and all they treated with various Circumftances of the most shameful Ingratitude. Republicks have many Things in the Spirit of abfolute Monarchy, but none more than this; a fhining Merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular Affembly, as well as in a Court; and all Services done to the State are looked upon as dangerous to the Rulers, whether Sultans or Senators. The Oftracifm at Athens was built upon this Principle. The giddy People, whom we have now under Confideration, being elated with fome Flashes of Succefs, which they owed to nothing less than any Merit of their own, began to tyrannize over their Equals, who had affociated with them for their common Defence. With their Prudence they renounced all Appearance of Juftice, They entered into Wars rafhly and wantonly. If they were unsuccessful, instead of growing wifer by their Misfortune, they threw the whole Blame of their own Misconduct on their Ministers who had advised, and the Generals who had conducted, those Wars; until, by Degrees, they had cut off all who could ferve them in their Councils or their Battles. If at any time these Wars had an happy Iffue, it was no lefs difficult to deal with them, on account of their Pride and Infolence. Furious in their Adverfity, tyrannical in their Succeffes, a Commander had more Trouble to concert his Defence before the People, than to plan the Operations of the Campaign. It was not uncommon for a General, under the horrid Defpotifm of the Roman Emperors, to be ill received in proportion to the Greatnefs of his Services. Agricola is a strong Inftance of this. No Man had

done

done greater Things, nor with more honeft Ambition. Yet, on his Return to Court, he was obliged to enter Rome with all the Secrecy of a Criminal. He went to the Palace, not like a victorious Commander who had merited and might demand the greatest Rewards, but like an Offender who had come to fupplicate a Fardon for his Crimes. His Reception was anfwerable: "Brevi ofculo, & nullo fermone exceptus, turbæ fervientum immistus eft" Yet in that worst Seafon of this worst of monarchical

Tyrannies, Modefty,' Difcretion, and a Coolness of Temper, formed fome kind of Security even for the highest Merit. But at Athens, the niceft and beft-ftudied Behaviour was not a fufficient Guard for a Man of great Capacity. Some of their bravest Commanders were obliged to fly their Country, fome to enter into the Service of its Enemies, rather than abide a popular Determination on their Conduct, left, as one of them faid, their Giddiness might make the People condemn where they meant to acquit; to throw in a black Bean, even when they intended a white one.

The Athenians made a very rapid Progress to the most enormous Exceffes. The People under no Reftraint foon grew diffolute, luxurious and idle. They renounced all Labour, and began to fubfift themfelves from the public Revenues. They loft all

*Sciant quibus moris illicita mirari, poffe etiam fub malis princi« pibus magnos viros, c. See 42 to the End of it.

Concern

Concern for their common Honour and Safety, and could bear no Advice that tended to reform them. At this time Truth became offenfive to thofe Lords the People, and moft highly dangerous to the Speaker. The Orators no longer afcended the Roflrum, but to corrupt them further with the moft fulfome Adulation. These Orators were all bribed by foreign Princes on the one Side or the other. And befides its own Parties, in this City there were Parties, and avowed ones too, for the Perfians, Spartans, and Macedonians, fupported each of them by one or more Demagogues penfioned and bribed to this iniquitous Service. The People, forgetful of all Virtue and publick Spirit, and intoxicated with the Flatteries of their Orators (these Courtiers of Republicks, and endowed with the distinguishing Characteristicks of all other Countries) this People, I fay, at last arrived at that Pitch of Madness, that they coolly and deliberately, by an exprefs Law, made it capital for any Man to propofe an Application of the immenfe Sums fquandered in publick Shows, even to the most neceffary Purposes of the State. When you fee the People of this Republic banishing or murdering their best and ableft Citizens, diffipating the publick Treasure with the moft fenfelefs Extravagance, and fpending their whole Time, as Spectators or Actors, in playing, fidling, dancing and finging, does it not, my Lord, ftrike your Imagination with the Image of a fort of a complex Nero ? And does it not ftrike you with the greater Horror, when you obferve, not one Man only, but a whole City, grown drunk with Pride and Power, running with a Rage

of

of Folly into the fame mean and senseless Debauchery and Extravagance? But if this People resembled Nero in their Extravagance, much more did they refemble and even exceed him in Cruelty and Injustice. In the Time of Pericles, one of the moft celebrated Times in the Hiftory of that Commonwealth, a King of Egypt fent them a Donation of Corn. This they were mean enough to accept. And had the Egyptian Prince intended the Ruin of this City of wicked Bedlamites, he could not have taken a more effectual Method to do it, than by fuch an enfnaring Largefs. The Distribution of this Bounty caused a Quarrel; the Majority fet on foot an Enquiry into the Title of the Citizens; and, upon a vain Pretence of Illegitimacy, newly and occafionally fet up, they deprived of their Share of the royal Do-" nation no less than five thousand of their own Body. They went further; they disfranchised them; and, having once begun with an Act of Injustice, they could fet no Bounds to it. Not content with cutting them off from the Rights of Citizens, they plundered thefe unfortunate Wretches of all their Substance; and to crown this Master-piece of Violence and Tyranny, they actually fold every Man of the five thousand as Slaves in the public Market. Obferve, my Lord, that the five thoufand we here fpeak of, were cut off from a Body of no more than nineteen thousand; for the entire Number of Citizens was no greater at that Time. Could the Tyrant who wished the Roman People but one Neck, could the Tyrant Caligula himself, have done, nay, he could scarcely wifh for, a greater Mischief, than to

have

have cut off, at one Stroke, a fourth of his People; Or has the Cruelty of that Series of fanguine Tyrants, the Cæfars, ever prefented fuch a Piece of flagrant and extenfive Wickednefs? The whole Hiftory of this celebrated Republic is but one Tiffue of Rashness, Folly, Ingratitude, Injustice, Tumult, Violence, and Tyranny, and indeed of every Species of Wickedness that can well be imagined. This was a City of wife Men, in which a Minister could not exercise his Functions; a warlike People, amongst whom a General did not dare either to gain or lofe a Battle; a learned Nation, in which a Philofopher could not venture on a free Enquiry. This was the City which banished Themistocles, ftarved Ariftides, forced into Exile Miltiades, drove out Anaxagoras, and poifoned Socrates. This was a City which changed the Form of its Government with the Moon; eternal Confpiracies, Revolutions daily, nothing fixed and established. A Republic, as an antient Philofopher has obferved, is no one Species of Government, but a Magazine of every Species; here you find every Sort of it, and that in the worst Form. As there is a perpetual Change, one rifing and the other falling, you have all the Violence and wicked Policy, by which a beginning Power must always acquire its Strength, and all the Weakness by which falling States are brought to a complete Destruction.

Rome has a more venerable Aspect than Athens; and the conducted her Affairs, fo far as related to the Ruin and Oppreffion of the greatest Part of the VOL. II.

World,