Walter Bagehot: “And therefore party is inherent in it, is bone of its bone, and breath of its breath.”

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

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.

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

The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.