Of these, the most influential and capable are in turn selected to ...

Of these, the most influential and capable are in turn selected to administer the finances and the chief offices of State. They are Ministers of the Crown, but like Pitt in Johnson's famous distinction, they are ministers given to the Crown by the people; that is by the limited and stable body of house-holders and freeholders, by who in turn they are judged, upheld or removed.

The mere existence of a Crown in such a system imparts an element of mystery and make-believe not very easy to reconcile with its philosophy.

Rationally considered, the Monarchy was only an accident, a legal fiction or an historical survival; and if Victoria and her young husband had chosen to devote themselves entirely to the other avocations and accomplishments of their class, to travel, society, and good works, the machinery of Government could with very little difficulty have been adjusted to gratify their wishes; the wheels would have revolved without any loss of power from their abstention. Ralph Bagehot's restatement of the philosophy of the Constitution in 1867, turns on two points for which the stricter theory, Whig or Radical, had not provided.

One is, the presence in every community of an irrational appetite, call it emotional or imaginative, which Monarchy satisfies, and also stimulates; a desire for dignity, serenity, and grandeur. The other is the advantage, even the necessity, of having somewhere in the state a person beyond the competition for office, who is entitled to be heard in any matter on which he may think it his duty to speak; who has the right to warn, to encourage, and, therefore, to be consulted by, the agents of authority.