travelling, in a fourth the love of antiquities, in another the love of reading, and so forth, according to the diversified dispositions of individuals. From this fact, the Stoics derived their principle 'omnes desipiunt,' which is so admirably enucleated by Horace in the Third Satire of the Second Book. One mob is governed by an O'Connell, another by a Pericles; one is under the control of an Atwood, another of a Julius Cæsar. But the analogy stops not here; the individual now sunk into the decrepitude and lisping imbecility of age, into the more than puling dependency of the infant, will be found to resemble the state fallen back into a second cradle, to be rocked by a despotic and tyrannical domination. And it is the united voice of history, that a democracy is almost invariably followed by a tyranny; these two modes of government, or rather of misgovernment, being akin in principle, though so opposite in form,-since in both the whole power is delegated, whether by willing infatuation to a democrat, or by coercion to a tyrant. This second monarchy, which recommences another cycle of revolutions, is not mild and paternal, like the former; it is, as we have observed, tyrannical and despotical. Nor is this surprising; those nations which have used slaves have been the most violent in their claims of liberty; and when we consider the greater measure of clamorousness exhibited by the southern states of America,* compared with the northern, for what they call freedom, perfect, unbroken freedom, we cannot accuse the caricaturist of unfairness, who represented an American of the southern states, with the declaration of independence in one hand, and wielding the cat-o'nine-tails in the other, indignantly asking, "What! do you call this a land of liberty, where a man cannot flog his own nigger?" The agitated and ebullient ferocity of a republic, in its last stage, is very little removed from, if it is not identical with, that spirit which actuates the tyrant. Dionysius would have been a furious republican, had he been reserved for America, and Phalaris of Agrigentum would have revelled in Colombia' Impune,' to use the language of Sallust,† 'impune quæ libet facere, id est regem esse,' and that, also, is the demand of every republican. The point, where a monarchy is generally, in the first instance, stopped, is

Virginia, the native state of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Munroe, has always been remarkable in the Congress for asserting the broadest principles of republicanism. + Jug. c. 31.

the point where, in its re-establishment on the ashes of democracy, it begins. For,t "as soon as a king begins to exercise unjust authority, he immediately becomes a tyrant, than whom," for we must translate the rest of the passage, "than whom it is impossible to conceive of any animal more disgusting, more base, or more hateful to both gods and men; an animal possessing, indeed, the figure of a man, but surpassing in brutality of character the most savage beasts." At the point, then, where tyranny begins, and legitimate authority is disregarded or overstepped, the excited jealousies and rising passion for power pave the way for a modification of the government; whereas, when one cycle is concluded, and the wheel is again on the rise, it commences with tyranny, which before could not have existed for a moment, but for which, democracy, so to speak, having pitched the tune, the people have been now prepared. Again, a democracy will always choose for its leaders those who most assimilate with themselves, men of vulgar manners, and unrefined minds, (except in cases where statesmen of previous influence condescend to flatter the tendencies and predilections of the vulgar by favours and concessions ;) the popularity of Cleon arose as much from his vehement and bloated vulgarity, as from his glib and smooth-tongued persuasiveness; quam quisque pessumè fecit, tam tutus est;" hence, the tyrant frequently adds to his vices vulgarity and ignorance.

The cycle of revolutions, which we have now traced in states as well as in individuals, is not a mere theory, but is deduced from a careful investigation of history. Whether we look at the history of ancient or modern nations, at the Commonwealth of Greece and Rome, at the German and Italian states of modern times, or at the history of our own government, we shall see ample confirmation of this curious and important conclusion. Involved in obscurity, as the early ages of Rome undeniably are, even with all the discoveries of Niehbur before us, little doubt can be entertained that the most ancient government of the Commonwealth was monarchical; and though the personages who are recorded to have swayed the sceptre of infant Rome, are probably unreal, they are still the representatives of actual sovereigns. The

Cic. de Repub. i. 26.

