Walter Bagehot: “There are but two foreign administrations probably better than ours, and both these have had something which we have not…”

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.

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

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.

Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.