We grant this, will it be said; but the Roman people never allowed their tribunes to conclude any thing definitively; they, on the contrary, reserved to themselves the right of ratifying* any resolutions the latter should take. This, I answer, was the very circumstance that rendered the institution of tribunes totally ineffectual in the event. The people—thus wanting to interfere, with their own opinions, in the resolutions of those on whom they had, in their wisdom, determined entirely to rely—and endeavouring to settle with a hundred thousand votes things which would have been settled equally well by the votes of their advisers,— defeated in the issue every beneficial end of their former provisions: and while they meant to preserve an appearance of their sovereignty (a chimerical appearance, since it was under the direction of others that they intended to vote), they fell back into all those inconveniencies which we have before mentioned.

The senators, the consuls, the dictators, and the other great men of the republic, whom the people were prudent enough to fear, and simple enough to believe, continued still to mix with them, and play off their political artifices. They continued to make speeches to them,† and still availed them

* See Rousseau's Social Contract.

+ Valerius Maximus relates, that the tribunes of the people having offered to propose some regulations in regard to the price of corn, in a time of great scarcity, Scipio Nasica overruled the assembly merely by saying, "Silence, Romans! I

selves of their privilege of changing at their pleasure the place and form of the public meetings. When they did not find it possible by such means to direct the resolutions of the assemblies, they pretended that the omens were not favourable, and under this pretext, or others of the same kind, they dissolved them.* And the tribunes, when they had succeeded so far as to effect an union among themselves, thus were obliged to submit to the pungent mortification of seeing those projects which they had pursued with infinite labour, and even through the greatest dangers, irrecoverably defeated by the most despicable artifices.

When, at other times, they saw that a confederacy was carrying on with uncommon warmth against them, and despaired of succeeding by employing expedients of the above kind, or were afraid of diminishing their efficacy by a too frequent use of them, they betook themselves to other

know better than you what is expedient for the repuplic.“Which words were no sooner heard by the people, than they "showed by a silence full of veneration, that they were more "affected by his authority, than by the necessity of providing "for their own subsistence." Tacete, quæso, Quirites! Plus enim ego quam vos quid reipublicæ expediat intelligo.—Quâ voce auditá, omnes, pleno venerationis silentio, majorem ejus auctoritatis quam alimentorum suorum curam egerunt.

* Quid enim majus est, si de jure augurum quærimus, (says Tully, who was himself an augur, and a senator also,) quàm posse a summis imperiis et summis potestatibus comitiatus et concilia vel instituta dimittere vel habita rescindere? Quid gravius, quam rem susceptam dirimi, si unus augur alium (id est, alium diem) dixerit? See De Legib. lib. ii. § 12.

stratagems. They then conferred on the consuls, by the means of a short form of words for the occasion,* an absolute power over the lives of the citizens, or even appointed a dictator. The people, at the sight of the state masquerade which was displayed before them, were sure to sink into a state of consternation: and the tribunes, however, clearly they might see through the artifice, also trembled in their turn, when they thus beheld themselves left without defenders.†

At other times, they brought false accusations against the tribunes before the assembly itself; or, by privately slandering them with the people, totally deprived them of their confidence. It was through artifices of this kind, that the people were brought to behold, without concern, the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, the only Roman that was really virtuous-the only one who truly loved the people. It was also in the same manner that Caius, who was not deterred by his brother's fate from pursuing the same plan of conduct, was in the end so entirely forsaken by the people, that nobody could be found among them who would even lend him a horse to fly from the fury of the

* Videat consul ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat.

+ "The tribunes of the people," says Livy, who was a great admirer of the aristocratical power, "and the people "themselves, durst neither lift up their eyes, nor even mutter, "in the presence of the dictator." Nec adversus dictatoriam vim, aut tribuni plebis, aut ipsa plebs, attollere oculos, aut hiscere, audebant. See Tit. Liv. lib. vi. § 16.

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nobles; and he was at last compelled to lay violent: hands upon himself, while he invoked the wrath of the gods on his inconstant fellow-citizens.

At other times, they raised divisions among the people. Formidable combinations broke out suddenly on the eve of important transactions; and all moderate men avoided attending assemblies, where they saw that all was to be tumult and confusion.

In fine, that nothing might be wanting to the insolence with which they treated the assemblies of the people, they sometimes falsified the declarations of the number of the votes; and once they even went so far as to carry off the urns into which the citizens were to throw their suffrages.*

* The reader, with respect to all the above observations, may see Plutarch's, Lives, particularly the Lives of the two Gracchi. I must add, that I have avoided drawing any instance from those assemblies in which one-half of the people were made to arm themselves against the other. I have here only alluded to those times which immediately either preceded or followed the third Punic war, as these are commonly called the best periods of the republic.

The Subject concluded-Effects that have resulted in the English Government, from the People's · Power being completely delegated to their Representatives.

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BUT when the people have entirely trusted their power to a moderate number of persons, affairs immediately take a widely different turn. Those who govern are from that moment obliged to leave off all those stratagems which had hitherto ensured their success. Instead of those assemblies which they affected to despise, and were perpetually comparing to storms, or to the current of the Euripus,* and in regard to which they accordingly thought themselves at liberty to pass over the rules of justice, they now find that they have to deal with men who are their equals in point of education and knowledge, and their inferiors only in point of rank and form. They, in consequence, soon find it necessary to adopt quite different methods; and,

* Tully makes no end of his similes on this subject. Quod enim fretum, quem Euripum, tot motus, tantas et tam varias habere putatis agitationes fluctuum, quantas perturbationes et quantos æstus habet ratio comitiorum? See Orat. pro Murænâ. -Concio, says he in another place, quæ ex imperitissimis constat, &c. De Amicitiâ, § 25.