, and some rules by which she governs. But a vast
number like their minds to dwell more upon her than upon anything else,
and therefore she is inestimable. A republic has only difficult ideas
in government; a Constitutional Monarchy has an easy idea too; it has a
comprehensible element for the vacant many, as well as complex laws and
notions for the inquiring few.

A FAMILY on the throne is an interesting idea also. It brings down the
pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. No feeling could seem
more childish than the enthusiasm of the English at the marriage of the
Prince of Wales. They treated as a great political event, what, looked
at as a matter of pure business, was very small indeed. But no feeling
could be more like common human nature as it is, and as it is likely to
be. The women--one half the human race at least--care fifty times more
for a marriage than a ministry. All but a few cynics like to see a
pretty novel touching for a moment the dry scenes of the grave world. A
princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as
such, it rivets mankind. We smile at the Court Circular; but remember
how many people read the Court Circular! Its use is not in what it
says, but in those to whom it speaks. They say that the Americans were
more pleased at the Queen's letter to Mrs. Lincoln, than at any act of
the English Government. It was a spontaneous act of intelligible
feeling in the midst of confused and tiresome business. Just so a royal
family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty
events. It introduces irrelevant facts into the business of government,
but they are facts which speak to "men's bosoms" and employ their
thoughts.

To state the matter shortly, royalty is a government in which the
attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting
actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided
between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so
long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, royalty
will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics
weak because they appeal to the understanding.

Secondly. The English Monarchy strengthens our Government with the
strength of religion. It is not easy to say why it should be so. Every
instructed theologian would say that it was the duty of a person born
under a Republic as much to obey that Republic as it is the duty of one