It was a popular opinion in the middle ages that extreme unction extinguishes all ties and links with this world, so that he who has received it must, if he recovers, renounce the eating of flesh and matrimonial relations.
But it is worthy of special attention that the mere chemical composition of agricultural and garden soils is, as a rule, the least important feature about them, popular opinion to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Bourgeois ministry appeared to consider that popular opinion would enable them to override what they claimed to be an unconstitutional action on the part of the upper house; but the public was indifferent and the senate triumphed.
But these outbursts of energy were too spasmodic, and popular opinion repeatedly veered back in favour of the peace-party.
Defoe's Review (1704-1713) dealt chiefly with politics and commerce, but the introduction in it of what its editor fittingly termed the "scandalous club " was another step nearer the papers of Steele and the periodical essayists, the first attempts to create an organized popular opinion in matters of taste and manners.
