then, and appointment of the itinerant judges, from the courts of Westminster, to insure the administration of equal law all over the kingdom, formed a most important improvement for the security of person and property. Many of the great accumulators of forfeited estates granted lands to be held, by liberal tenures, under them: many, to pay for the preservation of the rest, and some with other views, sold portions of their property.

Thus things began to settle in something ap, proaching that, whence the order under which we live has emanated. Then already, as now, the principal landed men of the country were in turn sheriff, and all met twice yearly, to form the grand jury at the assizes. The inferior landholders formed the petty juries. The sheriff's court and the various courts-leet supplied the place of the present quarterly and petty sessions of justices. The provincial administration thus being in the hands of the landed men of the province, country-houses abounded and villages flourished.

Here, in my opinion, is the basis of the whole constitution. If ever it should be, from whatever circumstances, that those numerous, or rather numberless, offices now executed, as an unpaid duty, by the various ranks of the country, from the high sheriff to the petty constable and church

'warden, should be superseded by crown-appoint-ments with salaries, all the rest of the constitution will quickly moulder away: men of wealth must, herd in towns: country-seats will no more be found in England than elsewhere.

By the bounty of Providence to this country, the long list of her kings, from Egbert downward, presents a larger proportion of men of superior talent and virtue united, than perhaps any other can show. But, beneficial as this prerogative has been, a more extraordinary felicity of England is this, that she has, with vigor so tempered by prudence, profited from the errors of her worst kings, that it may be questioned for which she has the greater obligations to the almighty disposer of events. The reign of John, disasterous during his life for his people, as well as for himself, produced benefits for following ages incstimable; which, without his errors and vices how they could have come, human ingenuity will not easily show for the admirers of democracy will look in vain to history, for proof that popular government has anywhere been wise, or virtuous, or beneficial. Among the contests, in our country, for succession to the throne, property no doubt, was violently agitated, and the law, at times wholly overborne. But the result was that property became more beneficially divided, the law

was greatly improved, and so property itself far better secured. Edward the first, in an administration vigorous and prudent, profiting from the advantages, prepared by Henry the second, to repair the evils of the intervening reigns, fixed the foundation on which the houses of the countrygentlemen of England have stood, now above five hundred years, and may stand, as far as human foresight can calculate, without limitation of time; unless violence, whether of monarchy or democracy, should gain an ascendant which our forefathers have always successfully resisted,

LETTER XXXI.

Domestic Architecture.-Country Houses.

MUCH UCH as the government of the country was improved, and increase of security given to domestic life, by the wise and magnanimous administration of the first Edward, yet no more could be done than to prepare the constitution and the law to stand future storms, which were not to be prevented. The next reign was very stormy. A season of uncommon brilliancy followed, and then an uncommon continuance of uncommon storms, in the celebrated wars of the Roses, the contests of the houses of York and Lancaster. Domestic security could not but in some parts suffer; everywhere it was more or less precarious. Families were not universally driven, as under democratical governments they commonly have been, to live in towns; but it became habitual to give to every country-house something of the castle character.. If the building was of wood, a situation was chosen, where a mote might afford the security of walls: provision, in every way, to make the interior safe, was of more consideration than to make either interior or exterior plea

Some houses of wood, of large size, and of highly studied ornament, have remained to our time. All, of whatever material, show that the general plan of building was the same as that of castles, more properly so called, or fortified family resi dences, built of stone. The plan little differed from that of monasteries, and colleges in our universities. The principal entrance led immediately to a hall, always large in proportion to the whole building. At one end of the hall was the butlery, and not far from it, the kitchen; which was also large. The houses of men of superior rank had commonly a chapel, which was commonly the most splendid room of the house. The other rooms were generally very small.

The revival of arts in Italy, extending to England, produced a great change in the plan and design of houses, which however remained imperfect; much, I think, in consequence of the check to the communication between the two countries, occasioned by the reformation of religion here. Great change nevertheless followed, and the more readily perhaps, because nobody chose any longer to have a house resembling the monasteries, which were held antichristian. Nowhere in Europe, during the time, unless perhaps in the Venetian territory, and never anywhere in so bad a taste, were built so many magnificent country