Nobililty (privileges of the.)

.—There was a time when the German lords reckoned amongst their privileges, that of robbery on the highways of their own territory. In Scotland they had a right to enjoy the first fruits of all maidens. Every where the lords sold the bondmen, or villains, as they did animals, with the field where they lived, and which they cultivated. The feudal servitude still exists in Russia, Poland, Germany, and Hungary. And there were considerable reliques of the feudal system in France; and there still remains some particles in almost every state in Europe. Nothing has degraded and debased the human species so much as Feudal Tyranny; and what remains of this most dreadful plague, is what Mr. Burke calls The Corinthian Capital of Polished Society.