Dorsetshire's elite, the leaders of its “county community,” continued to exercise their customary influence in the county's elections from 1604-1640. However, there was a notable change from the Elizabethan age. During the great Queen's reign, no one family was able to establish a preponderant voice in the county's elections. A “sustained monopoly” was, it seems, impossible and the best any influential squire could hope for was to be twice returned for the county. Indeed, it is probable that only Sir Ralph Horsey of Clifton Maubank, chosen in 1586 and 1597, and Andrew Rogers of Brianston, elected in 1586 and 1588, achieved that degree of eminence. Even the great Sir Walter Raleigh, after establishing himself at Sherborne, only managed to serve for Dorsetshire once, in 1597.

That changed after 1604. Dorsetshire elected eleven men to its eighteen knightships of the shire from 1604-1640, and one man, Sir John Strangways of Chirk Castle and Melbury Sampford, established what can be described as a “sustained monopoly.” He served for the county in 1614, 1621, 1624, and 1628; his repeated victories were recognition of his wealth and estate, his close connections with John Digby, Earl of Bristol (1622) and with other county families of note. Strangways had married into the Trenchard family of Warmwell and Wolveton, near Dorchester; one of his daughters married, first, into the influential Rogers family of Brianston and later, in 1624, took as her second husband the stepson of the Earl of Bristol, Sir Lewis Dyve. Strangways was, no doubt, an active supporter of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Trenchard, in Dorset's 1621 election and, in a bitterly fought contest in 1626, it was Strangway's power and influence that accounted for the return of Sir George Morton. Altogether, Sir John's influence can be credited with five, and more probably six (or one-third), of Dorsetshire's knightships through 1640. Given his ability to win a place for Morton in the face of fierce opposition in 1626, it is possible that his influence was even more widespread in the county's elections.

Between 1864 and 1869, four laws, known as the Contagious Diseases Acts, were passed by the British Parliament in an attempt to reduce venereal disease in the armed services. These Acts, which applied to certain military stations, garrison, and seaport towns, gave a police officer authority to arrest any woman found within the specified areas whom he considered to be a prostitute. The woman in question was then brought before a magistrate who, if he agreed with the arresting officer, would order her to register and submit to a medical examination. If found to be suffering from venereal disease, she was sent to a hospital where she could be detained for three months or longer, at the discretion of the physican in charge. If she refused to submit to the examination or to enter the hospital, she could be imprisoned with or without hard labor.

This legislation was enacted at the urging of officials in the War Office and the Admiralty who believed that the efficiency of the army and navy was being dangerously impaired because of the high incidence of venereal disease. Ultimately, they maintained, the security of the nation itself would be jeopardized.

Parliament passed these laws very quietly, and the press referred to them only briefly, ostensibly because the subject was not considered seemly for public discussion. Little by little, however, English men and women became aware of this legislation, and with awareness came criticism.

Few crises in the British Empire demonstrated its vulnerability as did the Boer War. In addition to showing itself woefully ill prepared for military conflict, the British government strained its financial resources to the utmost during the South African struggles. Its war debt amounted to nearly one hundred and sixty million pounds and this figure did not include the effects of the dislocation of trade and long-term debt charges, and telegraph cable subsidies. From the Treasury's point of view, the War exerted extreme pressure on the fragile financial framework of taxation. Treasury officials therefore called for retrenchment and economy. But the South African conflict also demonstrated significant weaknesses in Britain's military preparedness. Many in the Cabinet, and in the country as well, called for army and admiralty reorganization and further naval construction. This in turn meant increased government expenditure which gave rise to acrimonious Cabinet debates and ultimately the Chancellor of the Exchequer Michael Hicks Beach's resignation.

The struggle between those concerned with the financial stability of the British government and those preoccupied with its political and strategic position in an increasingly hostile world provided the backdrop for the evolution of the South African Loan and War Contribution Act of 1903 (3 Ed. VII, c. 27). The Peace of Vereeniging, May 31, 1902, had solemnized Britain's annexation of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony in the Previous year. With the war over and the Boer Republics now crown colonies, post-war rehabilitation was the order of the day. The South African Loan Act sought to facilitate the renewal of commercial, mining and agrarian enterprises in the new British possessions. Though divided on other party policies, the Salisbury and Balfour governments of 1902-3 agreed on the importance of reconstruction, but for different reasons.

In 1926, Lord Beaverbrook introduced in his Sunday Express a biographical series under the oxymoron: “Splendid Failures.” The purpose was to praise public figures who had been branded failures. The first person Beaverbrook chose as a subject for his new feature was Charles F. G. Masterman, who fulfilled the purpose of the series, Beaverbrook believed, because Masterman's success outweighed his failure to endure on the political scene. Dictating Beaverbrook's choice was Masterman's work in carrying through Part I (which dealt with health insurance) of the National Insurance Act of 1911. Beaverbrook concluded that Masterman should be given “full credit” for this accomplishment. Charles Masterman was not undeserving of Beaverbrook's attention for no one worked with more dedication than he to guarantee the Parliamentary passage of this important Edwardian social reform. Masterman's support for health insurance has generally been acknowledged, but his administrative ability, used to guarantee the practical implementation of the social reform legislation, has seldom been recognized. In fact, Masterman as a political figure has received only limited attention. This perhaps has been the result of the concern by historians with the decline in the fortunes of the Liberal Party as well as their tendency to label Masterman a pessimist. Masterman, nevertheless, regarded health insurance optimistically, satisfied that it represented a positive outcome of his long-time involvement with social criticism and hoping that its success would encourage the Liberal Party to assume a more radical social reform policy.

W. B. Yeats has often been accused of espousing the ideal of l'art pour l'art. For example in 1898 in an essay entitled “What Should be the Subjects of a National Drama” John Eglinton expressed fears that Yeats' interest in developing ideals of literary experience in Ireland would be corrupted by his association with the aesthetic movement. A.E., though he had defended Yeats earlier, soon found himself in agreement with Eglinton. Yeats, of course, publicly renounced any intimate intercourse with the principle of art for art's sake. On the other hand, he agreed with aesthetes such as Hallam, Wilde, and Pater when they cautioned the artist against contamination by the mores and concerns of society. He also knew that the artist's ideal of beauty affected his life in a very profound way and was therefore capable of having a similar effect upon the lives of other human be-beings. I should like, in this paper, to look at Yeats' ideas about the relationship between the artist and other human beings.

To Yeats the artist and his art bore a crucial relationship to society. Certainly, Yeats did feel that society was a corrupting influence. It was certainly necessary for the artist to be in society but not of it, and to fly by the nets of family, race, and religion. Nevertheless, Yeats felt that such a separation was not ideal, neither was it the fault of the true artist. Ideally, the artist and his society should share a unity of culture and a unity of being. Even during the early years of his career, he thought that art should arise spontaneously out of society as the expression of soul, just has it had in the Renaissance, in the fifth century B.C., in the Byzantine civilization, and around the turf fires in the west of Ireland.