up their separate councils and magistrates, and submit to a common jurisdiction. Every man was to retain his dwelling and his property as before; but justice was to be administered and all public business transacted at Athens. The mass of the people came into his measures, and to subdue the reluctance of the powerful, who were loath to resign the importance accruing from the local magistracies, he gave up much of his own authority, reserving only the command of the army, and the care of watching over the execution of the laws. Opposition was silenced by his liberality, together with the fear of his power, ability, and courage, and the union of Attica was effected by him and made lasting. To bind it closer, without disturbing the religious observances of the several towns, he instituted a common festival in honour of Minerva, which was called the feast of union, and (_Panathenæa_) the feast of all the Athenians.”[21] This process bears some resemblance to the consolidation of the Saxon Heptarchy, nominally effected by Egbert, but completed and made truly beneficial by Alfred. The evils which were to be reformed were very different in the two cases: at Athens civil dissension was to be remedied; in England a rude people, intermixed with foreign barbarians more ferocious than themselves, and reduced to poverty by a series of destructive invasions, required a strong curb for the re–establishment of order and security. We must not expect, therefore, to find any resemblance between their institutions: the Saxons required no measures to prevent civil war, and inspire a spirit of nationality; the Athenians, though well inclined to civil broils, respected, from the earliest dawn of history, the security of property, and in consequence far outstripped the rest of Greece in wealth and refinement. Nevertheless the names of these princes may fairly be selected to adorn the same page: both advanced beyond their age in legislative and political science; both directed their wisdom, power, and popularity to truly noble ends; and therefore merit the respect of all who believe rank and office to have been instituted for other ends than for the advantage of those who possess them.