Walter Bagehot: “At present the majority of Parliament obey certain leaders; what those leaders propose they support, what those leaders…”

It is natural that those who by special and admirable culture have come to look at all things upon the artistic side, should start back from these queer peculiarities.

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.

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

The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.