10 



REVIEW. 



they can safely go at any time. It is a trite observation, that a 

 certain concession of individual rights forms the basis of every 

 civil institution, and the minimum of that concession is the point 

 of perfection, the political beau ideal, to be pursued in every 

 state. All the refinement of modern times seems to have failed 

 in equalling the skill in this respect of the Anglo Saxons. 



On the other hand, the present integral defects of the consti- 

 tution, seem mainly attributable to the Normans; and the struggle 

 betw^een the Crown, the Nobles, and the Commons, from the 

 ^period of the crafty invasion, and falsely called conquest of the 

 first William, down to the present hour, has had for its main 

 object, the restoration of the constitution to its Saxon form, by 

 divesting it of its Norman incumbrances. The whole feudal 

 system and its extensive ramifications illustrate this. Equality 

 among freemen so far as it can be consistent with general protection 

 prevailed during the Saxon period ; each man was answerable 

 for his neighbour, the land was allodial, and the law was admin- 

 istered not as an abstruse science but on a few general well 

 known principals, by the neighbours and equals of the parties 

 accused or litigating, but the feudal principals introduced by the 

 Normans were very different from those of equality, cultivated 

 by their predecessors. Dependency is the very spirit of the 

 feudal system, and though much of the details in particular cases 

 are now lost from disu etude, still at the present moment every 

 acre of land in the country is held in the eye of the law of some 

 superior lord, and equality in principle can hardly be said to 

 exist. 



In like manner the origin and almost every defect which can, 

 with all the acumen of modern intellect, be reasonably detected 

 in the constitution may be traced to a period subsequent to the 

 Anglo Saxon Kings, while nearly all the excellences we can 

 boast of in it owe their existence to a previous period. 



We venture to state this conclusion, with slight modification, 

 in a general form, the authors of the history of the boroughs have 

 established it in the particular subject of their enquiries. True 

 it is we learn from them that the boroughs remained from the 

 Saxon period for some centuries not materially affected by 

 Norman reform. Equality prevailed in them, that is — the muni- 

 cipal governing officers were elected under the borough charters, 

 or by prescription by the body at large for a limited period. Till 

 the divisions in the Plantagenet family, select corporators or 

 freemen were unknown ; the Burgesses were all the inhabitant 



