BEFORE TXTE RESTORATION.

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soil of his kingdom, and, in that capacity, possessed many citap.lucrative and many formidable rights, which enabled him to 'annoy and depress those -who thwarted him, and to enrich andaggrandise, without any cost to himself, those who enjoyed hisfavour.

But his power, though ample, was limited by three greatconstitutional principles, so ancient that none can say when the pre-they began to exist, so potent that their natural development,continued through many generations, has produced the orderof things under which we now live.

First, the King could not legislate without the consent ofhis Parliament. Secondly, he could impose no taxes withoutthe consent of his Parliament. Thirdly, he was bound to con-duct the executive administration according to the laws of theland, and, if he broke those laws, his advisers and his agentswere responsible.

No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, fivehundred years ago, acquired the authority of fundamentalrules. On the other hand, no candid Whig will affirm that theywere, till a later period, cleared from all ambiguity, or followedout to all their consequences. A constitution of the middleages was not, like a constitution of the eighteenth or nineteenthcentury, created entire by a single act, and fully set forth in asingle document. It is only in a refined and speculative agethat a polity is constructed on system. In rude societies theprogress of government resembles the progress of languageand of versification. Rude societies have language, and oftencopious and energetic language: but they have no scientificgrammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for de-clensions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies haveversification, and often versification of great power and sweet-ness : but they have no metrical canons; and the minstrel whosenumbers, regulated solely by his ear, are the delight of hisaudience, would himself be unable to say of how many dactyls