No doubt, if tried by an ideal standard, it is open to criticism.
Aristotle and Plato, nay, Bacon, and perhaps Leibnitz, would have
scouted it as a scientific abortion. Some men would draw disparaging
comparisons between the mediaeval and the modern King. In the person of
the first was normally embodied the force paramount over all others in
the country, and on him was laid a weight of responsibility and toil so
tremendous, that his function seems always to border upon the
superhuman; that his life commonly wore out before the natural term; and
that an indescribable majesty, dignity, and interest surround him in his
misfortunes, nay, almost in his degradation; as, for instance, amidst
"The shrieks of death, through Berkeley's roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing King."[12]
For this concentration of power, toil, and liability, milder realities
have now been substituted; and Ministerial responsibility comes between
the Monarch and every public trial and necessity, like armor between the
flesh and the spear that would seek to pierce it; only this is an armor
itself also fleshy, at once living and impregnable.
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