of life.  What chance has an hereditary monarch such as nature forces him to be, such as history shows he is, against men so educated and so born?  He can but be an average man to begin with; sometimes he will be clever, but sometimes he will be stupid; in the long run he will be neither clever nor stupid; he will be the simple, common man who plods the plain routine of life from the cradle to the grave.  His education will be that of one who has never had to struggle; who has always felt that he has nothing to gain; who has had the first dignity given him; who has never seen common life as in truth it is.  It is idle to expect an ordinary man born in the purple to have greater genius than an extraordinary man born out of the purple; to expect a man whose place has always been fixed to have a better judgment than one who has lived by his judgment; to expect a man whose career will be the same whether he is discreet or whether he is indiscreet to have the nice discretion of one who has risen by his wisdom, who will fall if he ceases to be wise.

The characteristic advantage of a constitutional king is the permanence of his place.  This gives him the opportunity of acquiring a consecutive knowledge of complex transactions, but it gives only an opportunity.  The king must use it.  There is no royal road to political affairs:  their detail is vast, disagreeable, complicated, and miscellaneous.  A king, to be the equal of his Ministers in discussion, must work as they work; he must be a man of business as they are men of business.  Yet a constitutional prince is the man who is most tempted to pleasure, and the least forced to business.  A despot must feel that he is the pivot of the State.  The stress of his kingdom is upon him.  As he is, so are his affairs.  He may be seduced into pleasure; he may neglect all else; but the risk is evident.  He will hurt himself; he may cause a revolution.  If he becomes unfit to govern, some one else who is fit may conspire against him.  But a constitutional king need fear nothing.  He may neglect his duties, but he will not be injured.  His place will be as fixed, his income as permanent, his opportunities of selfish enjoyment as full as ever.  Why should he work?  It is true he will lose the quiet and secret influence which in the course of years industry would gain for him; but an eager young man, on whom the world is squandering its luxuries and its temptations, will not be much attracted by the distant prospect of a moderate influence over dull matters.  He may form good intentions; he may say, “Next year I will read these papers; I will try and ask more questions; I will not let these women talk to me so”.  But they will talk to him.  The most hopeless idleness is that most smoothed with excellent plans.  “The Lord Treasurer,” says Swift, “promised he will settle it to-night, and so he will say a hundred nights.”  We may depend upon it the ministry whose power will be lessened by the prince’s attention will not be too eager to get him to attend.