Walter Bagehot: “Till the House of Lords met, the dukes were not only the greatest, but immeasurably the greatest.”

They say, We reject your Bill for this once or these twice, or even these thrice: but if you keep on sending it up, at last we won't reject it.

That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.

Thirdly, we see why so few nations have made rapid advance, and how many have become stationary.

He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.