The Roman government gave the whole legislative power to the commons, without allowing a negative either to the nobility or consuls. This unbounded power the commons possessed in a collective, not in a representative body. The consequences were—when the people, by success and conquest, had become very numerous and had spread themselves to a great distance from the capital, the city tribes, though the most contemptible, carried almost every vote. They were, therefore, most cajoled by every one who affected popularity; they were supported in idleness by the general distribution of corn, and by particular bribes, which they received from almost every candidate. By this means they became every day more licentious, and the Campus Martius was a perpetual scene of tumult and sedition: armed slaves were introduced among these rascally citizens, so that the whole government fell into anarchy, and the greatest happiness which the Romans could look for was the despotic power of the Cæsars. Such are the effects of democracy without a representative. A nobility may possess the whole or any part of the legislative power of a state in two different ways. Either every nobleman shares the power as part of the whole body, or the whole body enjoys the power as composed of parts which have each a distinct power and authority. The Venetian aristocracy is an instance of the first kind of government; the Polish of the second. In the Venetian government the whole body of nobility possesses the whole power, and no nobleman has any authority which he receives not from the whole. In the Polish government every nobleman, by means of his fiefs, has a peculiar hereditary authority over his vassals, and the whole body has no authority but what it receives from the concurrence of its parts. The distinct operations and tendencies of these two species of government might be made most apparent even _à priori_. A Venetian nobility is infinitely preferable to a Polish, let the humours and education of men be ever so much varied. A nobility who possess their power in common will preserve peace and order both among themselves and their subjects, and no member can have authority enough to control the laws for a moment. The nobles will preserve their authority over the people, but without any grievous tyranny or any breach of private property, because such a tyrannical government promotes not the interest of the whole body, however it may that of some individuals. There will be a distinction of rank between the nobility and people, but this will be the only distinction in the state. The whole nobility will form one body, and the whole people another, without any of those private feuds and animosities which spread ruin and desolation everywhere. It is easy to see the disadvantages of a Polish nobility in every one of these particulars.