lished! No imaginary
Aristocracy would serve their turn; and accordingly they
attained a real one. The Bravest men, who, it is ever to be
repeated and remembered, are also on the whole the Wisest,
Strongest, every way Best, had here, with a respectable degree of
accuracy, been got selected; seated each on his piece of
territory, which was lent him, then gradually given him, that
he might govern it. These Vicekings, each on his portion of
the common soil of England, with a Head King over all, were
a 'Virtuality perfected into an Actuality' really to an
astonishing extent.

For those were rugged stalwart ages; full of earnestness, of a
rude God's-truth:--nay, at any rate, their _quilting_ was so
unspeakably _thinner_ than ours; Fact came swiftly on them, if
at any time they had yielded to Phantasm! 'The Knaves and
Dastards' had to be 'arrested' in some measure; or the world,
almost within year and day, found that it could not live. The
Knaves and Dastards accordingly were got arrested. Dastards upon
the very throne had to be got arrested, and taken off the
throne,--by such methods as there were; by the roughest method,
if there chanced to be no smoother one! Doubtless there was much
harshness of operation, much severity; as indeed government and
surgery are often somewhat severe. Gurth born thrall of Cedric,
it is like; got cuffs as often as pork-parings, if he
misdemeaned himself; but Gurth did belong to Cedric: no human
creature then went about connected with nobody; left to go his
ways into Bastilles or worse, under _Laissez-faire;_ reduced to
prove his relationship by dying of typhus-fever!--Days come when
there is no King in Israel, but every man is his own king, doing
that which is right in his own eyes;--and tarbarrels are burnt to
'Liberty,' 'Tenpound 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, th