§ "Tyrannus, quo neque tætrius, neque fœdius, nec dis hominibusque invisum animal ullum cogitari potest: qui quamquam figura est hominis, morum tamen immanitate vastissimas vincit belluas." Cic. de Repub. ii. 26.

Sall. Jug. c. 31.

existence of some kings is not the less true, because a superstitious credulity has assigned to Romulus so marvellous a birth, any more than the existence of our own Alfred is to be questioned, because of the numerous feats of fabulous monstrosity ascribed to him in the monkish annals:say, rather that the story of his wolf-nurture is a poetical mythus, well descriptive of the military and ferocious spirit of the people in its youth, as the name of the city proclaims the great feature of its character. But we must not lose sight of our analogy : though the people were rapacious and warlike, the early sovereigns of Rome were mild and paternal in exercising authority over their subjects; and their power was seldom used with more latitude of severity than the analogy of a parent will admit. From Tacitus we learn, though indirectly, that their authority was far from severe; 'Urbem,' he says, 'Romam a principio reges habuere,' using the mildest of the legal terms, which denote possession, habere, tenere, possidere. This was the childhood of Rome; when under the humane rule of the legislators and sovereigns, whom we find typified in the national mythologies, under the names of Romulus, Numa, &c. it was nurtured and increased, till, in the rude energies of its rampant boyhood, it gave promise of the vigour and firm independence of the man. It was by the mighty sense of these early kings, who, like Themistocles, without the refinement and polish of a court, knew how to make a small town into a great state; it was by their power, tempered by the influence of that veneration, that grave and deep-seated feeling of reverence for the institutions of their country, which formed so conspicuous an ingredient in the Roman character, and was so mainly productive of Roman greatness; it was by this that the newly-formed people was by degrees consolidated into a well-disciplined and powerful nation. The number of the kings, it is equally unimportant and impossible to ascertain; thus much, however, we may safely affirm, that the supposition of seven kings, not half of whom died a natural death, reigning for two hundred and fortythree years, is utterly at variance with every rule of probability drawn from the analogy of other nations. The superstitious partiality of the ancients to the number seven, will account for the constructors of the myth, fixing on this in preference to any other number. But, after the lapse of more than two centuries, we are not surprised to

I pwμn, robur, strength, Roma.

find the monarchy growing somewhat insecure, from encroachments on the one hand, and jealousies, with increasing consciousness of power, on the other; the senate ripe for a revolution, the people ever ready to back the innovating party, the monarch furnishing both with ample pretext, we cannot wonder to see Tarquin styled the tyrant, and the government merge into an aristocracy, as difficult to subvert, as at first it was easy to establish. For such was the liberty introduced by Junius Brutus, not a popular, but an aristocratic liberty. The door was now opened to change, and the plebs, or commons, no sooner saw their once fellow-subjects, the populus, with whom they had made common cause, occupying all places of command, the consulship, censorship, dictatorship, and priesthood, all in the hands of the nobles, than they began to recollect themselves, and to become conscious of their own capabilities; and hence those struggles between the Plebeians and Patricians, which continued with scarcely any intermission till the Samnite war drew off their attention from domestic quarrels. This is, what Heeren calls, the heroic age of Rome, in which shone the glory of Decius Mus, (father and son,) of Papirius Cursor, and of Fabius Maximus, &c. This may be considered the transition-state from youth to manhood; in the Punic wars, we behold Rome in the full vigour of maturity. It has now no time to deliberate on its own internal constitution; equality of right is admitted, foreign war is now the aim and object of all efforts; too active to speculate, too busy to philosophize, they readily remit the arts of peace to the more urgent calling of military adventure,

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. When this flourish and prowess of manhood is over, when Greece and Carthage are Roman, and the wars in Spain are at an end, then recommences a series of internal commotions and civil feuds; first, the Gracchine, then the Marian, then the Catilinarian, and then the contests of the Triumvirates, till at last we find the government relodged in the hands of one, and the empire sink under the dominion of the Cæsars. The senate, which during the Punic wars had possessed almost boundless authority, was now, though still left with the carcass, with all the shew and circumstance of power, deprived of every vital energy, and subdued to an instrument of imperatorial aggrandizement.

