f that of the Locrians. Theseus first, and after him
Draco and Solon, instituted the government of Athens. Lycurgus was the
lawgiver of Sparta. The foundation of the original government of Rome
was laid by Romulus, and the work completed by two of his elective
successors, Numa and Tullius Hostilius. On the abolition of royalty the
consular administration was substituted by Brutus, who stepped forward
with a project for such a reform, which, he alleged, had been prepared
by Tullius Hostilius, and to which his address obtained the assent and
ratification of the senate and people. This remark is applicable to
confederate governments also. Amphictyon, we are told, was the author
of that which bore his name. The Achaean league received its first birth
from Achaeus, and its second from Aratus.

What degree of agency these reputed lawgivers might have in their
respective establishments, or how far they might be clothed with
the legitimate authority of the people, cannot in every instance be
ascertained. In some, however, the proceeding was strictly regular.
Draco appears to have been intrusted by the people of Athens with
indefinite powers to reform its government and laws. And Solon,
according to Plutarch, was in a manner compelled, by the universal
suffrage of his fellow-citizens, to take upon him the sole and absolute
power of new-modeling the constitution. The proceedings under Lycurgus
were less regular; but as far as the advocates for a regular reform
could prevail, they all turned their eyes towards the single efforts of
that celebrated patriot and sage, instead of seeking to bring about a
revolution by the intervention of a deliberative body of citizens.

Whence could it have proceeded, that a people, jealous as the Greeks
were of their liberty, should so far abandon the rules of caution as to
place their destiny in the hands of a single citizen? Whence could it
have proceeded, that the Athenians, a people who would not suffer an
army to be commanded by fewer than ten generals, and who required no
other proof of danger to their liberties than the illustrious merit of
a fellow-citizen, should consider one illustrious citizen as a more
eligible depositary of the fortunes of themselves and their posterity,
than a select body of citizens, from whose common deliberations
more wisdom, as well as more safety, might have been expected? These
questions cannot be fully answered, without supposing that the fears
of discord and d