Legend and song have depicted the paladins that surrounded Charlemagne, fighting his battles and constituting his court. They were the beginning of that Feudal System which was the next form that Europe assumed. The whole country was parcelled among chieftains under the various names of Duke, Count, and Baron, each of whom held a district, great or small, where, asserting a local sovereignty, he revelled in State pretensions; and yet they all professed a common allegiance. Guizot was the first to remark that Feudalism, taken as a whole, was a confederation, which he boldly likens to what he calls the federal system of the United States. It is true that Feudalism was essentially federal, where each principality exercised a disturbing influence, and unity was impossible; but I utterly deny that our country can fall into any such category, unless it succumbs at last to the dogma of State pretensions, which was the essential element of the feudal confederation. Feudalism was not a government; it was only a system. During its prevalence, the Nation was unknown. Wherever its influence subsided, the Nation began to appear; and now, wherever its influence still lingers on earth, there the yearnings for national life, instinctive in the popular heart, are for the time suppressed. Curiously enough, Sweden and Hungary were not brought within the sphere of Feudalism, and these two outlying lands, left free to natural impulses, revealed themselves at an early day as Nations. When the European continent was weakened by anarchy, they were already strong in national life, with an influence beyond their population or means. Feudalism has left its traces in England; but it was never sufficiently strong in that sea-girt land to resist the natural tendencies to unity, partly from its insular position, and partly from the character of its people. At an early day the seven-headed Heptarchy was changed into one kingdom; but a transformation not less important occurred when the feudal lords were absorbed into the government, of which they became a component part, and the people were represented in a central Parliament, which legislated for the whole country, with Magna Charta as the supreme law. Then was England a Nation; and just in proportion as the national life increased has her sway been felt in the world.