cuffion at a distance. I am, alfo, exceedingly inclined to believe, that thofe kings, who were always the most engaged in war, were not the kings who stood in the greatest need of genius; and that politic princes are as much fuperior to martial princes, as the art of governing is more difficult, than the art of commanding. The emperors, fituated between the people, and the army, but more embarraffed by the laft, ought to have defired war, that they might have employed the one, and amused the other. And yet a fingle

Q2

of Auguftus, to fome fea monfters, which he kept in a pond. It may be, that these examples of inhumanity were uncommon; but it is at least apparent that a generally established cuftom required that all fugitive flaves should be expofed to wild beafts.

Amidft fo many atrocious actions, of which the Romans were guilty, the greatest reproach which they have incurred, is, in my opinion, on account of their having never treated man, in general, as a kind of fellow creature. The extreme rigour of their punishments might, perhaps, have been excufable, had it been founded on a love of order, and had it been extended, with equal feverity, against all. But who will not be furprised, at perceiving that these fanguinary judges inflicted no other punishment, but the punishment of fending into exile, on a Roman citizen, even although he might have committed a thousand affaffinations.

fingle obftacle defeated the effect of this po licy. The Romans were too fuperior to other ftates, the frontiers of the empire were too diftant, and the neighbouring nations were too intimidated; it, therefore, became neceffary to go far off, in fearch of war, and, then, the abfence of the mafter, of course, diminished his power. Befides, fuch is the misfortune entailed on a people, entirely mi Hitary, that in the cafe, where war is so distant, that the interior quarters do not feel its confequences, it will cease to be interesting, and its fucceffes will become matters of indifference, whilst its loffes will be the more bitterly felt. Even the common foldier grows fatigued, when toiling, without one object in his view; he mutinies, and revolts. If there be two armies, two parties are formed. Fresh dangers may arife from the valour of the officers, and the confidence of the forces. They can no more remain attached to their chief, without raifing him to the first rank; and the love of the foldiers foon induces the generals to prove faithlefs? thus a misfortune muft fpring out of one of these three circumtances. If war be difadvantageous, it brings on the ruin of a nation: if it maintain only

an

1

an equal oppofition to the contending powers, it harraffes, and drains a nation; and if it be. advantageous, it introduces a diffolution of the armies, and of the government. I have not yet mentioned the danger which may ac-. crue from particular bodies, fuch as the Pretorian guards, the Janiffaries, the Strelitzes, &c. because all my readers well know that every despot hath his fatellites, and that each of these fatellites are, in their turns, the tyrants of the defpot. Amongst three and twenty emperors, fixteen were slaughtered,(a) ९. 3.

the

(a) It is remarkable that, out of forty-two emperors, who filled up the interval, between Julius Cæfar and Charlemagne, thirty, at leaft, died a violent death, Amongst these, four committed suicide; and fix perifhed through the intrigues of their favourites, their brothers, their wives, and their children. It is not their dreadful difmiffion to eternity, but their fatal entrance into the world, at which the feeling reader will be apt to fhudder. The pen which writes the annals of the generality of kings, fhould, with propriety, be dipped in blood. A multitude of thofe monarchs, whom the fear, and adulation of their fubjects, liave dignified with the titles of fathers of their country, were little better than the murderers of mankind. If their Contemporaries durft have fpoken their fentiments with the fame freedom, which hath influenced the opinion of

the Roman empire was put up at auction, and fold to a contemptible individual; the revolutions of Ruffia, of the empire of the Ottomans, and of that of the Mogul, are ample proofs that a government, founded in military defpotifm, is the worst of all, not only for princes, people.

government

but for the

SECTION

their pofterity, the compofitions of too many of our an cestors, instead of being fullied with panegyrics on royalty, would have glowed only with execrations against the flagrancy of arbitrary power. K.

SECTION II.

Confiderations on the lot of Humanity, during the middle ages of hiftory.

CHAP. I.

On the inundation of the Barbarians.

WHILST we purfue our task of def

cribing the misfortunes of mankind, we can not observe, without concern, the diversity prevailing through the feveral objects which claim our attention. Evil is produced, and generated under a thousand different forms; and, without being hurried away by too fplenetic an imagination, we may venture to Q4.

affert