wers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required.
The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a
king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts,
by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole
character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: The king,
say they, is one, the people another; the peers are a house in behalf
of the king, the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the
distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the
expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined, they appear idle
and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction
that words are capable of, when applied to the description of some
thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be
within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and
though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this
explanation includes a previous question, viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A
POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO
CHECK? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither
can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision,
which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or
will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for
as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the
wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know
which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will
govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the
phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot
stop it, their endeavours will be ineffectual; the first moving power
will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed, is supplied by
time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution,
needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence
merely from being the giver of places and pensions, is self-evident,
wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door
against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough
to put the crown in possession of the key.

The prejudice of Englishmen in favour of their own government by king,
lords, and commons, arises as mu