Writs also are sent to the sheriff of every county to summon those who have a right to vote for representatives, to elect two knights for each county, two citizens for each city, and one or two burgesses for each borough.
Every candidate for a county ought to be possessed of an estate of 600l. per annum; and every candidate for a city, or corporation, of 300l. per annum.
The Lord Chancellor, or keeper for the time being, is always Speaker in the House of Peers; but the Commons elect their Speaker, who must be approved by the King.
No Roman Catholic can sit in either house; nor any member vote till he has taken the oaths to the government.
The ancient STATE of ENGLAND.
Having thus given our young readers a transient idea of the present state of South-Britain; we shall now proceed to give a succinct account of the ancient state of England, which, in regard to its constitution, was originally a monarchy, under the primitive Britons; after that, a province, subordinate to the Romans; then an heptarchical government under the Saxons; then again a kingdom in subjection to the Danes; next after them, under the power and dominion of the Normans; but at present, (after all the before-mentioned revolutions,) a monarchy again under the English; of all which we shall treat, as briefly as possible, in their proper order.
The whole island was anciently called Albion, which seems to have been softened from the word Alpion; because the word Alp, in some of the original western languages, generally signifies high lands, or hills, as this isle appears to those who approach it from the Continent. It was likewise called Olbion, which, in the Greek language, signifies happy; but of those times there is no certainty in history, more than that it had the denomination, and was very little known by the rest of the world.
As the name of Britain, however, excepting that of Albion, or Olbion, just before mentioned, has been liable to as many derivations as the origin of the Britons; we shall content ourselves (for brevity's sake) with the following extract from Camden, who has given (in our humble opinion at least) the best and most natural derivation of the term.
"The ancient Britons (says he) painted their naked bodies and small shields with woad of an azure-blue colour, which by them was called Brith; on this account the inhabitants received the common appellation from the strangers who came into the island to traffic from the coasts of Gaul, or Germany; to which the Greeks, by adding the word tania, or country, formed the word Britannia, or the country of the painted men, and the Romans afterwards called it Britannia."
Here it may be observed, that the Romans were extremely fond of giving their own terminations to many uncivilized countries, and of forming easy and pleasant sounds out of the harshest and most offensive, to such elegant tongues and ears as their own.