me a degraded populace, not much
better, or less disorderly than the Lazzeroni of Naples. A donation of
corn was a bribe to a Roman citizen; {105} though there is not,
perhaps, an order of peasantry in the most remote corner of Europe,
who would consider such a donation in ordinary times as an object
either worthy of clamour or deserving of thanks. {106}

The Romans, at the time when Cincinatus held the plough, and the
conquerors of nations roasted their own turnips, would have thought
themselves degraded by eating bread obtained by such means; but it
was different with the Romans after they had conquered the world.

In a more recent example, we may trace a similar effect, arising from a
cause not very different.

---
{103} We know better about the laws and manners of the Romans
2000 years ago, in the time of the first Punic War, than about those of
England, in the time of Henry the Fourth. They had fixed laws, their
state was young, and the division of property tolerably equal.

{104} See Arbuthnot on Coins.

{105} Do not the soup-shops of late invention, and certainly well
intended, bear some resemblance to these days of Roman
wretchedness and magnificence.

{106} It is to be observed, these donations were not on account of
scarcity, but to save the people from the trouble of working to earn the
corn; they were become idle in body and degraded in mind.
-=-

[end of page #127]

The unequal division of property in France was one of the chief causes
of the revolution; the intention of which was, to overturn the then
existing order of things. The ignorance of the great proprietors
concerning of their true interests, and the smallness of their numbers,
disabled them from protecting themselves. The middle orders were
discontented, and wished for a change; and the lower orders were so
degraded, that, at the first signal, they became as mutinous and as
mean as the Plebians at Rome, in the days of its splendor. {107}

That this was not alone owing to the unequal division of property is
certain, there were other causes, but that was a principal one. As a
proof that this was so in England, where property is more equally
divided than it was in France, the common people are more attached
to government, and of a different spirit, though they are changing
since the late great influx of wealth into this country, and since
difficulties which have accumulated on the heads of the middle orders,
while those who have large fo