thofe ftudies, and lead them betimes to thofe attainments, which may qualify them to fill their destined ftations in fociety with advantage to their country, and inward fatisfaction to themselves, CHAP. CHAP. VI. ON THE DUTIES OF MEMBERS OF THE THE principle of Representation, though too obvious to have been altogether overlooked by the Republics of antiquity; and though occafionally adopted by them (a) in their tranfactions with each other as independent communities; does not appear to have been established as a part of their internal Conftitution. In the infancy of their power, the smallness of the number of citizens, and the contiguity of habitation effential to their fecurity, enabled them to collect together for public deliberation without inconvenience. In process of time, when, from the increase of population and the extension of territory, the mafs of freemen swelled to a larger and a still larger fize; when the confufion, the prejudices, the venality, the (a) As in the Council of the Amphyctyons. rashness, rashness, the fudden panics, and the frantic tumults, incident to democratic affemblies, joined to the interruption of industry, the stagnation of commerce, the jarring of private animofities, and the fury of civil broils, fhook the ftate to its foundations; it would have been fruitless for any patriot, however confcious of the rapid and alarming progress of the poison, to have propofed the genuine antidote. The man who had dared to exhort the turbulent multitudes abforbed in the profecution of political contests, and exulting in the daily exercife of legislative power, to diveft themselves of their authority, and commit it to the hands of deputed reprefentatives, would either have been torn in pieces by their hasty rage; or would have escaped their immediate vengeance only to have been driven by oftracism into perpetual exile, or to have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock. But in England, when the commonalty, during the contentions of the Sovereign with the Barons, and the conflicts of rival pretenders to the Throne, had gradually acquired fuch weight in the national scale, as to affert a conftitutional 1 Atitutional right of forming an independent branch of the Legislature; the fituation of the people was almost entirely opposite to that of the Citizens of Athens and of Rome. Along course of royal and ariftocratic oppreffion had fuperfeded the convocation, and perhaps extinguished the memory, of thofe general affemblies of the Nation, which appear anciently to have been established in this country as well as in the other (6) parts of Europe by the victorious invaders of the Roman Empire. The principle of representation therefore had not to contend with the violence of popular prejudice and ambition. And the operation of a particular cause insured its introduction and establishment. The influence which had been gained by the commonalty was not an influence equally diftributed among the people at large; but was principally if not exclufively (b) See the account given by Dr. Robertson of the annual affemblies of the French, denominated from the place and time of the meeting "Les Champs de Mars & "de Mai," and of the corresponding affemblies of the Germans, and of "all the barbarous Nations" of Europe. Hiftory of Charles the Fifth, vol. i. p. 432, 433; 197 463. con concentred in those detached bodies of individuals, who were collected in cities and towns. These attracting the notice of the Monarch, partly by their wealth, partly by their union and collective strength, easily obtained in fucceffion the privilege of fending, deputies to meet him in his Parliament, both to defend the interefts of their conftituents, and to co-operate in making laws for the Nation. The grand object to be pursued in forming a Representative Affembly is, to provide that it shall have an identity of interest with its constituents, and shall express their general and deliberate fense of public measures. On the obfervance in a due degree of these effential and vital principles, the utility of the House of Commons, as a body of Representatives of the People of England, radically depends. To fecure or to revive the purity and vigour of these principles is the destined object of the periodical recurrence of elections; of the royal prerogative of diffolving Parliament at any time, of Bills for the exclufion of placemen, penfioners, and contractors from feats in the House of Commons, and of certain claffes of |