have thought, that if it were practicable to keep the several humours of the body in an exact equal balance of each with its opposite, it might be immortal, and so perhaps would a political body, if the balance of power could be always held exactly even. But, I doubt, this is as impossible in practice as the other. It has an appearance of fatality, and that the period of a state approaches, when a concurrence of many circumstances, both within and without, unite toward its ruin; while the whole body of the people are either stupidly negligent, or else giving in with all their might to those very practices, that are working their destruction. To see whole bodies of men breaking a constitution by the very same errours, that so many have been broke before; to observe opposite parties, who can agree in nothing else, yet firmly united in such measures, as must certainly ruin their country; in short, to be encompassed with the greatest dangers from without, to be torn by many virulent factions within; then to be secure and senseless under all this, and to make it the very least of our concern; these, and some others that might be named, appear to me to be the most likely symptoms in a state of a sickness unto death. Quod procul a nobis flectat fortuna gubernans : LUCRET. There are some conjunctures, wherein the death or dissolution of government is more lamentable in its consequences, than it would be in others. And, I think, a state can never arrive to its period in a more deplorable crisis, than at a time when some prince prince in the neighbourhood, of vast power and ambition, lies hovering like a vulture to devour, or, at least, dismember its dying carcase; by which means it becomes only a province or acquisition to some mighty monarchy, without hopes of a resurrection. I know very well, there is a set of sanguine tempers, who deride and ridicule, in the number of fopperies, all such apprehensions as these. They have it ready in their mouths, that the people of England are of a genius and temper never to admit slavery among them; and they are furnished with a great many commonplaces upon that subject. But it seems to me, that such discoursers do reason upon short views, and a very moderate compass of thought. For, I think it a great errour to count upon the genius of a nation as a standing argument in all ages, since there is hardly a spot of ground in Europe, where the inhabitants have not frequently and entirely changed their temper and genius. Neither can I see any reason, why the genius of a nation should be more fixed in the point of government, than in their morals, their learning, their religion, their common humour and conversation, their diet and their complexion; which do all notoriously vary almost in every age, and may every one of them have great effects upon men's notions of govern ment. Since the Norman conquest the balance of power in England has often varied, and sometimes been wholly overturned; the part which the commons had in it, (that most disputed point) in its original progress, and extent, was, by their own confessions, but a very inconsiderable share. Generally speaking, VOL. II. 2 they they have been gaining ever since, though with frequent interruptions and slow progress. The abolishing of villanage, together with the custom introduced (or permitted) among the nobles of selling their lands in the reign of Henry the Seventh, was a mighty addition to the power of the commons : yet I think a much greater happened in the time of his successor, at the dissolution of the abbeys; for this turned the clergy wholly out of the scale, who had so long filled it; and placed the commons in their stead; who in a few years became possessed of vast quantities of those and other lands, by grant or purchase. About the middle of queen Elizabeth's reign, I take the power between the nobles and the commons to have been in more equal balance, than it was ever before or since. But then, or soon after, arose a faction in England, which under the name of puritan began to grow popular by moulding up their new schemes of religion with republican principles in government; and gaining upon the prerogative as well as the nobles, under several denominations, for the space of about sixty years, did at last overthrow the constitution, and, according to the usual course of such revolutions, did introduce a tyranny, first of the people, and then of a single person. In a short time after, the old government was revived. But the progress of affairs for almost thirty years, under the reigns of two weak princes*, is a subject of a different nature: when the balance was in danger to be overturned by the hands that held it, which was at last very seasonably prevented *Charles II, and James II. ty by the late revolution. However, as it is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to another, so in a very few years we have made mighty leaps from prerogative heights into the depth of popularity, and I doubt, to the very last degree that our constitution will bear. It were to be wished, that the most august assembly of the commons would please to form a pandect of their own power and privileges, to be confirmed by the entire legislative authority, and that in as solemn a manner (if they please) as the magna charta. But to fix one foot of their compass wherever they think fit, and extend the other to such terrible lengths, without describing any circumference at all, is to leave us and themselves in a very uncertain state, and in a sort of rotation, that the author of the Oceana * never dreamed on. I believe the most hardy tribune will not venture to affirm at present, that any just fears of encroachment are given us from the regal power, or the few: and is it then impossible to err on the other side? How far must we proceed, or where shall we stop? The raging of the sea, and the madness of the people, are put together in holy writ; and it is God alone who can say to either, Hitherto shalt thou pass, and no farther. Mr. James Harrington, sometime in the service of king Charles I, after whose death he drew up and printed a form of popular government, entitled, The Commonwealth of Oceana: he endeavoured likewise to promote this scheme by publick discourses at a nightly meeting of several curious gentlemen in New Palace Yard, Westminster. This club was called the Rota; and Mr. Henry Nevil, one of its meinbers, proposed to the then house of commons, that a third part of the senate should rote out by ballot every year, and be incapable of being elected again for three years to come. The balance of power in a limited state, is of such absolute necessity, that Cromwell himself, before he had perfectly confirmed his tyranny, having some occasions for the appearance of a parliament, was forced to create and erect an entire new house of lords (such as it was) for a counterpoise to the comAnd indeed, considering the vileness of the clay, I have sometimes wondered, that no tribune of that age durst ever venture to ask the potter, What dost thou make? But it was then about the last act of a popular usurpation; and fate, or Cromwell, had already prepared them for that of a single person. mons. I have been often amazed at the rude, passionate, and mistaken results, which have at certain times fallen from great assemblies, both ancient and modern, and of other countries as well as our own. This gave me the opinion, I mentioned a while ago; that publick conventions are liable to all the infirmities, follies, and vices of private men, To which, if there be any exception, it must be of such assemblies, who act by universal concert, upon publick principles, and for publick ends; such as proceed upon debates without unbecoming warmths, or influence from particular leaders and inflamers; such, whose members, instead of canvassing to procure majorities for their private opinions, are ready to comply with general sober results, though contrary to their own sentiments. Whatever assemblies act by these, and other methods of the like nature, must be allowed to be exempt from several imperfections, to which particular men are subjected.. But I think the source of most mistakes and miscarriages in matters debated by publick as semblies, |