Volume 1

Microcosm of London / [Anon].

Date:
[1808-1811]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microcosm of London / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the whole community; but the history of mankind furnishes abundant proofs, that those in whom the power of legislation has resided, or to whom the ex- ecution of the laws has been committed, either entertained a very different object, or have pursued it by means which unfortunately produced very differ- ent effects. An eloquent historian* has observed, that the reign of the Antonines furnishes the only exception to this melancholy truth. It would appear, that in treating of politics, the ancient writers considered only three kinds of government as legitimate or regular, and that all others were mere deviations from, and re- duceable to one or other of these. Thus Quintilian says, “ It is uncertain how “ many subjects live under one government, but -we are certain as to the forms: “ thus we know how many sorts of government exist, which are three, one “ wherein the people, another wherein a few, and the third wherein one man “ is sovereign.” A government partaking in its nature of all the three, avoiding the incon- veniencies attached to them separately, was considered as chimerical, if not altogether impracticable,—as a thing rather to be desired than to be expected,— as a meteor, which, if it ever illuminated the political horizon, might sparkle, but must soon expire. S tat no esse optime constitutam rempublicam quo ex tribus generibus illis, regali, optimo, et popu- lari, modice confusa.—Cic. Fragm. Cunctas nationes, et urbes, populos aut priores aut singuli regunt; delecta ex his constituta rei- publicae forma, laudari facilius quam evenire; vel si evenit, haud diuturna esse potest.—Tacit. Annal. lib. iv. * Vide Gibbon, vol. I.
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