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he that inftructs the farmer to plough and fow, may convey his notions without the words which he would find neceffary in explaining to philofophers the procefs of vegetation; and if he, who has nothing to do but to be honeft by the shortest way, will perplex his mind with fubtle fpeculations; or if he whofe task is to reap and thrash will not be contented without examining the evolution of the feed and circulation of the fap, the writers whom either shall confult are very little to be blamed, though it fhould fometimes happen that they are read in vain.

Idler.

ftand in procinctu waiting for a proper opportunity to begin.

If there were no other end of life, than to find fome adequate folace for every day, I know not whether any condition could be preferred to that of the man who involves himself in his own thoughts, and never fuffers experience to fhow him the vanity of fpeculation; for no fooner are notions reduced to practice, than tranquillity and confidence forfake the breaft; every day brings its tafk, and often without bringing abilities to perform it: difficulties embarrass, uncertainty perplexes, oppofition retards, cenfure exafperates, or

§ 62. Difcontent, the common Lot of all neglect depreffes. We proceed, because

Mankind.

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the prefent. Attainment is followed by neglect, and poffeffion by difguft; and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatift on marriage, may be applied to every other course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and

the laft.

Few moments are more pleafing than thofe in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. From the first hint that wakens the fancy to the hour of actual execution, all is improvement and progrefs, triumph and felicity. Every hour brings additions to the original scheme, fuggefts fome new expedient to fecure fuccefs, or difcovers confequential advantages not hitherto foreseen. While preparations are made and materials accumulated, day glides after day through elysian propects, and the heart dances to the fong of hope.

Such is the pleasure of projecting, that many content themselves with a fucceffion of vifionary fchemes, and wear out their allotted time in the calm amufement of contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute.

Others, not able to feaft their imagination with pure ideas, advance fomewhat nearer to the groffness of action, with great diligence collect whatever is requifite to their defign, and, after a thoufand researches and confultations, are fnatched away by death, as they

we have begun; we complete our defign, that the labour already spent may not be vain but as expectation gradually dies away, the gay fmile of alacrity difappears, we are neceffitated to implore feverer powers, and trust the event to patience and conftancy.

When once our labour has begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the profpect of its end; for though in every long work there are fome joyous intervals of felf-applaufe, when the attention is recreated by unexpected facility, and the imagination foothed by incidental excellencies not comprised in the first plan, yet the toil with which performance ftruggles after idea, is fo irkfome and difgufting, and fo frequent is the neceflity of refting below that perfection which we imagined within our reach, that feldom any man obtains more from his endeavours than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continual refufcitation of defires which he feels himself unable to gratify.

So certainly is wearinefs and vexation the concomitant of our undertakings, that every man, in whatever he is engaged, confoles himfelf with the hope of change. He that has made his way by affiduity and vigilance to public employment, talks among his friends of nothing but the delight of retirement: he whom the neceffity of folitary application fecludes from the world, liitens, with a beating heart to its diftant noifes, longs to mingle with living beings, and refolves, when he can regulate his hours by his own choice, to

take

take his fill of merriment and diverfions, or to difplay his abilities on the univerfal theatre, and enjoy the pleafare of diftin&tion and applaufe.

Every defire, however innocent or natural, grows dangerous, as by long indulgence it becomes afcendant in the mind. When we have been much accustomed to confider any thing as capable of giving happiness, it is not eafy to restrain our ardour, or to forbear fome precipitation in our advances and irregularity in our purfuits. He that has long cultivated the tree, watched the fwelling bud, and opening bloffom, and pleafed himself with computing how much every fun and fhower added to its growth, fcarcely ftays till the fruit has obtained its maturity, but defeats his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we have diligently laboured for any purpofe, we are willing to believe that we have attained it, and, because we have already done much, too fuddenly conclude that no more is to be done.

All attraction is encreafed by the approach of the attracting body. We never find ourselves fo defirous to finish, as in the latter part of our work, or fo impatient of delay, as when we know that delay cannot be long. Part of this unfeasonable importunity of difcontent may be justly imputed to languor and weariness, which must always opprefs us more as our toil has been longer continued; but the greater part ufually proceeds from frequent contemplation of that eafe which we now confider as near and certain, and which, when it has once flattered our hopes, we cannot fuffer to be longer withheld. Rambler.

