to be a
check upon the other; or formed into a balance, which is held by him
that has the executive power, with the nobility and people in
counterpoise in each scale. Thus the kingdom of Media is represented by
Xenophon before the reign of Cyrus; so Polybius tells us, the best
government is a mixture of the three forms, _regno, optimatium, et
populi imperio_: the same was that of Sparta in its primitive
institution by Lycurgus, made up of _reges, seniores, et populus_; the
like may be asserted of Rome, Carthage, and other states: and the
Germans of old fell upon the same model, from whence the Goths their
neighbours, with the rest of those northern people, did perhaps borrow
it. But an assembly of the three estates is not properly of Gothic
institution: for these fierce people, when upon the decline of the Roman
Empire they first invaded Europe, and settled so many kingdoms in Italy,
Spain, and other parts, were all Heathens; and when a body of them had
fixed themselves in a tract of land left desolate by the flight or
destruction of the natives, their military government by time and peace
became civil; the general was king, his great officers were his nobles
and ministers of state, and the common soldiers the body of the people;
but these were freemen, and had smaller portions of land assigned them.
The remaining natives were all slaves; the nobles were a standing
council; and upon affairs of great importance, the freemen were likewise
called by their representatives to give their advice. By which it
appears, that the Gothic frame of government consisted at first but of
two states or assemblies, under the administration of a single person.
But after the conversion of these princes and their people to the
Christian faith, the Church became endowed with great possessions, as
well by the bounty of kings, as the arts and industry of the clergy,
winning upon the devotion of their new converts: and power, by the
common maxim, always accompanying property, the ecclesiastics began soon
to grow considerable, to form themselves into a body, and to call
assemblies or synods by their own authority, or sometimes by the command
of their princes, who in an ignorant age had a mighty veneration for
their learning as well as piety. By such degrees the Church arrived at
length, by very justifiable steps, to have her share in the
commonwealth, and became a third estate in most kingdoms of Europe; but
these assemblies, as we have already o