But can we expect such a king, or, for that is the material point, can we expect a lineal series of such kings?

If we look at history, we shall find that it is only during the period of the present reign that in England the duties of a constitutional sovereign have ever been well performed.

On the Continent, in first-class countries, constitutional royalty has never lasted out of one generation.

Louis Philippe, Victor Emmanuel, and Leopold are the founders of their dynasties; we must not reckon in constitutional monarchy any more than in despotic monarchy on the permanence in the descendants of the peculiar genius which founded…

As far as experience goes, there is no reason to expect an hereditary series of useful limited monarchs.

If we look to theory, there is even less reason to expect it.

A monarch is useful when he gives an effectual and beneficial guidance to his Ministers.

The exercise of the two gifts is sure to teach a man much of the world; and if it did not, a Parliamentary leader has to pass through a magnificent training before he becomes a leader.

What chance has an hereditary monarch such as nature forces him to be, such as history shows he is, against men so educated and so born?

He can but be an average man to begin with; sometimes he will be clever, but sometimes he will be stupid; in the long run he will be neither clever nor stupid; he will be the simple, common man who plods the plain routine of life from the…

His education will be that of one who has never had to struggle; who has always felt that he has nothing to gain; who has had the first dignity given him; who has never seen common life as in truth it is.

There is no royal road to political affairs: their detail is vast, disagreeable, complicated, and miscellaneous.

A king, to be the equal of his Ministers in discussion, must work as they work; he must be a man of business as they are men of business.

Yet a constitutional prince is the man who is most tempted to pleasure, and the least forced to business.

If he becomes unfit to govern, some one else who is fit may conspire against him.

It is true he will lose the quiet and secret influence which in the course of years industry would gain for him; but an eager young man, on whom the world is squandering its luxuries and its temptations, will not be much attracted by the…

The most hopeless idleness is that most smoothed with excellent plans.

He will then have spent the whole of youth and the first part of manhood in idleness, and it is unnatural to expect him to labour.

A pleasure-loving lounger in middle life will not begin to work as George III. worked, or as Prince Albert worked.

The only fit material for a constitutional king is a prince who begins early to reign--who in his youth is superior to pleasure--who in his youth is willing to labour--who has by nature a genius for discretion.

Such kings are among God's greatest gifts, but they are also among His rarest.

The most evil case of the royal form is far worse than the most evil case of the unroyal.

It is easy to imagine, upon a constitutional throne, an active and meddling fool who always acts when he should not, who never acts when he should, who warns his Ministers against their judicious measures, who encourages them in their…

It is easy to imagine that such a king should be the tool of others; that favourites should guide him; that mistresses should corrupt him; that the atmosphere of a bad Court should be used to degrade free government.

The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.