rder, town-clerk, bailiff, and steward.

By forming cities and towns into corporations, and conferring on them the
privileges of municipal jurisdiction, the first check was given to the
overwhelming evils of the feudal system; and under their influence
freedom and independence began to peep forth from amid the rigours of
slavery and the miseries of oppression.

To be free of any corporation was not then, as at present merely to enjoy
some privileges in trade, or to exercise the right of voting on
particular occasions, but it was to be exempt from the hardships of
feudal service; to have the right of disposing both of person and
property, and to be governed by laws intended to promote the general
good, and not to gratify the ambition and avarice of individuals. These
laws, however rude and imperfect, tended to afford security to property
and, encourage men to habits of industry. Thus commerce, with every
ornamental and useful art, began first in corporate bodies, to animate
society. But in those dark ages, force was necessary to defend the
claims of industry; and such a force these municipal societies possessed;
for their towns were not only defended by walls and gates vigilantly
guarded by the citizens, but oft-times at the head of their fellow
freemen in arms, the mayor, aldermen, or other officers marched forth in
firm array to assert their rights, defend their property and teach the
proudest and most powerful baron that the humblest freeman was not to be
injured with impunity. It was thus the commons learned and proved they
were not objects of contempt; nay that they were beings of the same
species as the greatest lords.

It is pleasingly curious to observe in these times the shadow of the
semblance of this most useful military power preserved as at Leicester,
in the array of a few of the poor men of Trinity hospital, clad in pieces
of iron armour, attending the beadle while he proclaims a fair; nor is it
less so to recollect that the feasts annually given by the mayor were
once held in imitation of the rude hospitality of the Barons whose feasts
not a little contributed to give a consequence to the commons of England,
and to humanize the haughty chief by shewing him that respectability
might belong to those who did not wield the sword, and that men might
have dignity even tho' they had no pretensions to the glare of titles and
the illusions of birth. Thus will the intelligent observer find, that
corporate bod