nature of these institutions there has been much dishonest and
acrimonious controversy.

The historical literature of England has indeed suffered
grievously from a circumstance which has not a little contributed
to her prosperity. The change, great as it is, which her polity
has undergone during the last six centuries, has been the effect
of gradual development, not of demolition and reconstruction. The
present constitution of our country is, to the constitution under
which she flourished five hundred years ago, what the tree is to
the sapling, what the man is to the boy. The alteration has been
great. Yet there never was a moment at which the chief part of
what existed was not old. A polity thus formed must abound in
anomalies. But for the evils arising from mere anomalies we have
ample compensation. Other societies possess written constitutions
more symmetrical. But no other society has yet succeeded in
uniting revolution with prescription, progress with stability,
the energy of youth with the majesty of immemorial antiquity.

This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks: and one of those
drawbacks is that every source of information as to our early
history has been poisoned by party spirit. As there is no country
where statesmen have been so much under the influence of the
past, so there is no country where historians have been so much
under the influence of the present. Between these two things,
indeed, there is a natural connection. Where history is regarded
merely as a picture of life and manners, or as a collection of
experiments from which general maxims of civil wisdom may be
drawn, a writer lies under no very pressing temptation to
misrepresent transactions of ancient date. But where history is