France be Athens, England Carthage, or Sweden Rome. Is it not, however, often asserted, that after having lost her simplicity, frugality, and poverty, Sparta was no more; that Athens, by encouraging public spectacles, ceased to conquer; instead of a Miltiades, an Aristides, a Themistocles, she had a Menander, a Plato, a Demosthenes? Charmed with the eloquence of Cicero, the poetry of Virgil and Horace, the Romans supinely neglected their country's freedom. Alarming examples these! alarming, indeed, for governments like these! But other causes sufficiently account for the destruction of liberty.
By the frantic rage of conquest, every small community must fall a victim to its own weakness, every extensive monarchy a prey to its own grandeur. The love of peace will not shield the former from the attacks of an ambitious neighbour, unavoidable necessity compels them to combat, to conquer, or to perish. A political truth this, which will throw some light on the ruins of ancient governments.
The Lacedemonians, designed by Lycurgus to be protected by valour, from equality and poverty to derive peace and contentment, to possess independence by ruling only over themselves; these people lost their strength, when, instead of preserving a system of self-defence, they committed hostilities upon others; engaged in war with a superior force, they soon ceased to be independent; their happiness was alike destroyed by the consequences of victory or of adverse fortune. Athens found it impossible to support undiminished that vigour of mind, that heroic
valour,
