A Genoese or a Venetian republic is a concealed _despotism_; where you find the same pride of the rulers, the same base subjection of the people, the same bloody maxims of a suspicious policy.

In one respect the _aristocracy_ is worse than the _despotism_.

A body politic, whilst it retains its authority, never changes its maxims; a _despotism_, which is this day horrible to a supreme degree, by the caprice natural to the heart of man, may, by the same caprice otherwise exerted, be as lovely the next; in a succession, it is possible to meet with some good princes.

If there have been Tiberiuses, Caligulas, Neros, there have been likewise the serener days of Vespasians, Tituses, Trajans, and Antonines; but a body politic is not influenced by caprice or whim, it proceeds in a regular manner, its succession is insensible; and every man as he enters it, either has, or soon attains, the spirit of the whole body.

Never was it known that an _aristocracy_, which was haughty and tyrannical in one century, became easy and mild in the next.