And a monarch in the recesses of a palace, listening to a charmed flattery unbiassed by the miscellaneous world, who has always been hedged in by rank, is likely to be but a poor judge of public opinion.
Bagehot critiques the isolation of a monarch in a palace, suggesting it hinders their understanding of public sentiment.
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The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
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