abovementioned cauſes, into miſrule and licentiouſneſs. Such is the rotation to which all ſtates are ſubjecl; nevertheleſs they cannot often revert to the ſame kind of government, becauſe it is not poſſible that they ſhould ſo long exiſt as to undergo many of theſe mutations: for it frequently happens, that when a ſtate is labouring under ſuch convulſions, and is deſtitute both of ſtrength and counſel, it falls a prey to ſome other neighbouring community or nation that is better governed; otherwiſe it might paſs through the ſeveral abovementioned revolutions again and again to infinity.
All theſe ſorts of government then, in my opinion, are infirm and inſecure; the three former from the uſual ſhortneſs of their duration, and the three latter from the malignity of their own principles. The wiſeſt legiſlators, therefore, being aware of theſe defects, never eſtabliſhed any one of them in particular, but contrived another that partakes of them all, confiding of a prince, lords, and commons, which they looked upon as more firm and ſtable, becauſe every one of theſe members would be a check upon the other; and of thoſe legiſlators, Lycurgus certainly merits the higheſt praiſe, who conſtituted an eſtabliſhment of this kind at Sparta, which laſted above eight hundred years, to his own great honour, as well as the tranquillity of the citizens.
Very different was the fate of the government eſtabliſhed by Solon at Athens, which, being a ſimple democracy only, was of ſo ſhort continuance, that it gave way to the tyranny of Piſiſtratus, before the death of the legiſlator: and though, indeed, the heirs of that tyrant were expelled about forty years after, and the Athenians not only recovered their liberty, but re-eſtabliſh-
