It was Disraeli who suggested to Queen Victoria the propriety of learning the language and studying the literature of the vast domain over which she ruled, and the _munshis_ summoned to instruct her, brought home to every Indian the conviction that her sway was one, not only of strength, but of sympathy and intelligence. Doubtless these policies were born of dreams, and of dreams which to the unreflecting might seem extravaganzas. But they were not merely an Arabian Nights’ entertainment. The Monarchy, like the Church, in his mind were in one respect akin. The Clergy and the King were both “English citizens and English gentlemen,” and yet the undue political influence of either, as he insisted in 1861, was to be feared, because it might diminish their best influence. Both make for order, and order makes for liberty. “... It is said sometimes that the Church of England is hostile to religious liberty. As well might it be said that the Monarchy of England is adverse to political freedom.” Many of Disraeli’s central ideas as to British kingship were partly decided by him from his boyish conversance with the works of Lord Bolingbroke, whose constitutional theories (repeated by Burke) solved the difficulty of accounting for the popularity of exclusiveness in the theory of government, and for the odiousness of that party which had once been inclusive and “national.” Prerogative has been nowhere better defined than by Bolingbroke, who uniformly also declares that Parliament is the main barrier against “the usurpation of its illegal, or the abuse of its legal, powers.” He terms prerogative “a discretionary power in the King to act for the good of his people where the laws are silent; ... never contrary to law;” and this in a passage where he protests against its being raised “one step higher;” and he has further shown elsewhere how some such “barefaced, extraordinary powers” _were_ welcomed by the nation in Elizabeth’s reign, because they were called forth by popular emergencies and used in a popular manner. Elizabeth, at a time before the Sovereign depended on Parliament, and before the Cabinet system was established, owed her power to her sympathy with her people. The first two Georges were unsympathetic, and the second abetted not only partisanship, but cliqueship. He became dependent on contending heads of greedy factions. To cure these evils was the purport of the “Patriot King,” which inspired Disraeli as it had before inspired Chatham.