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Malpas; or, Le poursuivant d'amour, by the author of 'The cavalier'.
Malpas or Le poursuivant d'amour by the author of 'The cavalier' Author:William Bennett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: sions which our ancestors endured under the feodal system; but I think I have said enough to convince Your Grace, that we (of the commons) have much to be thankf... more »ul for in the change that has taken place, with very little to regret of that which has been relinquished. If there be any circumstance which can now occasion dissatisfaction, it is that the statute which abrogated the feodal tenures, should have left us a badge of our ancient slavery in the leet, copyhold, and manorial courts. For although Your Grace's seneschal (par example) does not, as in times of yore, appear before the suitors carrying a look of austere superiority, and weighing in a cheap balance the lives and properties of the tenantry, nor harnessed with mail el cinctus gladio, yet the manner in which he runs over the muster, the fines which he imposes for absence , and the manylittle arrogancies inseparable from an office of this nature, induce a hearty desire that such relics of ancient barbarity had consorted with messieurs grand-serjeantie, knight-service, and their kindred, in bidding adieu to this nation ; and were I a member of either house, (as Your Grace) it should be my chief glory, and a glorious achievement it would be, to rescue my native soil from the last remaining fetter of feodal slavery, to drive the evil genius of the north from his last lurking-place, to crumble the last fertility of the barbarians into dust and powder. Forgetting the paltry advantages to be derived from the continuance of these courts, I would,like Cato, mindful only of my country's weal, continually thunder out, " Carthago delenda est." But I have done my duty to my fellow-citizens: " I have warned ye," saith Dr. Raffles; " be our blood upon your heads." I was very lately visited with the fine of 2rf. for being absent whe...« less