have maintained a species of monarchical power. The. monarch is limited in different degrees; even the defpotic prince is only that monarch whofe fubjects claim the fewest privileges, or who is himself beft prepared to fubdue them by force. All these varieties are but steps in the history of mankind, and mark the fleeting and tranfient fituations through which they have paffed, while supported by virtue, or depreffed by vice.

PERFECT democracy and defpotism appear to be the oppofite extremes to which conftitutions of government are fometimes carried. Under the first, à perfect virtue is required; under the second, a total corruption is fuppofed: yet in point of mere form, there being nothing fixed in the ranks and diftinctions of men, beyond the cafual and temporary poffeffion of power, focieties eafily pass from a condition in which every individual has an equal title to reign, into one in which they are equally destined to serve. The fame qualities in both, courage, popularity, address, and military conduct, raise the ambitious to emi nence. With these qualities, the citizen or the flave eafily paffes from the ranks to the command of an army, from an obfcure to an illuftrious ftation. In either, a fingle perfon may rule with unlimited fway; and in both, the populace may break down every barrier of order, and restraint of law.

If we fuppofe that the equality established among the subjects of a defpotic state, has inspired its members with confidence, intrepidity, and the love of juftice; the de

fpotic prince, having ceased to be an object of fear, muft fink among the croud. If, on the contrary, the personal equality which is enjoyed by the members of a democratical ftate, fhould be valued merely as an equal pretension to the objects of avarice and ambition, the monarch may start up anew, and be fupported by those who mean to fhare in his profits. When the covetous and mercenary affemble in parties, it is of no confequence under what leader they inlift, whether Cafar or Pompey; the hopes of rapine or power are the only motives from which they become attached to either.

In the diforder of corrupted focieties, the fcene has been frequently changed from democracy to defpotism, and from the last too, in its turn, to the first. From amidst the democracy of corrupt men, and from a fcene of lawlefs confufion, the tyrant afcends a throne with arms reeking in blood. But his abuses, or his weaknesses, in the station he has gained, in their turn, awaken and give way to the fpirit of mutiny and revenge. The cries of murder and defolation, which in the ordinary course of military government terrified the subject in his private retreat, are carried through the vaults, and made to pierce the grates and iron doors of the feraglio. Democracy feems to revive in a scene of wild disorder and tumult: but both the extremes are but the tranfient fits of paroxyfm or languor in a diftempered state.

IF

If men be any where arrived at this measure of depravity, there appears no immediate hope of redrefs. Neither the ascendency of the multitude, nor that of the ty rant, will fecure the adminiftration of juftice: neither the licence of mere tumult, nor the calm of dejection and fervitude, will teach the citizen that he was born for candour and affection to his fellow-creatures. And if the fpeculative would find that habitual state of war which they are fometimes pleafed to honour with the name of the fate of nature, they will find it in the contest that subfifts between the defpotical prince and his subjects, not in the first approaches of a rude and fimple tribe to the condition and the domestic arrangement of nations.

Of the Informations on this fubject which are derived from Antiquity.

T

HE hiftory of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning. Nations, distinguished by the poffeffion of arts, and the felicity of their political establishments, have been derived from a feeble original, and still preserve in their story the indications of a flow and gradual progrefs, by which this distinction was gained. The antiquities of every people, however diverfified, and however difguifed, contain the fame information on this point.

IN facred history, we find the parents of the fpecies, as yet a fingle pair, fent forth to inherit the earth, and

to

to force a fubfiftence for themselves amidst the briers and thorns which were made to abound on its furface. Their race, which was again reduced to a few, had to ftruggle with the dangers that await a weak and infant fpecies; and after many ages elapfed, the most respectable nations took their rife from one or a few families that had pastured their flocks in the defert.

THE Grecians derive their own origin from unsettled tribes, whose frequent migrations are a proof of the rude and infant ftate of their communities; and whose warlike exploits, fo much celebrated in ftory, only exhibit the struggles with which they disputed the poffeffion of a country they afterwards, by their talent for fable, by their arts, and their policy, rendered so famous in the hiftory of mankind.

ITALY must have been divided into many rude and feeble cantons, when a band of robbers, as we are taught to confider them, found a secure settlement on the banks of the Tiber, and when a people, yet compofed only of one sex, sustained the character of a nation. Rome, for many ages, faw, from her walls, on every fide, the territory of her enemies, and found as little to check or to ftifle the weakness of her infant power, as she did afterwards to restrain the progrefs of her extended empire. Like a Tartar or a Scythian horde, which had pitched on a fettlement, this nafcent community was equal, if not fuperior, to every tribe in its neighbourhood; and the oak which has covered the field with