ufed for the convenience of arrangement into real polities; that, as conftitutions of government approach more nearly to that unmixed and uncontrolled fimplicity they become defpotic, and as they recede farther from that fimplicity they become free.

By the conftitution of a state, I mean "the body "of thofe written and unwritten fundamental laws "which regulate the most important rights of the

higher magiftrates, and the moft effential privileges* "of the fubjects." Such a body of political laws must in all countries arife out of the character and fituation of a people; they must grow with its progress, be adapted to its peculiarities, change with its changes, and be incorporated into its habits. Human wisdom cannot form fuch a conftitution by one act, for human wisdom cannot create the materials of which it is compofed. The attempt, always ineffectual, to change by violence the ancient habits of men, and the established order of fociety, fo as to fit them for an abfolutely new scheme of government, flows from the most prefumptuous ignorance, requires the fupport of

* Privilege, in Roman jurifprudence, means the exemption of one individual from the operation of a law. Political privireges, in the fenfe in which I employ the terms, mean those lights of the fubject of a free state, which are deemed fo effential to the well-being of the commonwealth, that they are excepted from the ordinary difcretion of the magiftrate, and guarded by the fame fundamental laws which fecure his authority.

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the most ferocious tyranny, and leads to confequences which its authors can never foresee; generally, indeed, to inflitutions the most oppofite to thofe of which they profefs to feek the establishment*. But human wifdom indefatigably employed for remedying abuses, and in feizing favourable opportunities of improving that order of society which arifes from caufes over which we have little control, after the reforms and amendments of a feries of ages, has fometimes, though very rarely †, fhown itfelf capable of building up a free conftitution, which is "the growth of time and nature, "" rather than the work of human invention." Such a conftitution can only be formed by the wife imitation' of "the great innovator TIME," "which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, "and by degrees fcarce to be perceived ."

* See an admirable paffage on this fubject in Dr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 101-112, in which the true doctrine of reformation is laid down with fingular ability by that eloquent and philofophical writer.-See alfo Mr. Burke's fpeech on economical reform; and Sir M. Hale on the amendment of laws, in the collection of my learned and moft excellent friend Mr. Hargravė, p. 248.

+ Pour former un gouvernement moderé, il faut combiner les puiffances, les regler, les temperer, les faire agir donner pour ainfi dire un left à l'une pour la mettre en état de refifter à une autre, c'est un chef d'œuvre de legislation que le hazard fait rarement, et que rarement, on laiffe faire à la prudence. Un gouvernement defpotique, au contraire faute pour ainfi dire aux yeux; il eft uniforme partout; comme il ne faut des paffions pour l'etablir tout le monde eft bon pour cela. Montefquieu, De l'Efprit des Loix, liv. v. c. 14.

Lord Bacon, Effay xxiv. Of Innovations.

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Without defcending to the puerile oftentation of panegyric, on that of which all mankind confefs the excellence, I may obferve, with truth and foberness, that a free government not only establishes an univerfal fecurity against wrong, but that it alfo cherishes all the nobleft powers of the human mind; that it tends to banish both the mean and the ferocious vices; that it improves the national character to which it is adapted, and out of which it grows; that its whole adminiftration is a practical fchool of honefty and humanity; and that there the focial affections, expanded into public fpirit, gain a wider fphere, and a more active fpring.

I fhall conclude what I have to offer on government, by an account of the conftitution of England. I fhall endeavour to trace the progrefs of that conftitution by the light of hiftory, of laws, and of records, from the earliest times to the prefent age; and to fhow how the general principles of liberty, originally common to it, with the other Gothic monarchies of Europe, but in other coun-tries loft or obfcured, were in this more fortunate ifland preferved, matured, and adapted to the progrefs of civilization. I fhall attempt to exhibit this moft complicated machine, as our history and our laws fhow it in action; and not as fome celebrated writers have moft imperfectly reprefented it, who have torn out a few of its more fimple fprings,

and,

and, putting them together, mifcall them the British constitution. So prevalent, indeed, have these imperfect reprefentations hitherto been, that I will venture to affirm, there is fcarcely any fubject which has been lefs treated as it deserved than the government of England. Philofophers of great and merited reputation * have told us that it confifted of certain portions of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; names which are, in truth, very little applicable, and which, if they were, would as little give an idea of this government, as an account of the weight of bone, of flesh, and of blood in a human body, would be a picture of a living man. Nothing but a patient and minute investigation of the practice of the government in all its parts, and through its whole hiftory, can give us juft notions on this important fubject. If a lawyer, without a philofophical fpirit, be unequal to the examination of this great work of liberty and wifdom, ftill more unequal is a philofopher without practical, legal, and hiftorical knowledge; for the first may want skill, but the fecond wants materials. The obfervations of Lord Bacon on political writers, in general, are moft applicable to thofe who have given us fyftematic defcriptions of the English conftitution. "All thofe who have writ

* The reader will perceive that I allude to MoNTESQUIEU, whom I never name without reverence, though L fhall prefume, with humility, to criticize his account of a government which he only faw at a distance,

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"ten of governments have written as philofophers, or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As "for the philofophers, they make imaginary laws "for imaginary commonwealths, and their dif"courses are as the ftars, which give little light "because they are fo high.' "Hec cognitio ad "viros civiles propriè pertinet," as he tells us in another part of his writings; but unfortunately no experienced philofophical British ftatefman has yet devoted his leifure to a delineation of the conftitution, which fuch a flatefman alone can practically and perfectly know.

In the difcuffion of this great fubject, and in all reafonings on the principles of politics, I fhall labour, above all things, to avoid that which appears to me to have been the conftant fource of political error I mean the attempt to give an air of fyftem, of fimplicity, and of rigorous demonftration, to fubjects which do not admit it. The only means by which this could be done, was by referring to a few fimple caufes, what, in truth, arofe from immenfe and intricate combinations, and, fucceffions of caufes. The confequence was very obvious. The fyftem of the theorift, difencumbered from all regard to the real nature of things, eafily affumed an air of fpecioufnefs. It required little dexterity to make his argument appear conclufive. But all men agreed that it was utterly inapplicable to human affairs. The

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