§ 63. Feodal Syftem, Hiftory of its Rife and Progress.

The conftitution of feuds had its original from the military policy of the Northern or Celtic nations, the Goths, the Hunns, the Franks, the Vandals, and the Lombards, who all migrating from the fame officina gentium, as Craig very juftly intitles it, poured themfelves in vast quantities into all the regions of Europe, at the declenfion of the Roman empire. It was brought by them from

their own countries, and continued in their refpective colonies as the most likely means to fecure their new acquifitions and, to that end, large districts or parcels of land were allotted by the conquering general to the fuperior officers of the army, and by them dealt out again in fmaller parcels or allotments to the inferior officers and moft deferving foldiers. The fe allotments were called feoda, feuds, fiefs, or fees; which laft appellation in the northern languages fignifies a conditional ftipend or reward. Rewards or ftipends they evidently were; and the condition annexed to them was, that the poffeffor fhould do fervice faithfully, both at home and in the wars, to him by whom they were given; for which purpose he took the juramentum fidelitatis, or oath of feaity: and in cafe of the breach of this condition and oath, by not performing the tipulated service, or by deferting the lord in battle, the lands were again to revert to him who granted them.

Allotments thus acquired, naturally engaged fuch as accepted them to defend them: and, as they all sprang from the fame right of conqueft, no part could fubfift independent of the whole; wherefore all givers as well as receivers were mutually bound to defend each other's poffeffions. But, as that could not effectually be done in a tumultuous irregular way, government, and to that purpofe fubordination, was neceffary. Every receiver of lands, or feudatory, was therefore bound, when called upon by his benefactor, or immediate lord of his feud or fee, to do all in his power to defend him. Such benefactor or lord was likewife fubordinate to and under the command of his immediate benefactor or fuperior; and fo upwards to the prince or general himself. And the feveral lords were alfo reciprocally bound, in their respective gradations, to protect the poffeflions they had given. Thus the feodal connection was eftablifhed, a proper military subjection was naturally introduced, and an army of feudatories were always ready inlifted, and mutually prepared to muster, not only in defence of each man's own feveral property, but alfo in defence of Z23

the

the whole, and of every part of this their newly acquired country: the prudence of which conftitution was foon fufficiently visible in the firength and fpirit with which they maintained their conquefts.

The univerfality and early ufe of this feodal plan, among all thofe nations which in complaifance to the Romans we still call Barbarous, may appear from what is recorded of the Cimbri and Teutones, nations of the fame northern original as thofe whom we have been defcribing, at their first irruption into Italy about a century before the Chriftian .æra. They demanded of the Romans, "ut martius populus aliquid fibi terræ daret, quafi ftipendium: cæterum, ut vellet, manibus atque armis fuis uteretur." The fenfe of which may be thus rendered; "they defired ftipendary lands (that is, feuds) to be allowed them, to be held by military and other perional fervices, whenever their lords should call upon them." This was evidently the fame conftitution, that displayed itfelf more fully about seven hundred year, afterwards; when the Salii, Burgundians, and Franks, broke in upon Gaul, the Vifigoths on Spain, and the Lombards upon Italy, and introduced with themselves this northern plan of polity, ferving at once to distribute, and to protect, the territories they had newly gained. And from hence it is probable that the emperor Alexander Severus took the hint, of dividing lands conquered from the enemy among his generals and victorious foldiery, on condition of receiving military fervice from them and their heirs for ever.

Scarce had thefe northern conquerors eftablished themfelves in their new dominions, when the wisdom of their conftitutions, as well as their perfonal valour, alarmed all the princes of Europe; that is, of thofe countries which had formerly been Roman provinces, but had revolted, or were deferted by their old mafters, in the general wreck of the empire. Wherefore moft, if not all, of them thought it neceffary to enter into the fame or a fimilar plan of policy. For whereas, before, the poffeffions of their fubjects were perfectly

allodial (that is, wholly independent, and held of no fuperior at all) now they parcelled out their royal territories, or perfuaded their fubjects to furrender up and retake their own landed property, under the like feodal obligation of military fealty. And thus, in the compafs of a very few years, the feodal conftitution, or the doctrine of tenure, extended itfelf over all the western world. Which alteration of landed property, in fo very material a point, neceffarily drew after it an alteration of laws and cuftoms; fo that the feodal laws foon drove out the Roman, which had hitherto univerfally obtained, but now became for many centuries loft and forgotten; and Italy itself (as fome of the civilians, with more spleen than judgment, have expreffed it) belluinas, atque ferinas, immanefque Longobardorum leges accepit.

