Walter Bagehot: “The wildest and wickedest king's mistress would not plot against an invulnerable administration.”

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.

It is natural that those who by special and admirable culture have come to look at all things upon the artistic side, should start back from these queer peculiarities.