25/64 And it is also _curious_, by showing them the remote, and commonly faint and disfigured originals of the most finished and most noble institutions, and by instructing them in the great mixture of accident, which commonly concurs with a small ingredient of wisdom and foresight, in erecting the complicated fabric of the most perfect government. There cannot be the least question, that the homage usually paid by the kings of Scotland was not for their crown, but for some other territory. The only question remains, what that territory was. It was not always for the earldom of Huntingdon, nor the honor of Penryth; because we find it sometimes done at a time when these possessions were not in the hands of the kings of Scotland. |