the dukes of Lancaster, alternately
held their courts, and consumed in rude but plenteous hospitality, at the
head of their visitors, or their vassals, the rent of their estates then
usually paid in kind. On the south end appear the traces of a door-way,
which probably was the entrance into a gallery that has often, among
other purposes, served as an orchestra for the minstrels and musicians of
former days. This hall, during the reigns of several of the Lancastrian
princes was the scene of frequent Parliaments, whose transactions our
provincial historians have carefully recorded. At present it is used
only for the holding the assizes and other country meetings, to which
purpose it is, from its length, so well adapted, that, tho' the business
of the civil and crown bars is carried on at the same time at the
opposite ends of the room, the pleadings of the one do not in the least
interrupt the pleadings of the other.

The reflecting visitor, who may choose to compare the uses to which this
place is now applied, with the purposes for which it was built, will not
fail to derive from the comparison so very favorable to the present
times, a satisfaction most worthy the benevolent heart. Instead of the
rude licentious carousals of the Bellomonts, when the baron domineered,
even in drunkenness, over his assembled slaves, we often see large bodies
of the inhabitants of the county, men worthy of freedom and possessing
it, assembled to consider with decorum, and to decide with unawed,
unbiassed judgment, upon measures of no little importance to the kingdom
of England. And instead of the savage violence, or idiot folly which
mostly dictated the award of every kind of property, in those feudal
times, we see happily substituted the fair examination of the witnesses,
the eloquent pleadings of the barristers, the learned observations of the
Judge, and the impartial decisions of the Jury, nobly co-operating to
investigate truth, and to decide, according to right, the means alike of
happiness and virtue. In what manner, and by what degrees this happy
change was effected, the following well authenticated anecdote may serve
to shew.

Robert de Bellomont, the first earl, sitting in the apartment of the keep
of his castle at Leicester, heard a loud shout in the neighbouring
fields. Enquiring into the cause, he found that it was given by the
partizans of a combatant who was then fighting a duel with his near
relation to ascertain the r