each others hands more wealth and popularity, until they become able to govern elections as they pleaſe, and rule the people at diſcretion. An independent member will be their averſion; all their artifices will be employed to deſtroy his popularity among his conſtituents, and bring in a diſciple of their own in his place.
But if they divide, each party will, in a courſe of time, have the whole houſe, and conſequently the whole ſtate, divided into two factions, which will ſtruggle in words, in writing, and at laſt in arms, until Cæſar or Pompey muſt be emperor, and entail an endleſs line of tyrants on the nation. But long before this cataſtrophe, and indeed through every ſcene of the drama, the laws, inſtead of being permanent, and affording conſtant protection to the lives, liberties, and properties of the citizens, will be alternately the ſport of contending factions, and the mere vibrations of a pendulum. From the beginning to the end it will be a government of men, now of one ſet, and then of another; but never a government of laws.
LETTER XXVII.
MIXED GOVERNMENTS.
MACHIAVEL's DISCOURSES UPON THE FIRST DECADE
OF LIVY. BOOK I. C. 2.
My dear Sir,
THE whole chapter is very much to the purpoſe, but the following paragraphs more particularly ſo.—According to ſome authors, there are but three ſorts of governments, viz. monarchy
