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-Petty tyrants arife, who have all the vices of a single tyrant.-The fmall remains of liberty foon become unfupportable; a fingle tyrant ftarts up, and the people are firipped of every thing, even of the profits of their corruption.

DEMOCRACY hath therefore two exceffes to avoid, the Spirit of inequality, which leads to aristocracy or monarchy; and the fpirit of extreme equality, which leads to defpotic power.

True it is, that thofe who corrupted the GREEK REPUBLICS did not always become tyrants.—This was becaufe they had a greater paffion for eloquence than for the military art.-Befides there reigned an implacable hatred in the breafts of the Greeks against those who fubverted a republican government; and for this reafon anarchy degenerated into annihilation, instead of being changed into tyranny.

But SYRACUSE, being fituated in the midst of a great number of petty states, whofe government had been changed from oligarchy to tyranny; and being governed by a fenate fcarce ever mentioned in hiftory, underwent fuch miferies as are the confequence of a more than ordinary corruption.-This city, ever a prey to li

a It was that of the fix hundred, of whom mention is made by Diodorus.

centiousness

centiousness or oppreffion, equally labouring under the fudden and alternate fucceffion of liberty and fervitude, and notwithstanding her external strength, constantly determined to a revolution by the leaft foreign power : THIS CITY, I SAY, HAD IN HER BOSOM AN IMMENSE MULTITUDE OF PEOPLE, WHOSE FATE IT WAS TO HAVE ALWAYS THIS CRUEL ALTERNATIVE, EITHER OF CHOOSING A TYRANT TO GOVERN THEM, OR OF

ACTING THE TYRANT THEMSELVES.

GREAT fuccefs, especially when chiefly owing to the people, intoxicates them to fuch a degree that it is impoffible to contain them within bounds.-JEALOUS OF THEIR MAGISTRATES, THEY SOON BECAME JEALOUS LIKEWISE OF THE MAGISTRACY; ENEMIES TO THOSE WHO GOVERN, THEY SOON PROVE ENEMIES ALSO TO THE CONSTITUTION. Thus it was that the

victory over the Perfians in the Straits of Salamis corrupted the republic of Athens; and thus the defeat of the Athenians ruined the republic of Syracufe.

SECT.

SECT. X.

OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF

AN ARISTOCRACY.

An ARISTOCRACY is corrupted if the power of the nobles become arbitrary: when this is the cafe, there can no longer be any public virtue either in the governors or the governed.

If the reigning families obferve the laws, it is a monarchy with several monarchs, and in its own nature one of the most excellent; for almost all these monarchs are tied down by the laws.-But when they do not obferve them, it is a defpotic flate fwayed by a great many defpotic princes.

The extremity of corruption is when the power of the nobles becomes hereditary; for then they can hardly have any moderation.-If they are only a few, their power is greater, but their fecurity lefs; if they are a larger number, their power is lefs, and their fecurity greater: infomuch that power goes on increafing, and fecurity dimi

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nishing, up to the very defpotie prince who is encircled with excess of power and danger.

The great number therefore of nobles in an hereditary ariftocracy renders the government lefs violent: but as there is less virtue, they fall into a spirit of fupinenefs and negligence, by which the state loses all its ftrength and activity.

AN ARISTOCRACY may maintain the full vigour of its conftitution, if the laws be fuch as are apt to render the nobles more fenfible of the perils and fatigues, than of the pleasure of command: and if the government be in fuch a fituation as to have fomething to dread, while fecurity fhelters under its protection, and uncertainty

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threatens from abroad.

As a certain kind of confidence forms the glory and ftability of monarchies, republics on the contrary muft have something to apprehend.-A fear of the PERSIANS fupported the laws of GREECE.-CARTHAGE and ROME were alarmed and strengthened by each other.-Strange, that the greater fecurity those states enjoyed, the more, like stagnated waters, they were fubject to corruption! "

a Justin attributes the extinction of Athenian virtue to the death of Epaminandos. Having no farther emulation, they spent their revenues in feafts, frequentius coenam, quam caftra vifentes. Then it was that the Macedonians emerged from obfcurity, 1. 6.

3

b Montesquieu.

SECT.

SECT. XI.

OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF

A MONARCHY.

AS DEMOCRACIES are fubverted when the people defpoil the fenate, the magiftrates, and judges, of their functions; Jo MONARCHIES are corrupted when the prince infenfibly deprives focieties or cities of their privileges.—In the former cafe the multitude ufurp the power, in the latter it is ufurped by a fingle perfon.

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"The deftruction of the Dynaflies of Tfin and Soüi,” fays a Chinese author, "was owing to this; the princes, inftead of confining themselves like their ancestors, to a "`general inspection, the only one worthy of a sovereign, "wanted to govern every thing IMMEDIATELY BY

"THEMSELVES."

The Chinese author gives us in this inftance, the cause of the corruption of almost all monarchies.

MONARCHY is deftroyed, when a prince thinks he shews a greater exertion of power in changing than in conforming to the order of things; when he deprives some

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