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SECONDLY. The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers. THIRDLY. The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state.
Pericles seized the occasion presented by the ill success of Cimon, both to ruin that leader and to strike a fatal blow at the aristocratical party. He deprived the Areopagus of its chief functions, and left it a mere shadow of its former influence and power.
With these eminent persons was joined Sir Robert Clayton, the wealthiest merchant of London, whose palace in the Old Jewry surpassed in splendour the aristocratical mansions of Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden, whose villa among the Surrey hills was described as a garden of Eden, whose banquets vied with those of Kings, and whose judicious munificence, still attested by numerous public monuments, had obtained for him in the annals of the City a place second only to that of Gresham.
He pointed out the natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this composition, to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former and become the predominant section by the aid of public opinion, without any essential sacrifice of the aristocratical predominance.
The inhabitants of the Albaycin, the poorest but most warlike part of the populace, were generally in his favor: the more rich, courtly, and aristocratical inhabitants of the quarter of the Alhambra rallied round what appeared to be the most stable authority and supported the throne of El Zagal.
We think the observation unphilosophical; and it is because the old aristocratical system of England received a heavy blow in 1832 that we believe a king of that country could make himself a ruler in fact as well as in theory.
It is certain, that, whatever we may determine concerning the constituent members of the Wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the legislature resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period preceding the Norman conquest, was become extremely aristocratical; the royal authority was very limited; the people, even if admitted to that assembly, were of little or no weight and consideration.
The Reform Bill, instead of proving an aristocratic measure, has wellnigh rendered aristocratical government impossible in England; and as a democracy in that country is as much out of the question as a well-ordered monarchy is in America, a return to a true regal government would seem to be the only course left for England, if she desires to have a strong government.
Aristides being the friend and supporter of that Clisthenes, who settled the government after the expulsion of the tyrants, and emulating and admiring Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian above all politicians, adhered to the aristocratical principles of government; and had Themistocles, son to Neocles, his adversary on the side of the populace.
The state of things that is thus presented, and which must become every year of a more pronounced character, is one that would be highly favorable to the exertions of a prince who should seek to make himself felt as the wielder of the sceptre, and who should exert himself to rise from the presidency of an aristocratical corporation, which is all that a British monarch now is, to the place of king of a great and free people.
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