FIFTH

ROUND.

more extensive knowledge, the fallen race have lost the power of judging right, which the possession of that knowledge seemed to promise; and what laws are necessary for their guidance, or whether any are necessary at all, becomes a matter of dispute. Despotism has had its supporters-democracy its advocates. While some would place all power in the hands of a single individual, and others all authority in the will of the multitude, wise men have endeavoured to find a mean between the two extremes, a via media, which, like a narrow path, might lead to realms of peace.

But

when anything like a middle course has been attained, the difficulty still exists of keeping in the track. Men deviating by turns from each side, forfeit their security, and, like deranged planets, which have strayed from their orbits, either fly off from all restraint, or rush violently to a centre. Truly good government is that which acts upon the precepts of a higher wisdom than man's. If the full observance of the moral law would insure almost complete felicity to the individual (as there is reason to suppose), it is evident that the happiness of a nation will be best insured by legislation based upon the grand principles of justice and mercy. It has often been said,

that a good despotism is the best government; and who can doubt the truth of the assertion? A perfectly good despotic government is paternal. A king the "father of his people" is a spectacle which demands and receives the admiration of the world. It is the image of that sublime authority which reigns supreme over all things. But, then, how can we insure that a government which shall continue to be absolute shall also continue to be good? -how provide for a long succession of Alfreds, to the exclusion of the Neros?

Up starts the democrat; he will settle the difficulty for you directly. Nothing more easy. Choose your king by universal suffrage; make him clearly understand that he is only the servant of the people; call him continually to account; and when not perfectly satisfied with his conduct, cashier him, and elect another. This kind of philosopher has no mists before his eyesall is clear as noon-day; and he gives you a receipt for a good government with as much confidence in its efficacy as Mrs. Glass in dictating the terms of making the simplest dish in the cookery book.

It requires no very great degree of sagacity to perceive, that the tyrant and the democrat are actuated by the same principles. Both wish to have their own way; in both self-interest reigns supreme. The one claims to his unjust demands the implicit obedience of his subjects, the other dictates to the ruler the course of conduct to be pursued. Indeed, society has often learned, to its cost, that the democrat is nothing less than a tyrant in a chrysalis state, requiring but the warmth of faction to enable him to burst a flimsy covering, and flutter aloft in the gaudy colours which announce his species.

The first rebellion on record was democratic. It was no other than the rebellion of Adam; and was suggested by the prince of democrats, who seized the opportunity of flattering our first parents with the promise of greater dignity than they possessed. They were told that they were gods, and urged to assert their independence; but, unfortunately, neither they nor any of their descendants ever had reason to rejoice that the advice was acted upon. The genuine democrat is (to use a slang term) full of "humbug." Seeming fair without, while all is false and hollow within, he flatters only that he may enslave; putting rings in the noses of his worshippers, he causes them to admire the workmanship of the thing by which he drags them through the mire.

A pure democracy, much as its admirers may vaunt it, cannot continue for any length of time. It carries within it a self-destroying principle. "The scorpion girt by fire," it is said, commits felo de se; and a democracy, when it gets into difficulties, acts in like manner, as experience shows. No attempt at a purely democratic form of government was ever yet successful, except in the case of the United States-it has always resulted in a despotism of one kind or another. Equality is its first condition—a condition which cannot be fulfilled, except in a new country, and then only to a certain extent, and for a certain time; because as a country grows older, class will raise its distinctions. A state of society founded upon positive equality cannot even be imagined with propriety. Before it could exist, the earth must become a dead level; all people must be of the same height-have the same features the same amount of intellect must be struck with the same ideas simultaneously must be born at the same time, and die altogether. The bare conception of such a state of things involves us in inextricable difficulties. Futile, then, would be the attempt to abolish the distinctions of class, or to equalise property. We should find ourselves employed in a task like that proposed to Hercules, of clearing away the unceasing, interminable crop of heads, from our Lernæan Hydra; or discover, too late,

that we had insanely pulled down a well-built house, to run it up again in a truly dangerous and unworkmanlike

manner.

No state professing to be purely democratic acknowledges an aristocracy. On the contrary, in such a community, that institution is ignored. We have had samples of republican governments, containing more or less of the popular element in their constitution; but it is only of late years that some have declared that "none are, or shall be greater than the rest." The earliest form of government, the patriarchal, was decidedly aristocratic and monarchical; and we hear little of democratic influence till we arrive at a period when kings had learnt to abuse the power committed into their hands. Carthage was first a monarchy, then an aristocratic republic. Democracy was her ruin. In the Grecian states, the distinctions of class were acknowledged from the beginning. Theseus, who invited strangers to Athens, with his Δεῦρ ̓ ἴτε πάντες λιώ, established the three classes, viz., noblemen, husbandmen, and artificers; and although he himself parted, in some measure, with the regal power, he did not surrender the sceptre into the hands of the people indiscriminately.

To the nobility he entrusted the selection of magistrates, the affairs of religion, and the administration of justice. It was not until popular power had so much increased, as to lead to an annual election of archons, and to cause the archons themselves to render an account of their government to the people, that the Athenians lost the liberties which the constitution of Theseus had secured to them. Then sprang up Draco, who, when he had framed his bloody code, said, “Small crimes deserve death, and I have no higher punishment for the greatest." It remained for Solon to remodel the commonwealth. He also divided it into four classes; but the chief error in his system was, that the lowest class of the people had a deciding voice in matters of importance. It was subsequently proved that the Scythian philosopher was correct in his remark, that "in Athens wise men pleaded causes, and fools determined them." The military despotism of Pisistratus