sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down
in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the
history of our country during the thirteenth century may not
unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of
our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our
freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the
great English people was formed, that the national character
began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since
retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders,
islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared
with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through
all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which
all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and
which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the
best under which any great society has ever yet existed during
many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype
of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in
the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was
that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly
became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then
it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude
barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible
on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which
still exist at both the great national seats of learning were
founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than
the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the
philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece
alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble