Jacobite pamphleteers, spies, citizens in eighteenth-century coffee houses and ideologues such as Cobbett, all in their separate ways, sought to influence public opinion formation long before the self-appointed instruments and individuals of Trollope's Barsetshire.1 What is new, however, is a level of self-consciousness by “spokesmen” who claim to represent and influence public opinion, rather than merely criticize or subvert a preexisting order. As a wealthy surgeon, John Bold has no identifiable material selfinterest or ideological commitment to the causes he champions early in The Warden, only attempting to recover excessive tolls on a turnpike which he seldom uses. His is an ideologically disinterested pro bono advocacy, with only marginal interest in an issue of abstract injustice to which he calls public attention: a crucial distinction.

The infirm pensioners at Hiram's Hospital, socially invisible in their dotage, until awakened to an abstraction by an advocate who lacks even the unanimous support of his plaintiffs. They remain divided about endorsing his effort:

For some impoverished pensioners, apparently, going to law is a rich man's game; for others, possession is already established by historical deed as an inalienable gift.

The intriguing legal case advanced in The Warden hinges on a material revaluation— and hence possible redistribution—of the proceeds from a charitable bequest. The annual return now far exceeds the initial principal of the gift, willed four centuries previously by John Hiram: a bequest now in surplus. At issue is who should benefit from an unforeseeable surplus—an as-yet unrealized inflation in the value of rents. Should it be part of the “living” of the relatively impecunious and aging Warden Harding or to be used to increase the daily welfare allowance of the truly impoverished men in his custodial care? Although the bequest stems from a death contract (Hiram's will), the donor's original intention is no more recoverable than is Madame Neroni's marital status or familial entitlement. The contractual has lost all but historical relevance.