He had no sympathy with the effort either to add to the county representation or to abolish the rotten boroughs.

The framework of the parliamentary system seemed to him excellent.

He deplored all criticism of Parliament, and even the discussion of its essentials.

"Our representation," he said, "is as nearly perfect as the necessary imperfections of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to be." It was in the same temper that he resisted all effort at the political relief of the Protestant dissenters.

"The machine itself," he had said, "is well enough to answer any good purpose, provided the materials were sound"; and he never moved from that opinion.
Burke's attitude was obsolete even while he wrote; yet the suggestiveness of his very errors makes examination of their ground important.