Refined and original observers have of late objected to English royalty that it is not splendid enough.  They have compared it with the French Court, which is better in show, which comes to the surface everywhere so that you cannot help seeing it, which is infinitely and beyond question the most splendid thing in France.  They have said, “that in old times the English Court took too much of the nation’s money, and spent it ill; but now, when it could be trusted to spend well, it does not take enough of the nation’s money.  There are arguments for not having a Court, and there are arguments for having a splendid Court; but there are no arguments for having a mean Court.  It is better to spend a million in dazzling when you wish to dazzle, than three-quarters of a million in trying to dazzle and yet not dazzling.”  There may be something in this theory; it may be that the Court of England is not quite as gorgeous as we might wish to see it.  But no comparison must ever be made between it and the French Court.  The Emperor represents a different idea from the Queen.  He is not the head of the State; he is the State.  The theory of his Government is that every one in France is equal, and that the Emperor embodies the principle of equality.  The greater you make him, the less, and therefore the more equal, you make all others.  He is magnified that others may be dwarfed.  The very contrary is the principle of English royalty.  As in politics it would lose its principal use if it came forward into the public arena, so in society if it advertised itself it would be pernicious.  We have voluntary show enough already in London; we do not wish to have it encouraged and intensified, but quieted and mitigated.  Our Court is but the head of an unequal, competing, aristocratic society; its splendour would not keep others down, but incite others to come on.  It is of use so long as it keeps others out of the first place, and is guarded and retired in that place.  But it would do evil if it added a new example to our many examples of showy wealth--if it gave the sanction of its dignity to the race of expenditure.

Fourthly.  We have come to regard the Crown as the head of our morality.  The virtues of Queen Victoria and the virtues of George III. have sunk deep into the popular heart.  We have come to believe that it is natural to have a virtuous sovereign, and that the domestic virtues are as likely to be found on thrones as they are eminent when there.  But a little experience and less thought show that royalty cannot take credit for domestic excellence.  Neither George I., nor George II., nor William IV. were patterns of family merit; George IV. was a model of family demerit.  The plain fact is, that to the disposition of all others most likely to go wrong, to an excitable disposition, the place of a constitutional king has greater temptations than almost any other, and fewer suitable occupations than almost any other.  All the world and all the glory of it, whatever is most