We are accustomed to regard American freedom as the one supreme type. But it is not. The popular will in England reaches the springs of Government more freely, more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it does in Republican America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be obeyed on the instant. The Queen of England has less power than the President of the United States. He can form a definite policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not. The Queen cannot do this for a day. Her Ministry cannot stand an hour, with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not since Anne has a sovereign refused signature to an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and William IV., continued to exercise the power of dismissing Ministers at their pleasure. But since Victoria, an unwritten law forbids it, and with this vanishes the last _remnant of a personal Government_. The end long sought is attained. The history of no other people affords such an illustration of a steadily progressive national development from seed to blossom, compelled by one persistent force. Freedom in England has not been wrought by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded like a plant from a life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of fourteen centuries;--centuries in which the most practical nation in the world has steadily pursued an _ideal_! The ideal of individual freedom subordinated only to the good of the whole. The triumph of England has been the triumph not of genius, nor of intellect, but of _character_. It is those cross-threads of stubborn homely traits, the tenacity of purpose, the reluctance to change, the adherence to habit, usage and tradition, which have toughened the fabric almost to indestructibility. These traits are illustrated in the persistence of the hereditary principle in the royal line. We look in vain for another such instance. The blood of Cerdic, the first Saxon "Ealdorman" (495), flows in the veins of Victoria. She is 38th remove from Egbert, first Saxon King of consolidated England (802), 26th from William the Conqueror (1066), and 9th in descent from that picturesque and lovely criminal, Mary Stuart (1587). There have been wars, and foreign invasions,--a Danish and a Norman conquest, the overturning of dynasties, and Revolutions, and a "Protectorate," and yet--there sits upon the throne to-day a Queen descended by unbroken line from Cerdic the Saxon!