o a popular sentiment,
vaguely understood, but still operative, which is called loyalty. The
majority thinking thus, and the system being found to work more than
tolerably well, what purpose could be served by an attempt at _novas
res_? The nation is content to pay the price; it is the nation's affair.
Moreover, who can feel the least assurance that a change to one of the
common forms of Republicanism would be for the general advantage? Do we
find that countries which have made the experiment are so very much
better off than our own in point of stable, quiet government and of
national welfare? The theorist scoffs at forms which have survived their
meaning, at privilege which will bear no examination, at compromises
which sound ludicrous, at submissions which seem contemptible; but let
him put forward his practical scheme for making all men rational,
consistent, just. Englishmen, I imagine, are not endowed with these
qualities in any extraordinary degree. Their strength, politically
speaking, lies in a recognition of expediency, complemented by respect
for the established fact. One of the facts particularly clear to them is
the suitability to their minds, their tempers, their habits, of a system
of polity which has been established by the slow effort of generations
within this sea-girt realm. They have nothing to do with ideals: they
never trouble themselves to think about the Rights of Man. If you talk
to them (long enough) about the rights of the shopman, or the ploughman,
or the cat's-meat-man, they will lend ear, and, when the facts of any
such case have been examined, they will find a way of dealing with them.
This characteristic of theirs they call Common Sense. To them, all
things considered, it has been of vast service; one may even say that the
rest of the world has profited by it not a little. That Uncommon Sense
might now and then have stood them even in better stead is nothing to the
point. The Englishman deals with things as they are, and first and
foremost accepts his own being.

This Jubilee declares a legitimate triumph of the average man. Look back
for threescore years, and who shall affect to doubt that the time has
been marked by many improvements in the material life of the English
people? Often have they been at loggerheads among themselves, but they
have never flown at each other's throats, and from every grave dispute
has resulted some substantial gain. They are a cleaner people and a