Walter Bagehot: “The nation was wanted to do something--to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old debt, to contribute its…”

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.

Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.

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