and
pre-eminence over every other subject in the realm. It will
probably be less difficult to obtain a concurrence of opinion as
to the extent of the Queen's constitutional right in granting
precedence, than as to the manner in which it would be morally
fit, and just to others, that this right should be exercised.

The bill, as originally introduced in the House of Lords, was
undoubtedly liable to serious objections; but it is difficult to
discover any valid reason why the Prince, Consort to the Queen,
should not be invested for his own life with the highest personal
dignity which it is in the power of the Crown to confer.

It has been said, that to place Prince Albert before the princes
of the blood royal would be an invasion of the _birth right_ of
these illustrious persons. This seems to be the result of a
confused notion, that a privilege of precedence is identical with
a beneficial interest--it may be a man's birth right to succeed
in some contingency to the throne, or to a title or to an estate,
and it would be injurious, and therefore unjust, to thrust any
interloper between him and his chance, however remote it might
be, of such succession. But the same Act which limits the
prerogative of the Crown, confers on the Royal Dukes and Great
Officers of State the only right of precedence which they
possess, and while they can claim no more than was given to them,
the Crown is as surely entitled to all that was left to it by
that Act. No individual can insist upon an indefeasible right
never to be preceded, under any circumstances, by any other
individual not having a status defined by this Act, and as the
uncles of the Queen, and the hereditary Earl Marshal of England,
occupy their respective steps in the ladder of precedence, by the
self-same title, there would be no greater violation of
birthright in placing an individual without a status before the
Duke of Sussex, than there would in placing him before the Duke
of Norfolk; if there be any injustice at all, the difference
would not be in the principle, but in its local or personal
application.

The question, then, is one of expediency, and of propriety, to be
determined with reference to its own special circumstances, and
according to the analogies which can be brought to bear upon it;
there is not only no case exactly in point to refer to, but there
is none sufficiently analogous to be taken as a precedent. When
Queen Anne came to the throne, Prince George of