principles, under the two heads of prerogative' and privilege, caused a conflict which occupies a large space in English history. Here it may suffice to observe, that the contention was finally closed in the year 1688 by a convenient but somewhat illogical compromise.

The accession of the Hanoverian dynasty facilitated a more formal settlement of this anomalous system; which may be thus stated.

The constitutional king retains the transcendent attributes of sovereignty. He represents in his person the whole power and authority of the state. He is acknowledged as reigning by the grace of God, and Dei gratiâ is stamped on his coins. His person is sacred. He can do no wrong, and while he is not amenable to any earthly tribunal, his subjects are bound to obey his commands.

On the other hand, the Constitution reminds the king that he reigns by the Act of Settlement. He finds, moreover, that he can perform no act of sovereignty except through the

agency of a minister, who is presumed to have advised the act, and is held responsible for it. The minister, again, cannot plead as a justification of his conduct, that he acted under the direct command of the king; such a plea would be an aggravation of the offence, as it would bring obloquy on his royal master.

To this extent the authority of the sovereign is restricted by the Constitution, and even where the law sanctions the royal power, it is now extinguished by disuse. The sovereign has the power of veto on any bill which has passed through both Houses of Parliament, but prescriptive custom now forbids him to impose this veto.

Thus the plenitude of kingly power, although nominally supreme, is limited in its exercise, and the result is an incongruous mixture, which admits of different interpretations according to the opinions entertained by high legal authorities, learned historians, and distinguished statesmen.

On this important constitutional matter it will not be uninstructive to recall the written opinion of a Lord Chancellor, who exercised great influence at a momentous crisis of our national affairs.

A CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN.

The late Lord Brougham, in his Sketch of George III, discusses the position of a constitutional sovereign.

"The question is, Does the king of this country hold a real or only a nominal office? Is he merely a form, or is he a substantive power in our mixed and balanced Constitution? Some maintain, nay, it is a prevailing opinion among certain authorities of no mean rank, that the sovereign, having chosen his ministers, assigns over to them the whole executive power. They treat him as a kind of trustee for a temporary use, to preserve, as it were, some contingent estate; or a provisional assignee, to hold the property of an insolvent

for a day, and then divest himself of the estate by assigning it over. They regard the only power really vested in the Crown to be the choice of ministers, and even the exercise of this to be controlled by the Parliament. They reduce the king more completely to the condition of a state pageant or state cipher than one of Abbé Sieyes's Constitutions did, when he proposed to have a Grand Functionary with no power except to give away offices; upon which Napoleon, then First Consul, to whom the proposition was tendered, asked if it well became him to be a 'cochon à l'engrais à la somme de trois millions par an ?’

"The English animal, according to the Whig doctrine, much more nearly answers this somewhat coarse description; for the Abbé's plan was to give his royal beast a substantial voice in the distribution of all patronage; while our lion is only to have the sad prerogative of naming whomsoever the Parliament chooses, and eating his own mess in quiet.

"Now (Lord Brougham continues) with all the disposition in the world to desire that royal prerogative should be restricted, and the will of the nation govern the national affairs, we cannot comprehend this theory of a monarchy. It assigns to the Crown either far too much revenue, or far too little power. To pay a million a-year, or more, for a name, seems absurdly extravagant. Το affect living under a kingly government, and yet suffer no kind of kingly power, seems extravagantly absurd. Surely the meaning of having a sovereign is, that his voice should be heard and his influence felt in the administration of public affairs. The different orders of the state have a right to look towards that high quarter, all in their turn, for support when their rights are invaded by one another's encroachments, or to claim the royal umpirage when their mutual conflicts cannot be settled by mutual concessions; and unless the whole notion of a mixed monarchy and a balance of