and generally enforced by fines against each other, and even against their superiors. The Anglo-Saxons rejoiced in their system of trial by jury, and boasted it as their peculiar institution. It was also a law among them that none should be tried except by his equals in the government. These institutions, with the historical open-heartedness of the Thanes and landed proprietors, secured to the Ceorles or freemen as much of real liberty and justice as those rude times might admit. But the Saxon government is defaced by the odious vice of slavery. The slaves were those whom they had conquered in battle; and the Anglo-Saxons introduced them into this island. They were household slaves, performing menial duties, and predial or rustic slaves who labored on the soil. The proprietors sold their slaves with their estates, and they were regarded as chattels: yet the master had not unlimited power over his slave, for it was ordained that if he beat out his slave’s eye or teeth, he gained his liberty; and if he killed him, he paid a fine to the King. Yet, notwithstanding this protection, and although the slaves were confined to races vanquished in battle, yet the practice formed a dark stain on the Saxon institutions. The government of the Ancient Britons, or Cymri, corresponded much with the Anglo-Saxon, except that their King was hereditary, and that they were always free from the odious institution of slavery. Sovereign power was inherited among the Cymri, according to the present rules of descent in England, from whom it was probably derived. The chief people were the Princes or large land-proprietors, who dwelt in magnificent style, and exercised unbounded hospitality in their halls upon their estates. Here they received their retainers and tenants, to whom they dispensed the greatest liberality: here also dwelt the Bards, Priests, and Literati of the period—the Taliesins, Aneurins, and Dafydd ap Gwilyms—in the enjoyment of the most profuse favors and protection from their munificent patrons. Hence also the spontaneous and faithful attachment of the whole to their Princes,—as exemplified in the poems of the Bards, and the warlike records of the Cymric nation. Besides the Princes, were a large number of independent landowners or Esquires distributed over the whole island. The great mass of the people, as in every community, labored on the land, or were employed in domestic and mercantile occupations. Slavery or even abject servitude was unknown among them: every class enjoyed the rights and exercised the privileges of freemen, and seldom failed in obtaining redress for any crime or wrong. In their freedom from slavery, and their full enjoyment of civil rights and immunities, the Cymri of ancient times formed a striking contrast with all the European nations.