102 



have been. At all events, the Code adds to William of Malmes- 

 bury's traditional record of the Exeter case, the still stronger 

 testimony of a contemporaneous written monument of the actual 

 existence of some such a social condition. It is not a national 

 statute, but of the nature of what we call a " By-law," or a sort 

 of mere local police regulation for the protection of the property 

 and rights of individual neighbours. The court of resort is 

 appointed, in case of need, to be twelve men, six of each 

 nationality. 



What we have here endeavoured to realise, is only a single 

 example of what may be called ethnical islands; of which 

 Cornwall and Wales are as the continents. But, besides these, 

 without doubt, a vast broad and deep social substratum ; extend- 

 ing backwards for many centuries beyond written history, and 

 forwards down to our own times, was underlying all the dynastic 

 conflicts that have disturbed and striated its surface. Some- 

 times no doubt these have produced great local upheavals : have 

 altered or mixed it for some depth ; or in some cases actually 

 denudated it. But invaders would have a barren conquest with- 

 out taxpayers and subsidists, and tillers of the soil, and even 

 soldiers. Even now relics of prse-Saxon and pree-Christian 

 customs, superstitions, and traditions, not to speak of stray parts 

 of speech, nor again to boast of nobler heritages, remain to 

 identify the latest metamorphosed outcrop with the earliest for- 

 mation. The Eomans might have* had some pretext for calling 

 this people barbarous ; certainly not the Saxons. Why these 

 Saxons were far greater laggards, even in the acceptance of that 

 great and obvious movement which was changing the face of 

 the world before their eyes, than were their predecessors. Wit- 

 ness the multitude of those dispersed intellectual centres, more 



