any strong, uniform, national effort might have resulted from it.
Besides, the people of England were the most backward in Europe in all
improvements, whether in military or in civil life. Their towns were
meanly built, and more meanly fortified; there was scarcely anything
that deserved the name of a strong place in the kingdom; there was no
fortress which, by retarding the progress of a conqueror, might give the
people an opportunity of recalling their spirits and collecting their
strength. To these we may add, that the Pope's approbation of William's
pretensions gave them great weight, especially amongst the clergy, and
that this disposed and reconciled to submission a people whom the
circumstances we have mentioned had before driven to it.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE SAXONS.

Before we begin to consider the laws and constitutions of the Saxons,
let us take a view of the state of the country from whence they are
derived, as it is portrayed in ancient writers. This view will be the
best comment on their institutions. Let us represent to ourselves a
people without learning, without arts, without industry, solely pleased
and occupied with war, neglecting agriculture, abhorring cities, and
seeking their livelihood only from pasturage and hunting through a
boundless range of morasses and forests. Such a people must necessarily
be united to each other by very feeble bonds; their ideas of government
will necessarily be imperfect, their freedom and their love of freedom
great. From these dispositions it must happen, of course, that the
intention of investing one person or a few with the whole powers of
government, and the notion of deputed authority or representation, are
ideas that never could have entered their imaginations. When, therefore,
amongst such a people any resolution of consequence was to be taken,
there was no way of effecting it but by bringing together the whole body
of the nation, that every individual might consent to the law, and each
reciprocally bind the other to the observation of it. This polity, if so
it may be called, subsists still in all its simplicity in Poland.

But as in such a society as we have mentioned the people cannot be
classed according to any political regulations, great talents have a
more ample sphere in which to exert themselves than in a close and
better formed society. These talents must therefore have attracted a
great share of the public venera