such a man, the poor are but the tattered slaves that grace his triumph.

It was a time, too, when human nature often shows its true divinity, and, with misery like a garment clinging to it, forgets its wretchedness in sympathy with suffering. A time when in the cellars and garrets of the poor are acted scenes which make the noblest heroism of life; which prove the immortal texture of the human heart, not wholly seared by the branding-iron of the torturing hours. A time when in want, in anguish, in throes of mortal agony, some seed is sown that bears a flower in heaven.

HENRY HALLAM, 1778–1859.

HENRY HALLAM, who has worthily won the praise of being "the most judicial of our great modern historians," was the son of the Dean of Wells, and was born in 1778. He was educated at Eton, and at Christ Church, Oxford. Having studied in the Inner Temple, he was called to the bar, and soon became a commissioner of audit. He was among the earliest contributors to the Edinburgh Review; and it was in his articles in this journal that he gave the first proofs of his erudition, his taste, and his calm, philosophic judgment. But these essays are now scarcely recognized in the shadow of his great historical works, which have raised him to the very highest literary rank. The first of these was A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, 1818 (two volumes, quarto), being an account of the progress of Europe from the middle of the fifth to the end of the fifteenth century. In 1827 he published (two volumes, quarto) The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. His Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries2 appeared in 1837, in four volumes. All these works are models of research, justness of generalization, and elegance of expression. His great brother-laborer, Macaulay, in the same extensive and toilsome field, pays him the high compliment of accepting any fact vouched for by him as almost certain of being correct. All his works have gone through numerous editions, and have been translated into a number of European languages.

The latter years of Mr. Hallam's life were years of great affliction, from the loss of his two sons; the eldest, Arthur Henry Hallam,-the subject of Tennyson's In Memoriam,-who died in 1833, and the second, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, who was taken away shortly after he had been called to the bar in 1850. They were both eminently accomplished, amiable, and promising young men. The afflicted father collected and printed for private circulation the Remains, in Verse and Prose, of Arthur Henry Hallam, and some friend added memorials of the second son. The great historian himself died January 22, 1859, at the age of eighty-one.

1 One of his most celebrated articles was that on Scott's Dryden, vol. xiii., October, 1808.

2"This is a book of which the sagacity and calmness are well matched with the profound erudition."—ARNOLD.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.

The peace and good order of society were not promoted by this system. Though private wars did not originate in the feudal customs, it is impossible to doubt that they were perpetuated by so convenient an institution, which indeed owed its universal establishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits of warfare are totally irreconcilable with those of industry, not merely by the immediate works of destruction which render its efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occupations which they produce, the feudal system must have been intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth, and the improvement of those arts which mitigate the evils or abridge the labors of mankind.

But as a school of moral discipline, the feudal institutions were perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several centuries after the dissolution of the Roman empire, into a condition of utter depravity, where, if any vices could be selected as more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, treachery, and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of this extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its ameliorating influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, most severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general infamy. The feudal law-books breathe throughout a spirit of honorable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdiction promoted, what trial by peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener feeling as well as a readier perception of moral as well as of legal distinctions. In the reciprocal services of lord and vassal, there was ample scope for every magnanimous and disinterested energy. The heart of man, when placed in circumstances that have a tendency to excite them, will seldom be deficient in such sentiments. No occasions could be more favorable than the protection of a faithful supporter, or the defence of a beneficent sovereign, against such powerful aggression as left little prospect except of sharing in his ruin.

MAGNA CHARTA.

In the reign of John, all the rapacious exactions usual to these Norman kings were not only redoubled, but mingled with other outrages of tyranny still more intolerable. These, too, were to be endured at the hands of a prince utterly contemptible for his folly and cowardice. One is surprised at the forbearance displayed by the barons, till they took up arms at length in that confederacy, which ended in establishing the Great Charter of Liberties. As this was the first effort towards a legal government,

so is it beyond comparison the most important event in our history, except that Revolution without which its benefits would have been rapidly annihilated. The constitution of England has indeed no single date from which its duration is to be reckoned. The institutions of positive law, the far more important changes which time has wrought in the order of society during six hundred years subsequent to the Great Charter, have undoubtedly lessened its direct application to our present circumstances. But it is still the keystone of English liberty. All that has since been obtained is little more than as confirmation or commentary; and if every subsequent law were to be swept away, there would still remain the bold features that distinguish a free from a despotic monarchy.

