Walter Bagehot: “But this is nothing to what the Queen can by law do without consulting Parliament.”

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

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.

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.

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.