271

OF THE HOMAN EMPIRE.

on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt chap.

suffrage of the whole community. Experience_

overturns these airy fabrics, and teaches us, thatin a large society, the election of a monarch cannever devolve to the wisest, or to the most nu-merous, part of the people. The army is theonly order of men sufficiently united to concurin the same sentiments, and powerful enough toimpose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens;but the temper of soldiers, habituated at onceto violence and to slavery, renders them veryunfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil, con-stitution. Justice, humanity, or political wis-dom, are qualities they are too little acquaintedwith in themselves, to appreciate them in others.Valour will acquire their esteem, and liberalitywill purchase their suffrage; but the first ofthese merits is often lodged in the most savagebreasts; the latter can only exert itself at theexpence of the public ; and both may be turnedagainst the possessor of the throne, by the am-bition of a daring rival.

The superior prerogative of birth, when it hasobtained the sanction of time and popular opi-nion, is the plainest and least invidious of alldistinctions among man kind. The acknowledgedright extinguishes the hopes of faction, and theconscious security disarms the cruelty ofthemo-narch. To the firm establishment of this idea,we owe the peaceful succession and mild admi-nistration of European monarchies. To thedefect of it, we must attribute the frequent civil

Want of itin the Ro-man em-pire pro-ductive ofthe great-est calami-ties.