But this feodal polity, which was thus by degrees established over all the continent of Europe, feems not to have been received in this part of our island, at leaft not univerfally, and as a part of the national conftitution, till the reign of William the Norman. Not but that it is realonable to believe, from abundant traces in our history and laws, that even in the times of the Saxons, who were a fwarm from what Sir William Temple calls the fame northern hive, fomething fimilar to this was in ufe: yet not fo extenfively, nor attended with all the rigour that was afterwards imported by the Normans. For the Saxons were firmly fettled in this island, at. least as early as the year 600 and it was not till two centuries after, that feuds arrived to their full vigour and maturity, even on the continent of Europe.

This introduction however of the feodal tenures into England, by king William, does not feem to have been effected immediately after the conqueft, nor by the mere arbitrary will and power of the conqueror; but to have been confented to by the great council of the nation long after his title was eftablished. Indeed, from the prodigious flaughter of the English nobility at the battle of Haftings, and the fruitlefs infurrections of thofe who furvived,

fuch

66

fuch numerous forfeitures had accrued, latter end of that very year the king was that he was able to reward his Norman attended by all his nobility at Sarum; followers with very large and extenfive where all the principal landholders poffeffions which gave a handle to the fubmitted their lands to the yoke of monkish hiftorians, and fuch as have military tenure, became the king's implicitly followed them, to reprefent vaffals, and did homage and fealty to him as having by the right of the fword his perfon. This feems to have been feized on all the lands of England, and the era of formally introducing the dealt them out again to his own favou- feodal tenures by law; and probably rites. A fuppofition, grounded upon a the very law, thus made at the council mistaken fenfe of the word conqueft; of Sarum, is that which is ftill extant, which, in its feodal acceptation, fignifies and couched in the fe remarkable words: no more than acquifition: and this has ftatuimus, ut omnes liberi homines fæ led many hafty writers into a strange dere & facramento affirment, quod intra hiftorical mistake, and one which upon extra univerfum regnum Anglia Wil& the flightest examination will he found belmo regi domino fuo fideles effe volunt; to be moft untrue. However, certain terras & honores illius omni fidelitate ubiit is, that the Normans now began to que fervare cun eo, et contra inimicos et gain very large poffeffions in England: alienigenas defendere." The terms of and their regard for their feodal law, this law (as Sir Martin Wright has obunder which they had long lived, to- ferved) are plainly feodal: for, first, gether with the king's recommendation it requires the oath of fealty, which of this policy to the English, as the best made in the sense of the feudists every way to put themfelves on a military man that took it a tenant or vassal; and, footing, and thereby to prevent any fecondly, the tenants obliged themfelves future attempts from the continent, to defend their lords territories and were probably the reafons that prevailed titles against all enemies foreign and to effect his establishment here. And domestic. But what puts the matter perhaps we may be able to afcertain the out of difpute is another law of the fame time of this great revolution in our collection, which exacts the performance landed property with a tolerable de- of the military feodal fervices, as orgree of exactnefs. For we learn from dained by the general council: Omnes the Saxon Chronicle, that in the nine comites, & barones, & milites, & ferteenth year of king William's reign an vientes, & univerfi liberi homines totius invafion was apprehended from Den- regni noftri prædicti, habeant & teneant mark; and the military conftitution of fe femper bene in armis & in equis, ut the Saxons being then laid afide, and decet & oportet: & fint femper prompti no other introduced in its ftead, the bene parati ad fervitium juum integrum kingdom was wholly defenceless: which nobis explendum & peragendum cum opus occafioned the king to bring over a fuerit; fecundum quod nobis debent de large army of Normans and Bretons, fædis tenementis fuis de jure facere ; & who were quartered upon every land- ficut illis ftatuimus per commune concilium holder, and greatly oppreffed the peo- totius regni noftri prædicti." ple. This apparent weakness, together with the grievances occafioned by a foreign force, might co-operate with the king's remonftrances, and the better incline the nobility to liften to his propofals for putting them in a pofture of defence. For, as foon as the danger was over, the king held a great council to enquire into the ftate of the nation; the immediate confequence of which was the compiling of the great furvey called Domefday book, which was finished in the next year; and in the

