education, that the principle by which the whole community is regulated and supported, cannot be too highly cultivated in the mind of every individual.

All governments may be reduced to three fpecies, the republican, the monarchical, and the defpotic; to each of which Montesquieu has affigned its proper principle: " to the re"publican, virtue; to the monarchical, hon"our; and to the defpotic, fear."

Virtue in a republic, is the love of country, and of the laws by which its welfare is fecured and improved. This produces temperance, justice, fortitude; a fuppreffion of all bafe and selfish passions; a continual facrifice of private intereft to the good of the community; and fuch univerfal benevolence of affection, and integrity of action, as give reciprocal strength to the noble principle from which they are derived.

Honour, the principle of a monarchical state, according to Montefquieu," estimates "the actions of men, not as good but as fplen

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did, not as juft but as great, not as rea

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"fonable but as extraordinary." The fpirit of monarchy endeavours to effect as much as it poffibly can, without virtue. It fubfifts independently of the love of country, of the thirst of true glory, of purity of manners, of the facrifice of our dearest private interests, and of all thofe exalted virtues, which, in fingular inftances and during fhort intervals, we fo much and so justly admire in the antients. Honour is, indeed, infeparable from virtue; but no otherwife than as an effect from its cause when it affumes the power of the leading principle, vice may be virtue, and virtue vice, as caprice and paffion fhall determine; for it is then wholly selfish, and is changeable in its objects and pursuits as interest predomi→ nates: in the vain-glory of pretenfions to fenfibility of affection, and of poffeffing those arts and accomplishments that ensure conqueft, it exalts the feduction of innocence, and the violations of conjugal fidelity, into acts of gallantry; and from a preposterous idea of greatnefs of foul, and the true interests of the state, it descends even to intrigue and cunning, and deems the breaches of public faith refinements of policy.

But fear, the principle of defpotism, is incapable not only of virtue, but even of those delusive appearances of it that honour may chance to affume. It is the extinction of all intellectual light, the fuppreffion of every generous affection: and as the tyrant and the flave are equally under its dominion, deep ignorance and multiplied wretchedness must be the lasting portion of both.

If we take a survey of all the associations, states, and kingdoms of the earth, we shall find, that they have risen to greatness or fallen to ruin, have been happy in themselves and beneficial to their neighbours, or rent with intestine commotions, or plunged into hopeless distress, or confederated for the violation of the common rights of mankind, according to the predominance of each of these three principles. But as the selfish spirit has always prevailed, even the republics of Greece, Italy, and AfiaMinor, the most renowned for urbanity and virtue, have made only a tranfient appearance of true glory, like spots of azure in a cloudy sky, and have fallen at last a prey to that evil nature, which is the degradation mifery and punishment of man. But human inftitutions

muft

muft neceffarily partake of the infirmities of human beings; and all states, like those that compose them, have the principles of growth and diffolution in their own frame: like men, they are born and die, have their commencement and their period; they arife, like light, from the darkness of poverty, to temperance, industry, liberty, valour, power, conqueft, glory, opulence, and that is their fummit; from whence they decline to ease, fenfuality, venality, corruption, cowardice, imbecility, infamy, slavery, and irremediable perdition. The only appearance of a permanent government, was the Theocracy of the Jews; till, through the extreme depravity of nature, the people became impatient and uneafy under the restraints of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness, and would not reft till the conftitution was changed into the regal dominion of ignorant, selfish, and arbitrary man; when declining from one degree of evil to a greater, they were at length scattered over the face of the whole earth; in which unnaturalized condition they still remain, individual monuments of the punishment due to revolters from the eternal laws of righteousness and beneficence.

From defpotic government, the understanding and the heart of man recoil as from darknefs and death. It is effentially evil in its nature, and wholly and unchangeably evil in all its effects: and, therefore, in a political and moral view, it can be confidered in no other light, than as an enormous whirlpool fituated between a monarchy and a republic, to which both have a difpofition to tend, and in which both may be swallowed up and loft for ever. But in a review of all human governments, where fhall we find fuch an harmonious union and juft counterpoife of the regal ariftocratical and democratical powers, as that by preventing all preponderation each derives reciprocal strength from the other two, and the freedom and peace of every individual is essentially included in the liberty and fafety of the whole; but in the Conftitution of Great - Britain? To the youth, therefore, of Great-Britain, of every clafs and condition raised above the labouring peasant, who may poffibly be contented with the protection of his property, liberty, and life, without inquiring into the fource from whence that protection flows; the principles of this wonderful Conftitution, and the high duties it requires, cannot be too clearly explained. On

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