Walter Bagehot: “He would not let us do right in time, so now our attempts at right are out of time and fruitless.”

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.

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

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.

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.