Dickens and Democracy in the Age of Paper: Representing the People by Carolyn Vellenga Berman (review)

Abstract

In his lengthy speech condemning the Absolutist regime of Miguel I of Portugal on 1 June 1829, Viscount Palmerston gave a memorable account (inserted into Hansard by special permission) of the operation of power in human society: “There is in nature no moving power but mind, all else is passive and inert; in human affairs this power is opinion; in political affairs it is public opinion; and he who can grasp this power, with it will subdue the fleshly arm of physical strength and compel it to work out his purpose.” Indeed, those who “know how to avail themselves of the passions, and the interests, and the opinions of mankind, are able to gain an ascendancy, and to exercise a sway over human affairs, far out of proportion greater than belong to the power and resources of the state” (Hansard ) 1668). Palmerston took it for granted that it fell to statesmen to wield such power, but during his lifetime, the rise of what Macaulay a few years later famously dubbed the “Fourth Estate” of the realm saw journalists, newspaper editors, and even writers of popular fiction assuming a similar influence, to the consternation of Establishment figures like Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–94), who felt democratic institutions could be dangerously undermined through being called to account by unelected populist rabble-rousers: