Political History 81

in that age managed to create universal distrust.493 Shelburne
was one of the intellectual heirs of Chatham and as such ap-
pears in company with others in an interesting attempt to
elucidate politics by means of a group biography.494 New lives
have appeared of the great north and south poles of late-
Georgian politics, but neither quite ends the matter. Reid is
essentially concerned to explain Fox the orator and leaves the
full political account to be written by someone else;495 while
Ehrman, whose enormous life of Pitt has reached vol. I and
the year 1789, gives the full political and administrative account
in which the man is a little bit in danger of disappearing.496
Though the career of Addington, Pitt's lesser successor and
later notorious as that bitter reactionary Sidmouth, extends
well beyond 1815, the first - and successful - attempt to bring
him to life may be included here.497 Gray pleasingly demon-
strates that more should be remembered about Spencer Perci-
val than that he is the only prime minister (so far) to have died
at an assassin's hands.498

The very tricky problem of public opinion (did it exist? what
does it mean? what did it do?) is at last receiving some atten-
tion. Perry's study of the 1753 Jews Naturalization Act attempts
to show how political interests managed to exploit worked up
opinion in the country at large; but since every facet of this
multi-faceted book has been criticized by some expert, it must
be confessed that he undertook a task beyond his learning.49S

483 John Norris, Skelbww and Reform. L: Macmillan: 1963. Pp. xiv,

325. Rev: EHR 80, 6i5f.
*** Peter Brown, The Ckathamites. L: Macmillan: 1967. Pp. xv, 516.

Rev: Hist 54, iogf.
495 Loren Reid, Charles James Fox: a man for the people. L: Longmans:

1969. Pp. xiv, 475.
49*John P. W. Ehrman, The Tovnger Pitt: the years of acclaim, L:

Constable: 1969. Pp. xv, 710.
*»7 Philip Ziegler, AdtKngton. L: Collins: 1965. Pp. 478. Rev: EHR 82,

625.
**8 Denis Gray, Spencer Percwal: the evangelical prime minister, 1762 —

/to>. Manchester UP: 1963. P]p. xii, 506. Rev: EHR 80, 5648".
*9f Thomas W, Perry, Public Opinion^ Propaganda and Politics in i&k

Center? England: a study qf the Jew BUI 0/1753* C (Mass*): Harvard

UP: 1962. Pp. xii, 215.