hould ever again
exist a powerful and civilised state, which, after existing through
thirteen hundred eventful years, should not bequeath to mankind the
memory of one great name or one generous action.

Many writers, and Mr Mitford among the number, have admired the
stability of the Spartan institutions; in fact, there is little to
admire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the weakest and the most
stable of governments; and it is stable because it is weak. It has a
sort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the balance of Sanctorius;
it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seized
with an hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at every
breath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and thus, without ever
enjoying a day of health or pleasure, drags on its existence to a doting
and debilitated old age.

The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its
existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity abroad. They
cringed to the powerful; they trampled on the weak; they massacred their
helots; they betrayed their allies; they contrived to be a day too
late for the battle of Marathon; they attempted to avoid the battle of
Salamis; they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives
and liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the
Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the
Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which
exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make
them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their
walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they
commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with
Athens; they abandoned it in violation of their engagements with
their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed
themselves under their protection; they bartered, for advantages
confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives
of those who had served them most faithfully; they took with equal
complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of
Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained
from no injury, and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on a
citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy. These are the
arts which protract the existence of government.

Nor were the domestic institutions of Laced