endeavour to distinguish themselves by whatever happens at that time to be the reigning object of applause. Hence too we may observe the progressive order, in which the manners of any people prepared the way for every remarkable mutation in their government. For no essential mutation can ever be effected in any government (unless by the violence of external force) until the prevailing manners of the people are ripe for such a change. Consequently, as like causes will ever produce like effects; when we observe the same similarity of manners prevailing amongst our own people, with that which preceded the last fatal mutation of government in any other free nation; we may, at such a time, give a shrewd guess at the approaching fate of our constitution and country. Thus in the infancy and rise of the Grecian republicks, when necessity of self-defence had given a manly and warlike turn to the temper of the people, and the continuance of the same necessity had fixed it into a habit, the love of their country soon became the reigning object of publick applause. As this reigning object consequently became the chief object of desire to every one who was ambitious of publick applause, it quickly grew to be the fashion. The whole people in those states glowed with the generous principle of publick virtue to the highest degree of enthusiasm. Wealth had then no charms, and all the bewitching pleasures of luxury were unknown, or despised. And those brave people courted and embraced toils, danger, and even death itself, with the greatest ardour, in pursuit of this darling object of their universal wishes. Every man planned, toiled, and bled, not for himself, but for his country. Hence the produce of those ages was a race of patriot statesmen and real heroes. This generous principle gave rise to those seminaries of manly bravery and heroick emulation, the Olympick, Isthmian, and other publick games. To obtain the victory at those scenes of publick glory was esteemed the utmost summit of human felicity, a wreath of wild olive, laurel or parsley (the victor’s prize) that _palma nobilis_, as Horace terms it, which _Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos_,