On the record
On men like George III., with a predominant taste for business occupations, the routine duties of constitutional royalty have doubtless a calm and chastening effect.
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “On men like George III., with a predominant taste for business occupations, the routine duties of constitutional royalty…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot suggests that for individuals like George III, the responsibilities of constitutional royalty can have a stabilizing effect.
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More from Walter Bagehot
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.
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.
Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.
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.
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