GOVERNMENT. I LOOK upon it as a peculiar happiness, that were I to choose of what religion I would be, and under what government I would live, I should most certainly give the preference to that form of religion and government which is established in my own country. In this point I think I am determined by reason and conviction; but if I shall be told that I am actuated by prejudice, I am fure it is an honest prejudice, it is a prejudice that arifes from the love of my country, and therefore fuch a one as I will always indulge. I have in feveral papers endeavoured to express my duty and esteem for the church of England, and design this as an effay upon the civil part of our conftitution, having often entertained myself with reflections on this subject, which I have not met with in other writers. That form of government appears to me the most reasonable, which is most conformable to the equality that we find in human nature, provided it be confiftent with public peace and tranquility. This is what may properly be called liberty, which exempts one man from fubjection to another so far as the order and ceconomy of government will permit. Liberty should teach every individual of a people, as they all share one common nature; if it only spreads among particular branches, there had better be none at all, fince fuch a liberty only aggravates the misfortune of those who are deprived of it, by setting before them a difagreeable subject of comparison. 'This liberty is best preserved where the legislative power is lodged in several perfons, especially if those perfons are of different ranks and interests; for where - they are of the fame rank, and confequently have an interest to manage peculiar to that rank, it differs but Ittle from a defpotical government in a fingle perfon. But the greatest security a people can have for their liberty, is when the legislative power is in the hands of persons so happily diftinguished, that by providing for the particular interests of their feveral ranks, they are providing for the whole body of the people; or in other words, when there is no part of the people that has not a common interest with at least one part of the legiflators. If there be but one body of legislators, it is no better than a tyranny: If there are only two, there will want a cafting voice, and one of them must at length be swallowed up by disputes and contentions that will neceffarily arife between them. Four would have the fame inconvenience as two, and a great number would cause too much confufion. I could never read a paffage in Polybius, and another in Cicero, to this purpose, without a fecret pleasure in applying it to the English constitution, which it suits much better than the Roman. Both these great authors give the pre-eminence to a mixt government, confifting of three branches, the regal, the noble, and the popular. They had doubtless in their thoughts the constitution of the Roman commonwealth, in which the conful représented the king, the senate the nobles, and the tribunes the people. This division of the three powers in the Roman conftitution was by no means so distinct and natural, as it is in the English form of government.. Among several objections that might be made to it, I think the chief are those that affect the confular power, which had only the ornaments without the force of the regal authority. Their number had not a cafting voice in it; for which reason, if one did not chance to be employed abroad, while the other fat at home, the publie business was sometimes at a stand, while the confuls pulled two different ways in it. Befides, I do not find that the confuls had ever a negative voice in the paffing of a law, or decree of fenate, so that indeed they were rather the chief body of the nobility, or the first ministers of state, than a distinct branch of the sovereignty, in which none can be looked upon as a part, who are not a part of the legislature. Had the confuls been invested with the regal authority to as great a degree as our monarchs, there would never have been any occafions for a dictatorship, which had in it the power of all the three orders, and ended in the fubversion of the whole constitution. VOL. II. L2 Such an history as that of Suetonius, which gives us a fucceflion of absolute Princes, is to me an unanswerable argument against despotic power. Where the Prince is a man of wisdom and virtue, it is indeed happy for his people that he is absolute; but fince in the common run of mankind, for one that is wife and good you fi ad ten of a contrary character, it is very dangerous for a nation to stand to its chance, or to have its public happiness or misery depend on the virtues or vices of a single perfon. Look into the history I have mentioned, or into any series of absolute Princes, how many tyrants must you read through, before you come to an emperor that is supportable? But this is • not all; an honest, private man often grows cruel and abandoned, when converted into an absolute Prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality. This too we find confirmed by matter of fact. How many hopeful heirs apparent to grand empires, when in poffeflion of them, have become such monsters of luft and cruelty as are a reproach to human nature? Some tell us we ought to make our governments on earth like that in heaven, which, fay they, is altogeth er monarchical and unlimited. Was man like his Creator in goodness and justice, I should be for following this great model; but were goodness and juftice are not effential to the ruler, I would by no means put myself into his hands to be disposed of according to bis particular will and pleafure. It is odd to confider the conne&ions between def potic government and barbarity, and how the making of one perfon more than man, makes the rest lefs. About nine parts of the world in ten are in the lowest ftate of flavery, and confequently funk in the most gross and brutal ignorance. European slavery is indeed a state of liberty, if compared with that which prevails in the other three divilions of the world; and therefore it is no wonder that those who grovel under it have many tracts of light among them, of which the others are wholly destitute. Riches and plenty are the natural fruits of liberty, and where these abound, learning and all the Imeral arts will immediately lift up their heads and flourish. As a man must have no flavish fears and apprehenfiens hanging upon his mind, who will indulge the flights of fancy or speculation, and puth his researches into all the abstruse corners of truth, so it is neceffary for him to have a competency of all the conveniences of life.. The first thing every one looks after, is to provide himself with neceffaries. This point will engross our thoughts till it be fatisfied. If this is taken care of to our hands, we look out for pleasures and amusements; and among a great number of idle people, there will be a great many whose pleasures lie in reading and contemplation. These are the two great fources of knowledge, and as men grow wife, they naturally love to communicate their discoveries ; and others feeing the happiness of such a learned life, and improving by their conversation, emulate, imitate, and furpafs one another, till a nation is filled with a race. of wife and understanding perfons. Eafe and plenty, are therefore the great cherishers of knowledge, and as most of the despotic governments of the world have neither of them, they are naturally over-run with ignorance and barbarity. In Europe, indeed, notwithstanding several of its princes are abfolute, there are men famous for knowledge and learning, but the reason is because the fubjects are many of them rich and wealthy, the prince not thinking fit to exert himself in his full tyranny like the princes of the eastern nations, left his fubjects should be invited to rew-mould their conftitution, having fo many profpects of liberty within their view. But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letters, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind, as you may observe from Augustus's reign, how the Romans loft themselves by degrees till they fell to an equality with the most barbarous nations, that furrounded them. Look upon Greece under its free states, and you would think its inhabitants, lived in different climates, and under different heavens, from those at present; so different are the geniuses which are formed under Turkish slavery, and Grecian liberty. Befides poverty and want, there are other reafons that debase the minds of men, who live under slavery, though I look on this as the principal. This naturaltendency of despotic power to ignorance and barbarity, though not infisted on by others, is, I think, an unanfwerable argument against that form of government, as it shews how repugnant it is to the good of mankind, and the perfection of human nature, which ought to be the great ends of all civil institutions. T SPECTATOR, Vol. IV. No. 287. GRATITUDE. HERE is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward fatisfaction, that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance. It is not like the practice of many other other virtues, difficult and painful, but attended with so much pleasure, that were there no positive command which enjoined it, nor any recompence laid up for it hereafter, a generous mind would indulge in it, for the natural gratification that accompanies it. If gratitude is due from man to man, how much more from man to his Maker? The Supreme Being does not only confer upon us those bounties which proceed more immediately from his hand, but even those benefits which are conveyed to us by others. Every bleffing we enjoy, by what means foever it may be derived upon us, is the gift of him who is the great Author of good, and Father of mercies. If gratitude, when exerted towards one another naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man; it exalts the foul into rapture, when it is employed on this great object of gratitude; on this beneficent Being who has given us every thing |