which he does not bear for his own pleasure, glory, or profit, but for the good of those that are under him; and if that be not done, he must look after other patrons than Aristotle for his opinion.

Though my extracts from this author have been already carried to a considerable extent, I shall venture to give one passage more, which is admirable for its eloquence, as well as for its justness of sentiment. It is taken from the 28th section of the second chapter; of which the title is, "Men living under Popular or Mixed Governments, are more careful of the Public Good, than in Absolute Monarchies."

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Men are valiant and industrious when they fight for themselves and their country; they prove excellent in all the arts of war and peace, when they are bred up in virtuous exercises, and taught by their fathers and masters to rejoice in the honours gained by them they love their country when the good of every particular man is comprehended in the public prosperity, and the success of their atchievements is improved to the general advantage: they undertake hazards and labour for the government, when it is justly administered; when innocence is safe, and virtue honoured; when no man is distinguished from the vulgar, but such as have distinguished themselves

by the bravery of their actions; when no honour is thought too great for those who do it eminently, unless it be such as cannot be communicated to others of equal merit: they do not spare their persons, purses, or friends, when the public powers are employed for the public benefit, and imprint the like affections in their children from their infancy. The discipline of obedience, in which the Romans were bred, taught them to command: and few were admitted to the magistracies of inferior rank, till they had given such proof of their virtue as might deserve the supreme. Cincinnatus, Camillus, Papirius, Ma marcus, Fabius Maximus, were not made dictators that they might learn the duties of the office, but because they were judged to be of such wisdom, valour, integrity, and experience, that they might be safely trusted with the highest powers; and, whilst the law reigned, not one was advanced to that honour, who did not fully answer what was expected from him. By this means the city was so replenished with men fit for the greatest employments, that even in its infancy, when three hundred and six of the Fabii, Quorum neminem, says Livy, ducem sperneret quibuslibet temporibus senatus, were killed in one day, the city did lament the loss, but was not so weakened to give any advantage to their enemies: and when every one of those who had been eminent before the second Punic war, Fabius Maximus only

excepted, had perished in it, others arose in their places, who surpassed them in number, and were equal to them in virtue. The city was a perpetual spring of such men, as long as liberty lasted; but that was no sooner overthrown, than virtue was torn up by the roots; the people became base and sordid; the small remains of the nobility slothful and effeminate; and their Italian associates becoming like to them, the empire, whilst it stood, was only sustained by the strength of foreigners.

The Grecian virtue had the same fate, and expired with liberty instead of such soldiers as in their time had no equals, and such generals of armies and fleets, legislators and governors, as all succeeding ages have justly admired, they sent out swarins of fidlers, jesters, chariot-drivers, players, bawds, flatterers, ministers of the most impure lusts; or idle, babbling, hypocritical philosophers, not much better than they. The emperors' courts were always crouded with this vermin; and notwithstanding the necessity our author imagines, that princes must needs understand matters of government better than magistrates annually chosen, they did for the most part prove so brutish as to give themselves and the world to be governed by such as these, and that without any great prejudice, since none could be found more ignorant, lewd, and base, than themselves.

It is absurd to impute this to the change of times;

for time changes nothing; and nothing was changed in those times, but the government, and that changed all things. This is not accidental, but according to the rules given to nature by God, imposing upon all things a necessity of perpetually following their causes. Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the fruits they bear: as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, that society of men which constitutes a government upon the foundation of justice, virtue, and the common good, will always have men to promote those ends; and that which intends the advancement of one man's desires and vanity, will abound in those that will foment them. All men follow that which seems advantageous to themselves. Such as are bred under a good discipline, and see that all benefits, procured to their country by virtuous actions, redound to the honour and advantage of themselves, their children, friends, and relations, contract, from their infancy, a love to the public, and look upon the common concernments as their own. When they have learnt to be virtuous, and see that virtue is in esteem, they seek no other preferments than such as may be obtained that way; and no country ever wanted great numbers of ex-, cellent men, where this method was established. On the other side, when it is evident that the best are despised, hated, or marked out for destruction;

all things calculated to the honour or advantage of one man, who is often the worst, or governed by the worst; honours, riches, commands, and dignities disposed by his will, and his favour gained only by a most obsequious respect, or a pretended affection to his person, together with a servile obedience to his commands all application to virtuous actions will cease; and no man caring to render himself or his children worthy of great employments, such as desire to have them will, by little intrigues, corruption, scurrility, and flattery, endeavour to make way to them; by which means true merit in a short time comes to be abolished, as fell out in Rome as soon as the Cæsars began to reign.

As a writer, the following high character is given of him by the earl of Orrery :—“ Harrington has his admirers; he may possibly have his merits, but they flow not in his style, A later writer, of the same republican principles, has far excelled him; I mean Algernon Sidney, whose Discourses concerning Government are admirably written, and contain great historical knowledge, and a remarkable propriety of diction; so that his name, in my opinion, ought to be much higher established in