kely to be but a poor judge of public opinion. He may have
an inborn tact for finding it out; but his life will never teach it
him, and will probably enfeeble it in him.

But there is a still worse case, a case which the life of George
III.--which is a sort of museum of the defects of a constitutional
king--suggests at once. The Parliament may be wiser than the people,
and yet the king may be of the same mind with the people. During the
last years of the American war, the Premier, Lord North, upon whom the
first responsibility rested, was averse to continuing it, and knew it
could not succeed. Parliament was much of the same mind; if Lord North
had been able to come down to Parliament with a peace in his hand,
Parliament would probably have rejoiced, and the nation under the
guidance of Parliament, though saddened by its losses, probably would
have been satisfied. The opinion of that day was more like the American
opinion of the present day than like our present opinion. It was much
slower in its formation than our opinion now, and obeyed much more
easily sudden impulses from the central administration. If Lord North
had been able to throw the undivided energy and the undistracted
authority of the executive Government into the excellent work of making
a peace and carrying a peace, years of bloodshed might have been
spared, and an entail of enmity cut off that has not yet run out. But
there was a power behind the Prime Minister; George III. was madly
eager to continue the war, and the nation--not seeing how hopeless the
strife was, not comprehending the lasting antipathy which their
obstinacy was creating--ignorant, dull and helpless--was ready to go on
too. Even if Lord North had wished to make peace, and had persuaded
Parliament accordingly, all his work would have been useless; a
superior power could and would have appealed from a wise and pacific
Parliament to a sullen and warlike nation. The check which our
Constitution finds for the special vices of our Parliament was misused
to curb its wisdom.

The more we study the nature of Cabinet government, the more we shall
shrink from exposing at a vital instant its delicate machinery to a
blow from a casual, incompetent, and perhaps semi-insane outsider. The
preponderant probability is that on a great occasion the Premier and
Parliament will really be wiser than the king. The Premier is sure to
be able, and is sure to be most anxious to decide well; if he fail to
decide