resemblance to some of the modern governments which French philosophers
call by that name. The French Empire, I believe, calls itself so. But
its assemblies are symmetrical "shams". They are elected by a universal
suffrage, by the ballot, and in districts once marked out with an eye
to equality, and still retaining a look of equality. But our English
Parliaments were UNsymmetrical realities. They were elected anyhow; the
sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to boroughs, that
is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each borough there
was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the strongest local
party got it, whether few or many. But in England at that time there
was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of the nation,
because there was a real and close necessity. The nation was wanted to
do something--to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old
debt, to contribute its force and aid in the critical conjuncture of
the time. It would not have suited the ante-Tudor kings to have had a
fictitious assembly; they would have lost their sole FEELER, their only
instrument for discovering national opinion. Nor could they have
manufactured such an assembly if they wished. The instrument in that
behalf is the centralised executive, and there was then no 'prefet' by
whom the opinion of a rural locality could be made to order, and
adjusted to suit the wishes of the capital. Looking at the mode of
election a theorist would say that these Parliaments were but "chance"
collections of influential Englishmen. There would be many corrections
and limitations to add to that statement if it were wanted to make it
accurate, but the statement itself hits exactly the principal
excellence of those Parliaments. If not "chance" collections of
Englishmen, they were "undesigned" collections; no administrations made
them or could make them. They were bona-fide counsellors, whose opinion
might be wise or unwise, but was anyhow of paramount importance,
because their co-operation was wanted for what was in hand.

Legislation as a positive power was very secondary in those old
Parliaments. I believe no statute at all, as far as we know, was passed
in the reign of Richard I., and all the ante-Tudor acts together would
look meagre enough to a modern Parliamentary agent who had to live by
them. But the negative action of Parliament upon the law was essential
to its whole idea, and ran through every part o