ing elements (as men now speak)--though they are apt to be
less potent. But when we perceive by the roundabout example of a
colonial governor how difficult the task of a constitutional king is in
the exercise of the function of dissolving Parliament, we at once see
how unlikely it is that an hereditary monarch will be possessed of the
requisite faculties.

An hereditary king is but an ordinary person, upon an average, at best;
he is nearly sure to be badly educated for business; he is very little
likely to have a taste for business; he is solicited from youth by
every temptation to pleasure; he probably passed the whole of his youth
in the vicious situation of the heir-apparent, who can do nothing
because he has no appointed work, and who will be considered almost to
outstep his function if he undertake optional work. For the most part,
a constitutional king is a DAMAGED common man; not forced to business
by necessity as a despot often is, but yet spoiled for business by most
of the temptations which spoil a despot. History, too, seems to show
that hereditary royal families gather from the repeated influence of
their corrupting situation some dark taint in the blood, some
transmitted and growing poison which hurts their judgments, darkens all
their sorrow, and is a cloud on half their pleasure. It has been said,
not truly, but with a possible approximation to truth, "That in 1802
every hereditary monarch was insane". Is it likely that this sort of
monarchs will be able to catch the exact moment when, in opposition to
the wishes of a triumphant Ministry, they ought to dissolve Parliament?
To do so with efficiency they must be able to perceive that the
Parliament is wrong, and that the nation knows it is wrong. Now to know
that Parliament is wrong, a man must be, if not a great statesman, yet
a considerable statesman--a statesman of some sort. He must have great
natural vigour, for no less will comprehend the hard principles of
national policy. He must have incessant industry, for no less will keep
him abreast with the involved detail to which those principles relate,
and the miscellaneous occasions to which they must be applied. A man
made common by nature, and made worse by life, is not likely to have
either; he is nearly sure not to be BOTH clever and industrious. And a
monarch in the recesses of a palace, listening to a charmed flattery
unbiassed by the miscellaneous world, who has always been hedged in by
rank, is li