attention to the extent of
genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by
confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.
Lycurgus, blending theft with the spirit of justice, the hardest
slavery with extreme liberty, the most atrocious sentiments with
the greatest moderation, gave stability to his city. He seemed to
deprive it of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and walls;
there Was ambition without the hope of rising; there were natural
sentiments where the individual was neither child, nor husband,
nor father. Chastity even was deprived of modesty. _By this road
Sparta was led on to grandeur and to glory_.

"The phenomenon which we observe in the institutions of Greece has
been seen in the midst of the _degeneracy and corruption of our
modern times_. An honest legislator has formed a people where
probity has appeared as natural as bravery among the Spartans. Mr.
Penn is a true Lycurgus, and although the former had peace for his
object, and the latter war, they resemble each other in the
singular path along which they have led _their_ people, in their
influence over free men, in the prejudices which they have
overcome, the passions they have subdued.

"Paraguay furnishes us with another example. _Society_ has been
accused of the crime of regarding the pleasure of commanding as the
only good of life; but it will always be a noble thing to govern
men by making them happy.

"_Those who desire to form similar institutions_, will establish
community of property, as in the republic of Plato, the same
reverence which he enjoined for the gods, separation from strangers
for the preservation of morality, and make the city and not the
citizens create commerce: they should give our arts without our
luxury, our wants without our desires."

Vulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes:--"It is Montesquieu!
magnificent! sublime!" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to
say:--"What! you have the face to call that fine? It is frightful! it is
abominable! and these extracts, which I might multiply, show that,
according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property,
mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of
lawgivers."

_Rousseau_.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the
Democrats, ma