Here we approach the old age of Rome, at first indeed under the fostering auspices of Augustus, cruda viridisque senectus, but

soon passing into the pusillanimity of dotage, hastened, doubtless, by a disregard of that wise counsel of Augustus to Tiberius, that he should do all to consolidate, instead of attempting to extend the bounds of the empire republics are adapted for making conquests, monarchies for consolidating them.

The lives of the emperors are little else but one dark tablature of the horrors of tyranny, an epitome of crime, a perfect stenography of vice. Such times, when men were canonized as gods, who were immeasurably below the level of brutes, may well be termed the dotage of the nation. One cycle, then, is thus completed; and another commences its course, which our limits now forbid us even to touch upon. It would be at once easy and interesting to trace the effects of similar revolutions in other nations, and particularly in our own; we are not aware that the subject has yet been treated as it deserves.

ON THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST.

THE excellent engraving from the "Salvator Mundi," of Carlo Dolci, given with the Imperial Magazine for March, led my thoughts to a contemplation of our blessed Lord's personal appearance, when he sojourned upon earth in the lowest state of humiliation. This will be allowed by any serious Christian to be a pleasing subject of inquiry, but, in the absence of positive information respecting the external form and characteristic features of the divine founder of our religion, we are left to conjectural speculation and uncertain tradition.

What Bishop Horsley, in his four Expository Discourses on the Forty-fifth Psalm, has incidentally observed in regard to our Saviour's external figure, and the impression produced by his eloquence, merits particular consideration.

"The second verse of this psalm, describing our Lord in the days of his humiliation," says the learned prelate, "may seem, perhaps, to relate merely to his person, and the manner of his address:

"Thou art fairer than the children of men;" rather,

"Thou art adorned with beauty beyond the sons of men;" "Grace is poured upon thy lips Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever."

:

Having thus recited the prophetic text, and corrected the translation, the bishop remarks, that "We have no account in the

Gospels of our Saviour's person. Some writers, of an early age, (but none so early as to have seen him,) speak of it as wanting dignity, and of his physiognomy as unpleasing. It would be difficult, I believe, to find any better foundation for this strange notion, than an injudicious interpretation of certain prophecies in a literal meaning, which represent the humiliation which the Son of God was to undergo by clothing his divinity with flesh, in images taken from personal deformity. But, from what is recorded in the Gospels, of the ease with which our Saviour mixed, in what, in the modern style, we should call good company, of the respectful attention shewn to him, beyond any thing his reputed birth or fortune might demand,— and the manner in which his discourses, either of severe reproof or gentle admonition, were received, we may reasonably conclude, that he had a dignity of exterior appearance, remarkably corresponding with that authority of speech, which upon some occasions impressed even his enemies with awe, and with that dignified mildness which seems to have been his more natural and usual tone,and drew the applause and admiration of all who heard him. "Never man spake like this man," was the confession of his enemies; and, upon his first appearance in the synagogue at Nazareth, when he had finished his exposition of a certain text of Isaiah, which he applied to himself, “All bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." Thus, without knowing it, the congregation attested the completion of this prophecy of the psalmist, in one branch of it,-in the "grace," which, literally, it seems, was poured upon his lips." But, certainly, it must have been something externally striking,-something answering to the text of the psalmist in the former branch, "adorned with beauty beyond the sons of men,' which, upon the same occasion, before his discourse began; it must have been something, I say, prepossessing in his features, and something of dignity in his person, which, while he was yet silent, "fastened the eyes of all that were in the synagogue upon him," that is, upon the village carpenter's reputed son; for in no higher character was he yet known. We may conclude, therefore, that this prophetic text had a completion in the literal and superficial sense of the words, in both its branches,in the beauty of our Saviour's person, no less than in the graciousness of his speech. "External feature, however, is generally the impression of the mind upon the body,

