flourished when it was at its height could
ever lose the impression of it," or realize how far we had fallen in
Continental esteem. His friend Lingen was "indignant" because he thought
the essay exalted the Aristocracy at the expense of the Middle Class;
and the Whig newspapers were "almost all unfavourable, because it tells
disagreeable truths to the class which furnishes the great body of what
is called the Liberal interest." From the foreign side came a criticism
in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, "professing to be by a Frenchman," but "I am
sure it is by a woman I know something of in Paris, a half Russian, half
Englishwoman, married to a Frenchman." The first part of this criticism
"is not good, and perhaps when the second part appears I shall write a
short and light letter by way of reply." That "short and light letter"
appeared in the _Pall Mall_ of March 20, 1866. It dealt with the
respective but not incompatible claims of Culture and Liberty--the
former so defective in England, the latter so abundant--and it contained
this aspiration for Englishmen of the Middle Class. "I do not wish t