“... The theory of the constitution is that the King has no will except in the choice of his ministers.... _But this, like a thousand other theories, is at variance with the fact._ The personal character of the sovereign ... has an immense practical effect.... There may not be violent collisions between the King and his Government, but his influence, though dormant and unseen, may be very powerful. Respect for personal character will operate in some cases; in others the King will have all the authority which greater and more widely extended experience than that of any single minister will naturally give. A King, after a reign of ten years, ought to know much more of the working of the machine of government than any other man in the country. _He is the centre to which all business gravitates._ The knowledge that the King holds firmly a certain opinion, and will abide by it, prevents in many cases an opposite opinion being offered to him.... The personal character of a really constitutional King, of mature age, of experience in public affairs, and knowledge, manners, and customs, is practically so much _ballast_, keeping the vessel of the State steady in her course, countervailing the levity of popular ministers, of orators forced by oratory into public councils, the blasts of democratic passions, the groundswell of discontent, and ‘the ignorant impatience for the relaxation of taxation.’ ... The genius of the Constitution had contrived this in times gone by. “‘Speluncis abdidit atris Hoc metuens, molemque et montes insuper altos Imposuit, _Regemque_ dedit, qui fœdere certo Et premere, et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas.’ “If at other times this _paternal authority_[110] were requisite, the authority to be exercised _fœdere certo_, by the nice tact of an experienced hand, how much more is it necessary when every institution is reeling, when _‘Excutimur cursu, et cœcis erramus in undis’!_” Sir Robert’s idea, then, of a constitutional sovereign was that of an unseen driver who holds the reins from within. The sailor-king of narrow mind but broad sympathies, just departed when Peel wrote, had not proved a cipher. He insisted on being for a space Lord High Admiral, despite Croker’s ungenerous retort that James II. had done the same. In 1828 he had offered wise advice to his ministers as to the unripeness of the times for a change in the form then proposed, which touched his heart. On his accession he emphatically expressed his pleasure in retaining his ministers. And, though he composed a couplet so bad that it might have been the jingle of Harley-- “_A dissolution Means revolution_,”