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An equal distribution of civil rights to all classes of freemen forms the peculiar beauty of the charter. In this just solicitude for the people, and in the moderation which infringed upon no essential prerogative of the monarchy, we may perceive a libe rality and patriotism very unlike the selfishness which is sometimes rashly imputed to those ancient barons. And, as far as we are guided by historical testimony, two great men, the pillars of our church and state, may be considered as entitled beyond the rest to the glory of this monument, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of Pembroke. To their temperate zeal for a legal government, England was indebted during that critical period for the two greatest blessings that patriotic statesmen could confer: the establishment of civil liberty upon an immovable basis, and the preservation of national independence under the ancient line of sovereigns, which rasher men were about to exchange for the dominion of France.

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The essential clauses of Magna Charta are those which protect the personal liberty and property of all freemen, by giving security from arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation. "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man, justice or right." It is obvious that these words, interpreted by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the two main rights of civil society. From the era, therefore, of King John's charter, it must have been a clear principle of our constitution that no man can be detained in prison without trial. Whether courts of justice framed the writ of Habeas Corpus in conformity to the spirit of this clause, or found it already in their register, it became from that era the right of every subject to demand it. That writ, rendered more actively remedial by the statute of Charles II., but founded upon

the broad basis of Magna Charta, is the principal bulwark of English liberty; and if ever temporary circumstances, or the doubtful plea of political necessity, shall lead men to look on its denial with apathy, the most distinguishing characteristic of our constitution will be effaced.

HOUSES AND FURNITURE OF THE NOBLES IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in stately or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement consisted of an entrance-passage running through the house, with a hall on one side, a parlor beyond, and one or two chambers above; and on the opposite side a kitchen, pantry, and other offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as appears not only from the documents and engravings, but, as to the latter period, from the buildings themselves,-sometimes, though not very frequently, occupied by families of consideration, more often conyerted into farm-houses or distinct tenements. Larger structures were erected by men of great estates during the reigns of Henry IV. and Edward IV.; but very few can be traced higher; and such has been the effect of time, still more through the advance or decline of families, and the progress of architectural improvement, than the natural decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances, at least, must be extremely few.

The two most essential improvements in architecture during this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windows. Nothing, apparently, can be more simple than the former; yet the wisdom of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery, of which Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was made, perhaps, by some forgotten semi-barbarian! About the middle of the fourteenth century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in England and in Italy; but they are found in several of our castles which bear a much older date. This country seems to have lost very early the art of making glass, which was preserved in France, whence artificers were brought into England to furnish the windows in some new churches in the seventh century. It is said that, in the reign of Henry III., a few ecclesiastical buildings had glazed windows. Suger, however, a century before had adorned his

great work, the Abbey of St. Denis, with windows, not only glazed, but painted; and I presume that other churches of the same class, both in France and England, especially after the lancetshaped window had yielded to one of ampler dimensions, were generally decorated in a similar manner. Yet glass is said not to have been employed in the domestic architecture of France before the fourteenth century; and its introduction into England was probably by no means earlier. Nor, indeed, did it come into general use during the period of the middle ages. Glazed windows were considered as movable furniture, and probably bore a high price. When the Earls of Northumberland, as late as the reign of Elizabeth, left Alnwick Castle, the windows were taken out of their frames and carefully laid by.

But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would this luxurious generation be content with their internal accommodations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was extraordinarily well provided; few probably had more than two. The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot, or even plaster, except that some great houses were furnished with hangings, and that, perhaps, hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. It is unnecessary to add that neither libraries of books nor pictures could have found a place among furniture. Silver-plate was very rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories of furniture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency. And this was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses than among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian trader, at his house in St. Botolph's Lane, A.D. 1481. There appear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows are especially noted as movable furniture. No mention, however, is made of chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare his account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar inventory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honor of the Earls of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the north, not at the same period,-for I have not found any inventory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient, but in 1572, after almost a century of continual improvement, we shall be astonished at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were not more than seven or eight beds in this great castle, nor had any of the chambers either chairs, glasses, or carpets.