Their natural tendency, from the very base of British
society, and through all its strongly built gradations, is to look
upward: they are not apt to "untune degree." The Sovereign is the
highest height of the system, is, in that system, like Jupiter among the
Roman gods, first without a second.
"Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum."[14]
Not, like Mont Blanc, with rivals in his neighborhood; but like Ararat
or Etna, towering alone and unapproachable. The step downward from the
King to the second person in the realm is not like that from the second
to the third: it is more even than a stride, for it traverses a gulf. It
is the wisdom of the British Constitution to lodge the personality of
its chief so high, that none shall under any circumstances be tempted to
vie, no, nor dream of vieing, with it. The office, however, is not
confused, though it is associated, with the person; and the elevation of
official dignity in the Monarch of these realms has now for a testing
period worked well, in conjunction with the limitation of merely
personal power.
In the face of the country, the Sovereign and the Ministers are an
absolute unity.
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