of their share of power, and bring the whole to centre in the crown. Thus the government in Denmark was changed into absolute monarchy. In the latter, the senate took the lead during the interregnum, which followed the death of Charles, and changed the government into aristocracy. For though the outward form of government indeed is preserved, yet the essence no longer remains. The monarchy is merely titular, but the whole power is absorbed by the senate, consequently the government is strictly aristocratick. For the people were by no means gainers by the change, but remain in the same state of servitude, which they so much complained of before. Thus in all revolutions in mixed governments, where the union of the two injured powers is animated by the spirit of patriotism, and directed by that salutary rule before laid down, which forbids us to destroy, and only enjoins us to reduce the third offending power within its proper bounds, the balance of government will be restored upon its first principles, and the change will be for the better. Thus when the arbitrary and insupportable encroachments of the crown under James the second, aimed so visibly at the subversion of our constitution, and the introduction of absolute monarchy; necessity autho rized the lords and commons (the other two powers) to have recourse to the joint exercise of that restraining power, which is the inherent resource of all mixed governments. But as the exercise of this power was conducted by patriotism, and regulated by the above-mentioned rule, the event was the late

happy revolution; by which the power of the crown was restrained within its proper limits, and the government resettled upon its true basis, as nearly as the genius of the times would admit of. But if the passions prevail, and ambition lurks beneath the mask of patriotism, the change will inevitably be for the worse. Because the restitution of the balance of government, which alone can authorize the exercise of the two joint powers against the third, will be only the pretext, whilst the whole weight and fury of the incensed people will be directed solely to the ends of ambition. Thus if the regal power should be enabled to take the lead by gaining over the whole weight of the people, the change will terminate in absolute monarchy; which so lately happened in Denmark, as it had happened before in almost all the old Gothick governments. If the aristocratick power, actuated by that ambition, which (an extreme few instances excepted) seems inseparable from the regal, should be able to direct the joint force of the people against the crown, the change will be to an aristocratick government, like the present state of Sweden, or the government of Holland, from the death of William the third, to the late revolution in favour of the stadtholder. If the power of the people impelled to action by any cause, either real or imaginary, should be able to subvert the other two, the consequence will be, that anarchy, which Polybius terms, the ferine and savage dominion of the people.* This will

* Δημοκρατία θηριώδης. Polyb. p. 638.

continue until some able and daring spirit, whose low birth or fortune precluded him from rising to the chief dignities of the state by any other means, puts himself at the head of the populace inured to live by plunder and rapine, and drawing the whole power to himself, erects a tyranny upon the ruins of the former government; or until the community, tired out and impatient under their distracted situation, bring back the government into its old channel. This is what Polybius terms the circumvolution of governments;* or the rotation of governments within themselves until they return to the same point. The fate of the Grecian and Roman republicks terminated in the former of these events. The distracted state of government in this nation, from 1648, to the restoration of Charles the second, ended happily in the latter, though the nation for some years experienced the former of these catastrophes under the government of Cromwell.

I have here given a short, but plain general analysis of government, founded upon experience drawn from historical truths, and adapted to the general capacity of my countrymen. But if any one desires to be acquainted with the philosophy of government, and to investigate the ratio and series of all these mutations, or revolutions of governments within themselves, I must (with Polybius) refer him to Plato's republick.

* Πολιτειῶν ἀνακύκλωσις. Polyb. p. 637.

The plan of a good and happy government, which Plato lays down, by the mouth of Socrates, in the former part of that work, is wholly ideal, and impossible to be executed, unless mankind could be new moulded. But the various revolutions of government (described above) which he treats of in the latter part, was founded upon facts, facts which he himself had been eyewitness to in the numerous republicks of Greece and Sicily, and had fatally experienced in his own country Athens. The divine philosopher, in that part of his admirable treatise, traces all these mutations up to their first source, "the intemperance of the human passions," and accounts for their various progress, effects and consequences, from the various combinations of the same perpetually conflicting passions. His maxims are founded solely upon the sublimest truths, his allusions beautiful and apposite, and his instructions alike applicable to publick or private life, equally capable of forming the statesman or the man.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

XENOPHON Observes,* that if the Athenians, together with the sovereignty of the seas, had enjoyed the advantageous situation of an island, they might with great ease have given law to their neighbours. For the same fleets which enabled them to ravage the seacoasts of the continent at discretion, could equally have protected their own country from the insults of their enemies as long as they maintained their naval superiority. One would imagine, says the great Montesquieu,† that Xenophon in this passage was speaking of the island of Britain. The judicious and glorious exertion of our naval force under the present ministry, so strongly confirms Xenophon's remark, that one would imagine their measures were directed, as well as dictated, by his consummate genius. We are masters both of those natural and acquired advantages, which Xenophon required to make his countrymen invincible. We daily feel their importance more and more, and must be sensible that our liberty, our happiness, and our very existence as a peoplé, depend upon our naval superiority supported by our military virtue and publick spirit. Nothing, humanly speaking, but

Xenophon. de Republ. Athen. † Esprit des loix, vol. 2. p. 3.