consisting of twenty-nine, and of thirty days, alternately; and each month was divided into three decades. On the days immediately preceding the first decade of the first month, called Hecatombaion, in allusion to the numerous sacrifices by which it was distinguished, the Athenians from the wards in the city, and the districts in the country, amounting collectively to one hundred and seventy-four in number, assembled in the public market-place of the capital, in order to elect the senate, the archons, and other annual magistrates. For the purpose of conducting these elections, as well as other public matters, with the greater regularity and expedition, the people voted by divisions, called tribes; which were four in the time of Solon, but raised to ten by Clisthenes, who restored the republic after the expulsion of Hippias. From persons properly qualified in point of age, character, and fortune, each of the ten tribes chose by lot fifty senators, who formed collectively the senate of the five hundred for the succeeding year. To the senate thus constituted, another body was aggregated, to supply the place of those senators who might be removed by death, or dismissed for malversation in office. The whole senators, actual and supplemental, were divided into ten classes, representing the ten tribes; each of which enjoyed presidency in rotation. The order of this pre-eminence was also determined by lot. The fifty presiding senators were entitled the Prytanes; the hall in which they assembled and dined, the Prytaneum; and the period of thirty-five days, during which they held their dignity, was called a Prytany. This period was divided into five weeks; and the fifty Prytanes into five companies, cach consisting of ten persons, and each presiding in the senate during its respective week. From these presidents of presidents, a single person was chosen by lot to preside in the senate for a single day, during which he was entrusted with the command of the citadel, the key of the treasury, and the custody of the public seal of the commonwealth. The nine other tribes attained the honour of the Prytany, each in the order which had been established by lot; and their presiding companies, as well as the president himself, were appointed precisely in the manner above described. With this representative body, Solon lodged the most important branches of sovereignty. The senate convened daily: it prepared all matters of deliberation for the popular assembly; no measure could be lawfully enforced by the people which had not been previously approved by the senate; and the senate, independently of the people, made laws which had force for a year, that is, during the period of its own existence. The presidents of the senate also presided in the popular assembly; summoned its extraordinary meetings by their authority; put the question to a vote; collected the suffrages; and having declared the will of the majority, dissolved the assembly. The senate, therefore, enjoyed the principal share in the Legislative and executive powers of government; but the judicature was merely a temporary commission, exercised by juries chosen by lot from the people at large. These juries were directed in their proceedings by the nine archons, who were annually appointed at the same time with the senate, and from persons of the same description with those qualified to sit in that council. In the stated assemblies

held

held at the end of every year, and commonly during the last four days of it, the people also appointed the military commanders, the surveyors of roads and buildings, the commissaries and controllers of accounts, and a variety of other officers; each department of office. commonly containing ten citizens, that the ten tribes might be respectively represented, each by one of its own members.

Solon could not foresee the events which destroyed this political' arrangement. He foresaw, however, that it was extremely liable to destruction. He was fully apprized of the danger of tyranny, by which the republic was first assailed, and of the danger of democracy, by which it was finally ruined. The regulations which he established, were admirably calculated to prevent both those evils. I shall not here dwell on the judicious plan of public education which he prescribed and enforced, or on the admired authority of the Areopagus, which he extended or confirmed; institutions respectively adapted to maintain the equality of freedom on the one hand, and to uphold a fair and moderate aristocracy on the other. This aristocracy was, still farther strengthened by the laws regulating the mode of proceeding in the popular assembly, which subjected to a rigorous perquisition the lives and characters and qualifications of the orators entitled to address the people, and which gave a legal precedency in every debate to those speakers who had past their fiftieth year. But these wise

regulations, all breathing the same spirit, were unable to resist the storms by which a republic enriched by commerce and elated by conquest must ever necessarily be assailed. They could not prevent the multitude assembled in a large luxurious city from yielding to the perfidious voice of demagogues, while they encouraged the people at large to become managers of their own affairs; to act on every occa-, sion as their own ministers; and thereby to destroy that line of dis tinction between the sovereign and the subject, on the unalterable continuance of which the stability of good government will ever most firmly rest, under every fluctuation of external circumstances, of prosperity or adversity, simplicity or refinement.'

In an appendix to the second book, Dr. Gillies inserts an interesting account of the little republic of St. Marino. A picture of this commonwealth, as delineated by him twenty years. ago, from ocular observation, was first made public in that agreeable work, as he justly terms it, "Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, chiefly of the present and two preceding Centuries." We are glad to find, in the appendix before us, an enlarged reprint of the same account, enriched and confirmed by original documents, extracted, through the interest of Sir John Cox Hippesley, from the archives of the republic, and communicated to the Doctor by Sir John Macpherson. Every one who reads it will lament the "domiciliary visit," which this seat of simplicity and liberty has lately received from "the Great Nation."

See Review, vol. xvii. N. S. p. 442.

In

In the 6th book of the politics, we find the ground-work of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws: Aristotle discusses in it the relation between laws and forms of government. The seventh treats, more fully than any work antient or modern, on the subject of political revolutions. In the introduction to that book, the translator applies Aristotle's principles to the affairs of the present day, and particularly to the suppression of the revolutionary spirit now so prevalent. He observes:

Aristotle continually inculcates and repeats, that the propriety of practical things lies not in an indivisible point, but in a broad middle; that in them nice accuracy is not to be aimed at; but that we must be contented in politics with such a degree of perfection as suits the coarseness of the subject; nor preposterously forego, by over-refinement in one point of advantage, other advantages still more solid; relinquish certainty for hope; or incur the danger of real evil for the sake of imaginary improvement.

