Walter Bagehot: “The nation then selected the English policy, but the Crown chose the English Ministers.”

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.

Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.