are the oldest; and yet so changing is the world, so fluctuating are its needs, so apt to lose inward force, though retaining out ward strength, are its best instruments, that we must not expect the oldest institutions to be now the most efficient.  We must expect what is venerable to acquire influence because of its inherent dignity; but we must not expect it to use that influence so well as new creations apt for the modern world, instinct with its spirit, and fitting closely to its life.

The brief description of the characteristic merit of the English Constitution is, that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable; while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and rather modern.  We have made, or rather stumbled on, a constitution which—­though full of every species of incidental defect, though of the worst workmanship in all out-of-the-way matters of any constitution in the world—­yet has two capital merits:  it contains a simple efficient part which, on occasion, and when wanted, can work more simply and easily, and better, than any instrument of government that has yet been tried; and it contains likewise historical, complex, august, theatrical parts, which it has inherited from a long past—­which take the multitude—­which guide by an insensible but an omnipotent influence the associations of its subjects.  Its essence is strong with the strength of modern simplicity; its exterior is august with the Gothic grandeur of a more imposing age.  Its simple essence may, mutatis mutandis, be transplanted to many very various countries, but its august outside--what most men think it is—­is narrowly confined to nations with an analogous history and similar political materials.

The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers.  No doubt by the traditional theory, as it exists in all the books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the legislative and executive authorities, but in truth its merit consists in their singular approximation.  The connecting link is the Cabinet.  By that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body.  The legislature has many committees, but this is its greatest.  It chooses for this, its main committee, the men in whom it has most confidence.  It does not, it is true, choose them directly; but it is nearly omnipotent in choosing them indirectly.  A century ago the Crown had a real choice of Ministers, though it had no longer a choice in policy.  During the long reign of Sir R. Walpole he was obliged not only to manage Parliament but to manage the palace.  He was obliged to take care that some court intrigue did not expel him from his place.  The nation then selected the English policy, but the Crown chose the English Ministers.  They were not only in name,