but
both law and custom are paving the way for that gradual and silent
extinction of it, which without any formal abolition of the legal
status left, three centuries later, not a legal villain among us.

With this exception, there was in theory equal law for all classes,
and imperfectly as the theory may have been carried out, it was at
least far less imperfectly so than in any other kingdom. Our language
was fast taking its present shape; English, in the main intelligible
at the present day, was the speech of the mass of the people, and it
was soon to expel French from the halls of princes and nobles. England
at the close of the century is, for the first time since the Conquest,
ruled by a prince bearing a purely English name, and following a
purely English policy. Edward the First was no doubt as despotic as he
could be or dared to be; so was every prince of those days who could
not practice the superhuman righteousness of St. Lewis. But he ruled
over a people who knew how to keep even his despotism within bounds.
The legislator of England, the conqueror of Wales and Scotland, seems
truly like an old Bretwalda or West-Saxon Basileus, sitting once more
on the throne of Cerdic and of AElfred. The modern English nation is
now fully formed; it stands ready for those struggles for French
dominion in the two following centuries, which, utterly unjust and
fruitless as they were, still proved indirectly the confirmation of
our liberties at home, and which forever fixed the national character
for good and for evil.

Let us here sketch out a comparison between the history and
institutions of England and those of France and Germany. As we before
said, our modern Parliament is traced up in an unbroken line to the
early Great Council, and to the still earlier Witenagemot. The latter
institution, widely different as it is from the earlier, has not been
substituted for the earlier, but has grown out of it. It would be
ludicrous to look for any such continuity between the Diet of
ambassadors which meets at Frankfurt and the Assemblies which met to
obey Henry the Third and to depose Henry the Fourth. And how stands
the case in France? France has tried constitutional government in all
its shapes; in its old Teutonic, in its mediaeval, and in all its
modern forms--Kings with one Chamber and Kings with two, Republics
without Presidents and Republics with, Conventions, Directories,
Consulates, and Empires. All of these have been separat