Thi 11IGHT CONSTITUTION ofa COMMON-WEALTH EXAMINED,(in continuation.)

FLORENCE too, and Cofinus, are quoted,and the alternatives of" treachery, revenge, andcruelty ; all arising, as they did in Greece, fromthe want of a properdivision of authority and anequal balance. Let any one read the liiltory ofthe lirft Colinio, his wisdom, virtues, and un-bounded «opularity, and then conlider whatwould have been the consequence if Florence, atthat period, had been governed by our author'splanof successive single aflemblies, chosen by thepeople annually. It is plain that the peoplewould have chosen such, and such only, for re-presentatives as Cofimo and his friends wouldhave recommended : at lealt a vast majority ofthem would have been his followers, and hewould have been absolute. It was the aristocra-cy and forms of the old constitution that aloneserved as a check upon him. The speech of Uz-zano must convince you, that the people weremore ready to make him absolute than ever theRomans were to make Casfar a perpetual dicta-tor. He confefles that Cofimo was followed bythe whole body of the plebeians, and by one halfthe nobles: Thar if Cofimo was not made malterof the Commonwealth, Rinaldo would be, whomhe dreaded much more. In truth, the govern-mental this time was in reality becomemonarch-ical, and that ill-digested aristocracy, whichtheycalled a popularState, exiftedonlyin form ;and the persecution of Cofimo only served to ex-plain the secret. Will it be denied that a na-tion has a right to choose a government for them-selves ? The question really was no more thanthis, whether Rinaldo or Cofimo ihould be mas-ter. The nation declared for Cofimo, reversedthat banishment into which he had been very un-juftiyfent by Rinaldo, demanded his return, andvotedhim thefather of hiscountry. This aloneis full proof, that if the people had been thekeepers of their own liberties, in their fuceel-five aflemblies, they would have given them allto Cofimo ; whereas, had there been an equalmixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democra-cy, in that constitution, the noblesand commonswould have united against Cofimo the moment heattempted to overleap the boundariesof his legalauthority. Uzzano confeffes, that unless charity,liberality and beneficence, were crimes, Cofimowas guilty of no offence, and that there was asmuch to apprehend from his own party as fromthe other, in the point of liberty. All the sub-sequent attempts of Rinaldo to put Cofimo todeath and to banifli him were unqualified tyran-ny. He saved hislife, itistrue, by a bribe, butwhat kind of patrons of liberty were those whowould betray it for a bribe ? His recall and re-turn frombanifliment feerns to have been the ge-neral voice of the nation, exprcfled, accordingto theforms and spirit oftheprefentwithout any appearanceof such treachery as ourauthor suggests. Whether Nedham knew thereal history of Florence is very problematical;all his examplesfrom it are so unfortunate as tobe conclulive againsthis proje