and words are but the echo of the thoughts; and, in prophecy, more is usually meant than meets the ear, in the first sound, and most obvious sense, of the terms employed. Beauty and grace of speech are certainly used in this text as figures of much higher qualities, which were conspicuous in our Lord, and in him alone, of all the sons of men. That image of God, in which Adam was created, in our Lord appeared perfect and entire,—in the unspotted innocency of his life, the sanctity of his manners, and the perfect obedience to the law of God,in the vast powers of his mind, intellectual and moral; intellectual, in his comprehension of all knowledge; moral, in his power of resisting all the allurements of vice, and of encountering all the difficulties of virtue and religion, despising hardship and shame, enduring pain and death. This was the beauty with which he was adorned beyond the sons of men. In him, the beauty of the Divine image was refulgent in its original perfection; in all the sons of Adam, obscured and marred in a degree to be scarce discernible,-the will depraved, the imagination debauched, the reason weakened, the passions rampant! This deformity is not externally visible, nor the spiritual beauty which is its opposite; but could the eye be turned upon the internal man, we should see the hideous shape of a will at enmity with God,-a heart disregarding his law, insensible of his goodness, fearless of his wrath, swelling with the passions of ambition, avarice, vain glory, lust. Yet, this is the picture of the unregenerated man, by the depravity consequent upon the fall, born in iniquity, and conceived in sin. Christ, on the contrary, by the mysterious manner of his conception, was born without spot of sin; he grew up and lived full of grace and truth, perfectly sanctified in flesh and spirit. With this beauty he was "adorned beyond the sons of men."

In this interpretation of the psalm, as descriptive of the native beauty of our Lord's person, the learned prelate had the concurrence of St. Chrysostom; before whom, it was the general persuasion of Christians that the person of Jesus literally corresponded with the prediction of him in the 53d of Isaiah, "He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him."

This language, expressive only of the lowly condition in which the Messiah would appear, the early fathers, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and others, understood of his stature,

figure, and countenance.

Of this error,

the enemies of Christianity took advantage, and assuming, what was a general notion among both Jews and Gentiles in those days, that the divinity never resides in a contemptible body, they turned the concession of the Christians themselves respecting the person of Christ, into an argument against his being the Son of God. Such was the presumption of Celsus, who, in objecting to the history of our Saviour's baptism by John, contended that the Holy Spirit never descended upon any one of his description; and that this was the known principle of the Jewish religion. In this the Epicurean sophist was right, as far as related to the received doctrine of the rabbinical school; where the claim to the prophetic character was restricted to personal accomplishments. It merits observation, however, that the objection started by the philosopher to the pretensions of Jesus, on account of his supposed disqualifications, never occurred to the Jews themselves; for though they made the most of his humble parentage, his want of education, and his connexion with a district proverbially destitute of intellectual talent, neither the Pharisees with all their pride, nor the Sadducees with all their scepticism, ever uttered any thing to the disparagement of his person. Celsus, however, though far enough from having any regard for the Jews, undertook to justify their rejection of Christ on this very ground; that he did not answer the character of the Messiah, required by their law. His plea, though fallacious, is curious enough; he says, that Jesus, instead of having a commanding appearance, was diminutive in stature, that his features were coarse and forbidding, his manners vulgar, and his mind unadorned with those graces which were requisite to the prophetic dignity.

Origen, in answering this ribaldry of Celsus, admits that the person of our Lord was devoid of beauty, but the rest of the description he strenuously denies; and upon the whole, contends, as well he might, that the very humiliation which the adversary considered as a reproach, redounded to the glory of Him who had condescended to lay aside the splendour of divine majesty, for the redemption of the world, in the lowest state of voluntary degradation.

Lucian, the satirist, who lived about the same period, in his Dialogue entitled, "Philopatris," written purposely to ridicule Christianity, has some incidental remarks, which are the more deserving of notice, as coming from one who has not