by
bribing some base and ignoble fellow to fasten himself on to those other
plebeians of better quality who were seeking the office, and become
a candidate conjointly with them. The latter device made the people
ashamed to give, the former ashamed to refuse.

This confirms what I said in my last Chapter, as to the people deceiving
themselves in generalities but not in particulars.

CHAPTER XLIX.--_That if Cities which, like Rome, had their beginning
in Freedom, have had difficulty in framing such Laws as would preserve
their Freedom, Cities which at the first have been in Subjection will
find this almost impossible._

How hard it is in founding a commonwealth to provide it with all the
laws needed to maintain its freedom, is well seen from the history of
the Roman Republic. For although ordinances were given it first by
Romulus, then by Numa, afterwards by Tullus Hostilius and Servius, and
lastly by the Ten created for the express purpose, nevertheless, in the
actual government of Rome new needs were continually developed, to meet
which, new ordinances had constantly to be devised; as in the creation
of the censors, who were one of the chief means by which Rome was kept
free during the whole period of her constitutional government. For as
the censors became the arbiters of morals in Rome, it was very much
owing to them that the progress of the Romans towards corruption was
retarded. And though, at the first creation of the office, a mistake was
doubtless made in fixing its term at five years, this was corrected not
long after by the wisdom of the dictator Mamercus, who passed a law
reducing it to eighteen months; a change which the censors then in
office took in such ill part, that they deprived Mamercus of his rank
as a senator. This step was much blamed both by the commons and the
Fathers; still, as our History does not record that Mamercus obtained
any redress, we must infer either that the Historian has omitted
something, or that on this head the laws of Rome were defective; since
it is never well that the laws of a commonwealth should suffer a citizen
to incur irremediable wrong because he promotes a measure favourable to
freedom.

But returning to the matter under consideration, we have, in connection
with the creation of this new office, to note, that if those cities
which, as was the case with Rome, have had their beginning in freedom,
and have by themselves maintained that freedom, have experienced gre