Walter Bagehot: “Such societies are necessarily weak from the want of variety in their elements.”

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

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

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 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.