of a government, in the fame proportion may both the advantages and evils, which we have attributed to that form, be expected; that is, thofe are the ufes to be maintained and cultivated in each part of the conftitution, and these are the dangers to be provided againft in each. Thus, if fecrécy and dispatch be truly enumerated amongst the separate excellencies of regal government; then a mixed government, which retains monarchy in one part of its conftitution, fhould be careful that the other eftates of the empire do not, by an officious and inquifitive interference with the executive functions, which are, or ought to be, referved to the adminiftration of the prince, interpofe delays, or divulge what it is expedient to conceal. On the other hand, if profufion, exaction, military domination, and needlefs wars, be juftly accounted natural properties of monarchy, in its fimple unqualified form; then are these the objects to which, in a mixed government, the ariftocratic and popular part of the conftitution ought to direct their vigilance; the dangers against which they should raise and fortify their barriers: these are departments of fovereignty, over which a power of inspection and control ought to be depofited with the people. N

VOL. II.

The

The fame obfervation may be repeated of all the other advantages and inconveniencies which have been afcribed to the feveral fimple forms of government; and affords a rule whereby to direct the conftruction, improvements, and adminiftration of mixed governments, fubjected however to this remark, that a quality fometimes refults from the conjunction of two fimple forms of government, which belongs not to the feparate existence of either: thus corruption, which has no place in an abfolute monarchy, and little in a pure republic, is fure to gain admiffion into a conftitution, which divides the fupreme power between an executive magiftrate and a popular council.

An bereditary MONARCHY is univerfally to be preferred to an elective monarchy. The con feflion of every writer upon the subject of civil government, the experience of ages, the example of Poland, and of the papal dominions, feem to place this amongst the few indubitable maxims which the fcience of politics admits of. A crown is too fplendid a prize to be conferred upon merit. The paffions or interefts of the electors exclude all confideration of the qualities of the competitors. The fame obfervation holds concerning the appointments to any office which is

attended

attended with a great fhare of power or emolument. Nothing is gained by a popular choice worth the diffenfions, tumults, and interruption of regular industry, with which it is infeparably attended. Add to this, that a king, who owes his elevation to the event of a conteft, or to any. other caufe than a fixed rule of fucceffion, will be apt to regard one part of his fubjects as the affociates of his fortune, and the other as conquered foes. Nor fhould it be forgotten, amongst the advantages of an hereditary monarchy, that as plans of national improvement and reform are feldom brought to maturity by the exertions of a fingle reign, a nation cannot attain to the degree of happiness and profperity to which it is capable of being carried, unless an uniformity of councils, a confiftency of public measures and defigns be continued through a fucceffion of ages. This benefit may be expected with greater probability, where the fupreme power defcends in the fame race, and where each prince fucceeds, in fome fort, to the aim, purfuits, and difpofition of his anceftor, than if the crown, at every change, devolve upon a ftranger, whose first care will commonly be to pull down what his predeceffor had built up; and to fubftitute fyftems of administration, which muft, in their turn, give

way to the more favourite novelties of the next fucceffor.

ARISTOCRACIES are of two kinds.

First,

where the power of the nobility belongs to them in their collective capacity alone; that is, where, although the government refide in an affembly of the order, yet the members of that affembly feparately and individually poffefs no authority or privilege beyond the rest of the community-this describes the conftitution of Venice. Secondly, where the nobles are feverally invested with great perfonal power and immunities, and where the power of the senate is little more than the aggregated power of the individuals who compofe it: this is the conftitution of Poland. Of these two forms of government the firft is more tolerable than the last; for, although the members of a fenate fhould many, or even all of them, be profligate enough to abufe the authority of their stations in the profecution of private defigns, yet, not being all under a temptation to the fame injuftice, not havin all the fame end to gain, it would ftill be difficult to obtain the confent of a majority to any specific act of oppreffion, which the iniquity of an individual might prompt him to propose: or, if the will were the fame, the power is more confined;

one

one tyrant, whether the tyranny refide in a single perfon, or a fenate, cannot exercise oppreffion at fo many places at the fame time, as it may be carried on by the dominion of a numerous nobility over their respective vaffals and dependants. Of all species of domination this is the most odious: the freedom and fatisfaction of private life. are more conftrained and haraffed by it, than by the mot vexatious law, or even by the lawlefs will of an arbitrary monarch; from whofe knowledge, and from whofe injuftice, the greatest part of his fubjects are removed by their dif tance, or concealed by their obscurity.

Europe exhibits more than one modern example, where the people, aggrieved by the exactions, or provoked by the enormities, of their immediate fuperiors, have joined with the reigning prince in the overthrow of the aristocracy, deliberately exchanging their condition for the miferies of defpotifm. About the middle of the Haft century, the commons of Denmark, weary of the oppreffions which they had long fuff red from the nobles, and exafperated by fome recent infults, prefented themfelves at the foot of the throne with a formal offer of their confent to eftablish unlimited dominion in the king. The revolution in Sweden, ftill more lately brought N 3 about