England's polity is, and for ages has been, aristocratical. Not even the
passage of the Reform Bill materially lessened the power of the
aristocracy; and the declaration of Earl Grey, the father of the
measure, that it would be found the most aristocratical of measures,--as
he was one of the most aristocratical of men,--does not seem so absurd
now as it appeared four-and-thirty years since, when we note how
difficult it now is to lower the franchise in Britain. The firmest
government in Europe is that of England, in which property has greater
influence than in that of any other nation. The conclusion drawn by
aristocrats and their admirers is, that aristocracies are the most
enduring of all the polities known to men, and that they are so because
aristocrats are the most prudent and cautious of men. The governments
they form and control wash and wear well, and bid defiance to what Bacon
calls "the waves and weathers of time."
There is some truth in this. Aristocracies _are_ cautious and prudent,
and indisposed to risk present advantage in the hope of future gain.
Therefore aristocratical polities often attain to great age, and the
nations that know them attain slowly to great and firmly-placed power.
Rome and Venice and England are striking examples of these truths.
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