This new polity therefore feems not to have been impofed by the conqueror, but nationally and freely adopted by the general affembly of the whole realm, in the fame manner as other nations of Europe had before adopted it, upon the fame principle of felf-fecurity. And, in particular, they had the recent example of the French nation before their eyes, which had gradually furrendered up all its allodial or free lands into the king's hands, who restored them to the owners as a beneficium or 224

feud,

feud, to be held to them and fuch of their heirs as they previously nominated to the king and thus by degrees all the allodial eftates of France were converted into feuds, and the freemen became the vaffals of the crown. The only difference between this change of tenures in France, and that in England, was, that the former was effected gradually, by the confent of private perfons; the latter was done at once, all over England, by the common confent of the nation.

In confequence of this change, it be. came a fundamental maxim and neceffary principle (though in reality a mere fiction) of our English tenures, " that the king is the univerfal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom; and that no man doth or can poffels any part of it, but what has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him, to be held upon feodal fervices." For, this being the real cafe in pure, original, proper feuds, other nations who adopted this fyftem were obliged to act upon the fame fuppofition, as a fubftruction and founda tion of their new polity, though the fact was indeed far otherwife. And indeed by thus confenting to the introduction of feodal tenures, our English ancestors probably meant no more than to put the kingdom in a state of defence by a military fyftem; and to oblige themselves (in refpect of their land) to maintain the king's title and territories, with equal vigour and fealty, as if they had received their lands from his bounty upon these exprefs conditions, as pure, proper, beneficiary feudatories. But, whatever their meaning was, the Norman interpreters, skill ed in all the niceties of the feodal conftitutions, and well understanding the import and extent of the feodal terms, gave a very different conftruction to this proceeding; and thereupon took a handle to introduce, not only the rigorous doctrines which prevailed in the duchy of Normandy, but alfo fuch fruits and dependencies, fuch hardships and fervices, as were never known to other na tions; as if the English had in fact, as well as theory, awed every thing they

had to the bounty of their fovereign lord.

Our ancestors therefore, who were by no means beneficiaries, but had barely confented to this fiction of tenure from the crown, as the bafis of a military difcipline, with reafon looked upon these deductions as grievous impofitions, and arbitrary conclufions from principles that, as to them, had no foundation in truth, However, this king, and his fon William Rufus, kept up with a high hand all the rigours of the feodal doctrines; but their fucceffor, Henry I. found it expedient, when he fet up his pretenfions to the crown, to promife a reftitution of the laws of king Edward the confeffor, or ancient Saxon fyftem; and accordingly, in the first year of his reign, granted a charter, whereby he gave up the greater griev ances, but still referved the fiction of feodal tenure, for the fame military purpofes which engaged his father to introduce it. But this charter was gradually broke through, and the former grievances were revived and aggravated, by himfelf and fucceeding princes: till in the reign of king John they became fo intolerable, that they occafioned his barons, or principal feudatories, to rife up in arms against him; which at length produced the famous great charter at Running-mead, which, with fome alterations, was confirmed by his fon Henry III. And though its immunities (efpecially as altered on its last edition by his fon) are very greatly short of thofe granted by Henry I. it was juftly efteemed at the time a vaft acquifition to English liberty. Indeed, by the farther alteration of tenures that has fince happened, many of these immunities may now appear to a common obferver, of much lefs confequence than they really were when granted: but this, properly confidered, will fhew, not that the acquifitions under John were small, but that thofe under Charles were greater. And from hence alfo arifes an other inference; that the liberties of Englishmen are not (as fome arbitrary writers would reprefent them) mere in fringements of the king's prerogative, extorted from our princes by taking

advantage..

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