384 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
could not mount the throne, and to that august assembly 
an appeal might ever lie against his authority. 
To these Things, and to the Norse invasion that 
implanted them, and not to the Wittenagemotts of the 
Latinised Saxons, must be referred the existence of 
those Parliaments which are the boast of Englishmen. 
Noiselessly and gradually did a belief in liberty, 
and an unconquerable love of independence, grow up 
among that simple people. No feudal despots oppressed 
the unprotected, for all were noble and udal born; no 
standing armies enabled the Crown to set popular 
opinion at defiance, for the swords of the Bonders 
sufficed to guard the realm; no military barons usurped 
an illegitimate authority, for the nature of the soil 
forbade the erection of feudal fortresses. Over the rest 
of Europe despotism rose up rank under the tutelage 
of a corrupt religion; while, year after year, amid the 
savage scenery of its Scandinavian nursery, that great 
race was maturing whose genial heartiness w T as destined 
to invigorate the sickly civilization of the Saxon with 
inexhaustible energy, and preserve to the world, even 
in the nineteenth century, one glorious example of a free 
European people. 
