Walter Bagehot: “It is, in substance, subjecting the whole nation to the rule of a section of the nation, selected because of its…”

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.

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.

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.