Sidney, p. 147. § 18. It is confeſſed, that a pure democracy can never be good, unleſs for a ſmall town, &c.
Sidney, p. 160. § 19. As to popular government in the ſtricteſt ſenſe, that is, pure democracy, where the people in themſelves, and by themſelves, perform all that belongs to government, I know of no ſuch thing; and, if it be in the world, have nothing to ſay for it.
Sidney, p. 161. If it be ſaid, that thoſe governments, in which the democratical part governs moſt, do more frequently err in the choice of men, or the means of preſerving that purity of manners which is required for the well-being of a people, than thoſe wherein ariſtocracy prevails, I confeſs it, and that in Rome and Athens, the beſt and wiſeſt men did for the moſt part incline to ariſtocracy. Xenophon, Plato, Ariſtotle, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, Cicero, and others, were of this ſort. But if our author there ſeek patrons for his abſolute monarchy, he will find none but Phalaris, Agathocles, Dionyſius, Catiline, Cethegus, Lentulus, with the corrupted crew of mercenary raſcals who did, or endeavoured to ſet them up: theſe are they, quibus ex honeſto nulla eſt ſpes: they abhor the dominion of the law, becauſe it curbs their vices, and make themſelves ſubſervient to the luſts of a man who may nouriſh them.
Sidney, p. 165. § 21, Being no way concerned in the defence of democracy, &c. I may leave our knight, like Don Quixote, fighting againſt the phantaſms of his own brain, and laying what he pleaſes againſt ſuch governments as never were, unleſs in ſuch a place as St. Marino, near Siniglaglia in Italy, where a hundred clowns govern
