Walter Bagehot: “The liberty existed before, and the right to be taxed was an efflorescence and instance of it, not a sub-stratum or a…”

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

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.

Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.

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.