ow, men, women, clergy, and laity, are all alike.
The ruling nobility are no less afraid of one another than they are of
the people; and, for that reason, politically enervate their own body by
the same effeminate luxury by which they corrupt their subjects. They
are impoverished by every means which can be invented; and they are kept
in a perpetual terror by the horrors of a state inquisition. Here you
see a people deprived of all rational freedom, and tyrannized over by
about two thousand men; and yet this body of two thousand are so far
from enjoying any liberty by the subjection of the rest, that they are
in an infinitely severer state of slavery; they make themselves the most
degenerate and unhappy of mankind, for no other purpose than that they
may the more effectually contribute to the misery of a whole nation. In
short, the regular and methodical proceedings of an _aristocracy_ are
more intolerable than the very excesses of a _despotism_, and, in
general, much further from any remedy.

Thus, my lord, we have pursued _aristocracy_ through its whole progress;
we have seen the seeds, the growth, and the fruit. It could boast none
of the advantages of a _despotism_, miserable as those advantages were,
and it was overloaded with an exuberance of mischiefs, unknown even to
_despotism_ itself. In effect, it is no more than a disorderly tyranny.
This form, therefore, could be little approved, even in speculation, by
those who were capable of thinking, and could be less borne in practice
by any who were capable of feeling. However, the fruitful policy of man
was not yet exhausted. He had yet another farthing candle to supply the
deficiencies of the sun. This was the third form, known by political
writers under the name of _democracy_. Here the people transacted all
public business, or the greater part of it, in their own persons; their
laws were made by themselves, and, upon any failure of duty, their
officers were accountable to themselves, and to them only. In all
appearance, they had secured by this method the advantages of order and
good government, without paying their liberty for the purchase. Now, my
lord, we are come to the masterpiece of Grecian refinement, and Roman
solidity,--a popular government. The earliest and most celebrated
republic of this model was that of Athens. It was constructed by no less
an artist than the celebrated poet and philosopher, Solon. But no sooner
was this political vessel launched fro