HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

of Elizabeth. When the dying slaveholder asked for thelast sacraments, his spiritual attendants regularly adjuredhim, as he loved his soul, to emancipate his brethren forwhom Christ had died. So successfully had the Churchused her formidable machinery that, before the Reformationcame, she had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in thekingdom except her own, who, to do her justice, seem tohave been very tenderly treated.

There can be no doubt, that, when these two great re-volutions had been effected, our forefathers were by far thebest governed people in Europe. During three hundredyears the social system had been in a constant course of im-provement. Under the first Plantagenets there had beenbarons able to bid defiance to the sovereign, and peasantsdegraded to the level of the swine and oxen which theytended. The exorbitant power of the baron had been gra-dually reduced. The condition of the peasant had beengradually elevated. Between the aristocracy and the workingpeople had sprung up a middle class, agricultural and com-mercial. There was still, it may be, more inequality than isfavourable to the happiness and virtue of our species: but noman was altogether above the restraints of law; and no manwas altogether below its protection.

That the political institutions of England were, at thisearly period, regarded by the English with pride and affec-tion, and by the most enlightened men of neighbouring na-tions with admiration and envy, is proved by the clearestevidence. But touching the nature of those institutions,there has been much dishonest and acrimonious controversy.

The historical literature of England has indeed sufferedgrievously from a circumstance which has not a little con-tributed to her prosperity. The change, great as it is, whichlier polity has undergone during the last six centuries, hasbeen the effect of gradual development, not of demolition and