s own eyes;--and tarbarrels are burnt to 'Liberty.'
'Ten-pound Franchise' and the like, with considerable effect in
various ways!--

That Feudal Aristocracy, I say, was no imaginary one. To a respectable
degree, its _Jarls_, what we now call Earls, were _Strong-Ones_ in
fact as well as etymology; its Dukes _Leaders_; its Lords _Law-wards_.
They did all the Soldiering and Police of the country, all the
Judging, Law-making, even the Church-Extension; whatsoever in the way
of Governing, of Guiding and Protecting could be done. It was a Land
Aristocracy; it managed the Governing of this English People, and had
the reaping of the Soil of England in return. It is, in many senses,
the Law of Nature, this same Law of Feudalism;--no right Aristocracy
but a Land one! The curious are invited to meditate upon it in these
days. Soldiering, Police and Judging, Church-Extension, nay real
Government and Guidance, all this was actually _done_ by the Holders
of the Land in return for their Land. How much of it is now done by
them; done by anybody? Good Heavens, "Laissez-faire, Do ye nothing,
eat your wages and sleep," is everywhere the passionate half-wise cry
of this time; and they will not so much as do nothing, but must do
mere Corn-Laws! We raise Fifty-two millions, from the general mass of
us, to get our Governing done--or, alas, to get ourselves persuaded
that it is done: and the 'peculiar burden of the Land' is to pay, not
all this, but to pay, as I learn, one twenty-fourth part of all this.
Our first Chartist Parliament, or Oliver _Redivivus_, you would say,
will know where to lay the new taxes of England!--Or, alas, taxes? If
we made the Holders of the Land pay every shilling still of the
expense of Governing the Land, what were all that? The Land, by mere
hired Governors, cannot be got governed. You cannot hire men to govern
the Land: it is by a mission not contracted for in the Stock-Exchange,
but felt in their own hearts as coming out of Heaven, that men can
govern a Land. The mission of a Land Aristocracy is a _sacred_ one, in
both the senses of that old word. The footing it stands on, at
present, might give rise to thoughts other than of Corn-Laws!--

But truly a 'Splendour of God,' as in William Conqueror's rough oath,
did dwell in those old rude veracious ages; did inform, more and more,
with a heavenly nobleness, all departments of their work and life.
Phantasms could not yet walk abroad in mere Cloth Tailorage; they we