Walter Bagehot: “The House of Lords, besides independence to revise judicially and position to revise effectually, has leisure to revise…”

The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.

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

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

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.