The English nation has more uniformity; but having extricated itself from servitude and barbarism only by occasional efforts, by fits and convulsive starts, and having even in its state of freedom retained many laws formerly promulgated, either by the great tyrants who contended in rivalship for the throne, or the petty tyrants who seized upon the power and honors of the prelacy, it has formed altogether a body of laws of great vigor and efficacy, but which still exhibit many bruises and wounds, very clumsily patched and plastered. The intellect of Europe has made greater progress within the last hundred years than the whole world had done before since the days of Brahma, Fohi, Zoroaster, and the Thaut of Egypt. What then is the cause that legislation has made so little? After the fifth century, we were all savages. Such are the revolutions which take place on the globe; brigands pillaging and cultivators pillaged made up the masses of mankind from the recesses of the Baltic Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar; and when the Arabs made their appearance in the South, the desolation of ravage and confusion was universal. In our department of Europe, the small number, being composed of daring and ignorant men, used to conquest and completely armed for battle, and the greater number, composed of ignorant, unarmed slaves, scarcely any one of either class knowing how to read or write--not even Charlemagne himself--it happened very naturally that the Roman Church, with its pen and ceremonies, obtained the guidance and government of those who passed their life on horseback with their lances couched and the morion on their heads. The descendants of the Sicambri, the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombards, Heruli, etc., felt the necessity of something in the shape of laws. They sought for them where they were to be found. The bishops of Rome knew how to make them in Latin. The barbarians received them with greater respect in consequence of not understanding them. The decretals of the popes, some genuine, others most impudently forged, became the code of the new governors, "_regas_"; lords, "_leus_"; and barons, who had appropriated the lands. They were the wolves who suffered themselves to be chained up by the foxes. They retained their ferocity, but it was subjugated by credulity and the fear which credulity naturally produces. Gradually Europe, with the exception of Greece and what still belonged to the Eastern Empire, became subjected to the dominion of Rome, and the poet's verse might be again applied as correctly as before: _Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam._--Æneid, i, 286. The subject world shall Rome's dominion own, And prostrate shall adore the nation of the gown. --DRYDEN.