I have here given the sentiments of Polybius (and almost in his own words) from that excellent dissertation on government, preserved to us in the sixth book of his history, which I would recommend to the perusal of my countrymen. He there traces government up to its first origin. He explains the principles, by which different governments arose to the summit of their power and grandeur, and proves, that they sunk to ruin by a more or less rapid progress, in proportion as they receded more or less from the first principles on which they were originally founded. He survived the ruin of all the Grecian republicks, as well as Carthage, and lived (as he more than once tells us) to see the Romans masters of the known world. Blest with parts and learning superior to most men of his time, joined to the most solid judgment, and the experience of eighty-two years; no man better understood the intrinsick nature of government in general. No man could with more certainty foretel the various mutations, which so frequently happen in different forms of government, which must be ever in a fluctuating state, from the complicated variety of the human passions. Nor can any man give us better hints, than he has done, for guarding against the effects of those dangerous passions, and preserving the constitution of a free people in its full force and vigour. Of all the legislators (which he knew of) he prefers Lycurgus, whom he looks upon rather as divinely inspired, than as a mere man. He esteems the plan of government, which he established at Sparta, the most perfect, and proposes it as a general model worthy the imitation of every other community; and he remarks, that the Spartans, by adhering to that plan, preserved their liberty longer than any other nation of the known world.