Freedom in Europe made a considerable advance in the thirteenth century. An interregnum occurred in Germany from 1250 to 1273, and during that interval the King of Hun-gary and the Count of Holland entirely freed themselves from the homage which they had been accustomed to pay to the German Emperor. The Hanseatic League was formed at the same period between the cities of Lubeck, Cologne, Brunswick, and Dantzic, for their mutual defence against the encroachments of great lords, and these towns were afterwards joined by eighty others. Liberty was purchased for a sum of money by the cities of Lombardy, and duly confirmed to those important centres of mediaeval civilization.

In the paper which I read last year upon the History of Landholding in England, I described the principles which underlie the distribution of land among the aboriginal inhabitants, the primal occupiers of the soil. It is not necessary that I should now dwell at much length upon that portion of the subject. I would, however, refer to two authorities which have weight in relation to the allotment of lands.

It is often the province of the historian to trace the progress of small states, and observe their gradual transformation into large ones. It often also devolves upon him to notice the decay of large states and their gradual reduction to insignificant principalities, if not their total annihilation. The growth of the margravate of Brandenburg into the mighty kingdom of Prussia, and finally into the great German Empire of the pre-sent day, is a remarkable instance of the former; while the dissolution of the great duchy of Burgundy and its gradual absorption is one of the latter, although some portion of it has reconstituted itself in the small but prosperous kingdom of Belgium. But what I propose to bring before the Society falls under neither of these heads, but is the brief history of a power which might have had a career like that of Brandenburg or Austria, but the course of which was simply cut short by the failure of its dynasty in the very meridian of success and prosperity.

Dlonysius of Halicarnassus tells us that History is “Philosophy teaching by examples.” Of all the definitions of history, this, one of the oldest, is probably one of the best. It is assuredly the best in a scientific point of view, since it places history in the true light of a natural science. It is as though it said history is the record of phenomena which occur and which recur, so that an example is set which may be accepted and remembered as something that will be seen again and recognised again like other and more obviously mechanical examples of natural processes.

A belief in his divine right, with the acceptance of Archbishop Laud's doctrine that the concomitant of religious unity was uniformity in worship, led Charles I. to provoke those hostilities which brought him to the scaffold. At the Reformation the Scottish Church adopted the Genevan system of government, which dispensed with bishops and a liturgy. Upon it James VI. ingrafted a modified episcopacy, and Charles determined to complete its uniformity with the Anglican establishment by forcing on it canons and a liturgy.

The patriarch of monks, St Anthony, is one of the most notable saints in the Romish calendar. He was born A.D. 251, at Coma, or Great Heracleopolis, in Upper Egypt. His parents, who were Christians, kept him at home, fearing that through bad example his manners might be tainted. When he was under twenty his parents died, leaving him and an only sister, as their inheritance, an estate, in extent equal to a hundred and twenty British acres. Imperfectly instructed in sacred knowledge, Anthony was influenced by a strong religious enthusiasm. Inducing his sister to concur with him, he disposed of their inheritance, in the belief that he was thereby fulfilling the divine command. The money which he received for his land he distributed among the poor, and adopted the life of an ascetic. He did not eat before sunset, andoften fasted for two and three days together. He subsisted on bread, salt and water, abstained from washing his body, and clothed himself in a coarse shirt of hair.