it appeared to be healthy. Though in a certain sense the government of Rome could never have been a very good one, yet its early constitution undoubtedly possessed some of the qualities of strength in a remarkable degree. The constitutional legislation of Sulla was an attempt to restore at least some of the essential elements of the old Roman constitution. Whether it would have had any chance of success, we cannot say: for the usurpation of Cæsar soon after swept it all away; and in Rome, the forms as well as the substance of liberty perished for

ever.

In order to learn how far such a method of cure for this great national disease is applicable in any case, it will be necessary, first, to see whether there was a time when such nation had a healthy constitution; then, by what causes it lost such constitution. If this inquiry is fairly and clearly conducted, the remedy, if there be one, ought to be obvious enough.

Adam Smith having assumed standing armies to be the universal cause of the strength of nations, and having attempted, as we have seen, to account for the subjection of Greece by the Macedonians on that principle, proceeds to apply the same explanation to the ascendancy of Rome. After mentioning the rise of the Macedonians and their conquests as the first great revolution in the affairs of mankind, he goes on to say: "The fall of Carthage, and the conse

quent elevation of Rome, is the second. All the varieties in the fortune of those two famous republics may very well be accounted for, from the same cause." So far is this from being the fact, that they may very well be accounted for from the superiority of a good militia over a standing army.

We know extremely little about the government of Carthage, but we know that it had not a territory of sufficient extent to furnish the materials of a good militia, which Rome had; and at that time the militia of Rome possessed all the conditions of excellence, consisting of hardy soldiers (who for the most part tilled their own small farms with their own hands), led by officers whom they knew and trusted, and who were always willing to sacrifice their lives in the defence of their country. And such have always constituted the conditions of a real militia, whether under the Spartan or Roman burgher, the feudal baron or the Highland chief, when all alike obeyed the summons of duty:

"Chief, vassal, page, and groom, tenant and master;"

and as on Flodden's fatal field—

"Each stepping where his comrade stood,

The instant that he fell;

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,

As fearlessly and well."

In regard to Hannibal, any one who has carefully read the history of his campaigns knows that the troops on which he depended most were his Spanish

infantry and his Numidian horse; which shows that Carthage could not furnish from her own territory the materials either of a militia or a standing army. It is indeed true, as Adam Smith says, that Scipio's militia became a well-disciplined and well-exercised standing army, which the troops that Hannibal had hastily got together were unable to withstand at the battle of Zama. But why were the many victories, each of them far greater than Scipio's victory at Zama, gained by Hannibal in Italy, not followed by the fall of Rome, while Scipio's victory at Zama was followed by the ruin of Carthage? Precisely because Rome had a substantial militia, and Carthage had no such militia.

"From the end of the second Carthaginian war,” continues the same writer, "till the fall of the Roman republic, the armies of Rome were in every respect standing armies." And what was the consequence? From that time the real strength of Rome began to decline; even though in the brief period of fifty-three years Rome conquered the greater part of the world

-so little is extensive empire a proof of real strength in a nation: a fact which it would be well for some modern nations, particularly England, to ponder on.

Adam Smith then proceeds to attribute the success that attended the Roman armies to their being standing armies, while, with the exception of Macedon, the forces opposed to them were militias. The real cause of the success of the Roman armies was that they

F

were superior in knowledge of the art of war to all those whom they attacked, and in such civilization as then existed to all, with the exception of Greece, Syria, and Egypt-nations which had long lost all their manly and military qualities.

So eager is Adam Smith to depreciate militias, that he attempts to account for the ultimate ruin of the Roman empire, not from its true cause-its being without the materials to form either a good militia or a good standing army-but by giving to its demoralized standing army the name of a militia.

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CHAPTER V.

THE SPANIARDS AND THE TURKS.

We have seen, in the cases of Sparta and Rome, how nations, by assiduously cultivating the qualities of courage, hardihood, temperance, and patriotism in their citizens,-by, to use the words of Lord Bacon," professing arms as their principal honour, study, and occupation,” have become powerful. We have also seen how, in the course of time, when, by the operation of a bad government, the qualities of fortitude, temperance, and patriotism were no longer encouraged and cultivated, but, on the contrary, were discouraged and neglected, those same nations became weak, and lost, first, their power, and then altogether their place among nations. But the power of a bad government varies in the mode of its operation in the destruction of a nation's strength, being sometimes very rapid, sometimes comparatively very slow. The Spaniards and Turks furnish respectively striking examples of these two modes of operation.

The Spaniards and Turks were remarkable, the former for possessing some of the best infantry, the