The EUROPEAN- LEGISLATURES. 165 



place in the diet * ; and that the reprefentation by knights of 

 the {hire in Britain, and deputies of noblefle on the continent, 

 was a modern inftitution, the sera of which is nearly afcer- 

 tained j it furely may be fairly urged, that a hypothefis is, at 

 leaft, improbable which thus fuppofes, that, in rude and war- 

 like times, the owners of fmall eftates, who formed fo large a 

 portion of the feudal militia, had no accefs to the national 

 council, while plebeian burgefles had, in all times, been ad- 

 mitted into it, and even, according to fome, formed the wites, 

 from which, among the Anglo-Saxons, it derived its name. 



BUT though it were permitted us to fuppofe, that repre- 

 fentatives from counties, as well as from towns, had been de- 

 legated to the national diets, neither the diforderly and calami- 

 tous ftate of fociety in the Gothic ages, nor the feudal ufurpa- 

 tions to which they gave birth, nor the feeble and disjointed 

 condition in which they left the European nations, can fuffer 

 us to attribute to fuch times an inftitution which our own ex- 

 perience of it has proved to be the powerful guardian of civil 

 liberty, the fureft fource of equal and general laws, and the 

 efficacious bond which unites a widely extended country into 

 one great community, cemented by the fame public interefls, 



and 



* THE Abbe" MABLT, however, thinks, that the Commons, or Tiers Etat, formed a 

 third chamber in the diet of the Carlovingians, becaufe the Capit. of A, D. 819, 

 art. 2. requires each comes to bring with him to the diet, " 12 fcabinos, fi tanti 

 " fuerint, fin autem de melioribus hominibus comitatus fuppleat numerum j" and that 

 the advocati of the dignified clergy fhould alfo attend. But the fcabini were always 

 chofen " de nobilioribus ;" and, at any rate, it is evident, the 12 beft people of a coun- 

 ty can, by no means, be reckoned as of the Tiers Etat. Befides, HINCMAR'S defcription 

 of the aflembly gives no countenance to the notion of a chamber of delegates. The 

 regulation in queftion, I apprehend, was deftined to remedy, in part, that negleft of 

 attendance on the diet, which, at laft became fo fatal to its authority ; or, perhaps, 

 for fome particular purpofe, like what we read in Hoveden, of WILLIAM the Con- 

 queror j " WILLIELMUS rex, anno quarto regni fui, confilio baronum fuorum, fecit 

 " fummonari per univerfos confulatos Anglise Anglos nobiles et fapientes, et fua lege 

 " eruditos, ut eorum jura et confuetudines ab ipfis audiret. EleQis igitur de fmgulis 

 " totius patriae comitatibus viri duodecim," 6'r. And they are faid to have reported 

 the laws upon oath,. 



