A splendid senate, too, requires the gay ornamental parts, a sort of shining plumage. The witty, the ingenious, the elegant, should be represented. They were faithfully represented in our time by a Sheridan, a Hare, a Fitzpatrick. Would a young adventurer, as Sheridan was at his entrance in life, have attracted the eyes of the crowd? Would the attic Hare or courtly Fitzpatrick have contended at a scene like the Westminster election? We might have lost not only them, but even the philosophic eloquence of Burke if all the returns were to proceed from the crowd.—(George Moore, _History of the British Revolution_, p. 341.) This brief sketch will perhaps suffice as an explanation of the origin and character of the borough system in general. Let us now turn to the case of Tiverton in particular. As has been intimated, many of the inhabitants believed that Tiverton was a borough by prescription, and that accordingly the crown could not by its charter limit the right of election to members of the corporate body alone. Naturally the evidence relied on was that of State papers. An inquisition _post mortem_ a^o 51 Edw. III. sets out the extent and value of the manor and borough, from which it appears that the two were distinct as to rents and services, and that each had a separate court. By Letters Patent a^o 1 Edw. IV., the King grants the manor, borough and hundred to Humphry Stafford, Knight, in special tail without any other description. These data are obviously insufficient, and search was made at the Rolls Chapel from the thirty-third year of Henry VIII., the year of the earliest return to Parliament extant since the reign of Edward IV. The result was not satisfactory to the enthusiasts who instituted the inquiry, the first return discovered being that of 18 James I., when John Bamfylde and John Davye, Esqrs., were returned by indenture dated the 20th December, by the Mayor, capital burgesses, and assistants. It may be added that in Prynne’s _Brevia Parliamentaria_ there occurs no mention of Tiverton, which, on all these grounds, can hardly have been a borough in the sense desired.