Of all political errors (an error long prevalent in the practice as well as in the theory of the Greek republics) the greatest is that of thinking that the institutions of one people may be safely communicated to another, differently endowed and differently circumstanced. Men are no where to be found unwritten tablets. Their minds are deeply impressed by education and habit, as well as by the events of time and chance, which giving to each nation its distinctive character, peculiarly adapt it to that form of political arrangement into which it has been gradually moulded. The establishing of governments is the work of time; and to new-model them successfully and happily, requires still more time than originally to establish them; because laws operate as practical principles of moral conduct, and old principles must be obliterated by time and custom, before the new can by the same means be communicated and impressed. Men destitute of principles are the most odious and most abominable of savages; and practical principles are to be acquired by practice only; they are the resultof repeated acts, fortified by time and familiarised by custom. Yet in direct opposition to these maxims of reason, confirmed by universal experience, we have seen the revolutionary doctrines which prevailed in the worst times of Greece, revived in the present age; and a single nation proposing in a tone of authority the institutions, which she herself has thought fit to adopt, to all the countries around her; and, in her eagerness not only to diffuse her political principles as extensively as the world, but to reduce them every where to practice, striving, with the cruel tyranny of Procrustes, to fit the body of each captive traveller to her murderous and torturing bed.'

In closing our review of this work, we may be permitted to make a reflection which the perusal of it has suggested to us.It has been frequently remarked that a modern education does not form young men for action; and that the more, in the course of their studies, they have been devoted to literary pursuits, and the greater their attainments in them are, the less are the students qualified for the conduct of public or private affairs. This has

6

frequently

frequently occasioned a wish that, when their studies draw to la close, such books were put into their hands as would prepare them for the scenes of contention and business, in which they must engage as soon as they take their final leave of the college, and enter on active life. Horace's Epistles, and other works of a similar nature, with which their classical education generally ends, are not of this description. They are more proper for leading a man to that train of thought, which, according to the beautiful expression of the French, the return of age brings upon him, than to dispose him to act his part well in the period of exertion and vigour;

"When youth, elate and gay,

Steps into life, and follows unrestrain?d,

Where passion leads or prudence points the way." LOWTH. For the period of which we speak, we do not know a more proper publication than that now before us.--Aristotle's morals and politics certainly rank among the most useful treatises that have been written on these important and interesting subjects; at the same time that his doctrines, being founded on the antient philosophy, must be pleasing to every ear which is accustomed to classical sounds; and his illustrations, being always taken from the laws and manners of antient republics, must have particular charms for those to whom the old republics, and their poets and historians, have been so long familiar.

This work may therefore, with singular propriety, be put into the hand of every student whose academical course draws to a conclusion: it will open to him the great scene of active life which is so new to him, and which it is so much his interest to begin well; it will point out to him the manner in which his classical attainments may be most usefully applied by him in his pursuits of business or pleasure; and, in the interval of his ceasing to be a student and commencing the man of the world, it will be an excellent manual;-delectabit domi, non impediet foris. With these views, Dr. Gillies seems to have successfully striven that Aristotle should appear to the English reader with every advantage: that the treatises with which he has presented us should be thought as perspicuous as they are profound: that his author's moral and political wisdom should be generally known and understood; that the translation should reflect the chaste and nervous elegance of the original; and that, by the copious observations with which the introductory parts of the work and the notes are replete, the student should see the connection between the antient and modern theories of government, and be enabled to apply to the occurrences of the present day, (in which he himself may, REV. JULY, 1798. perhaps,

Y

perhaps, be called to perform a part,) the political lucubrations of the most celebrated writer of antiquity on morals and politics. But..r.

ART. VIII. Letters and Papers on Agriculture, Planting, &c. selected from the Correspondence of the Bath and West of England Society, for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Vol. VIII. 8vo. pp. 446. 6s. Boards. Crutwell, Bath; Dilly, London.

TH

HE miscellaneous contents of this volume are prefaced with a sensible and well-written introduction by the Secretary, Mr. Matthews; in which he states the leading objects that have engaged the attention of the Bath Society since its last publication. These appear to be, A General Inclosure Bill,-the Erection of decent Cottages for the domestic Comfort of the Poor,-Benefit Clubs,-Culture of Potatoes,-Corn-Mills,Sale of Flour to the Poor,-Breed of Sheep and Neat Cattle, and-an Alteration in the State of Tythes.

Whether the observations exhibited under these respective heads are to be considered as the sentiments of the Society, or only those of the Secretary, we cannot say: but, on the whole, we may pronounce them to be extremely judicious, and such as do equal credit to the head and the heart by which they were dictated. This introduction is so valuable, both on account of the importance of the subjects and of the manner in which they are discussed, that we could wish that it were printed in a separate pamphlet, and circulated through the kingdom. In saying this, we would not be understood as approving every thing which it contains, but as wishing to invite discussion; though for the most part we could cordially subscribe to what the writer has advanced.

On the first topic which Mr. M. discusses, and in the recommendation of which he is very strenuous, we do not altogether agree with him. A general inclosure bill may be so constituted as to operate to the benefit of the nation: but, if the clauses and provisions of such a bill be not framed on the most liberal and patriotic principles, the passing it into a law would rather serve to perpetuate than to remedy evil. The amelioration of the condition of the poor is often the pretext for inclosure bills, but we have our doubts, with regard to the principles on which they are generally formed, of their beneficial operation in this respect. It is not therefore any inclosure bill that we would recommend.

Could we be consulted in the formation of a general' inclosure bill, we should be for constructing it entirely on national prin

ciples.