he aid of reason, the other by ignorance; we have next
to consider, what it is that gives motion to that species of Government
which is called mixed Government, or, as it is sometimes ludicrously
styled, a Government of this, that and t' other.

The moving power in this species of Government is, of necessity,
Corruption. However imperfect election and representation may be in
mixed Governments, they still give exercise to a greater portion of
reason than is convenient to the hereditary Part; and therefore it
becomes necessary to buy the reason up. A mixed Government is an
imperfect everything, cementing and soldering the discordant parts
together by corruption, to act as a whole. Mr. Burke appears highly
disgusted that France, since she had resolved on a revolution, did not
adopt what he calls "A British Constitution"; and the regretful manner
in which he expresses himself on this occasion implies a suspicion
that the British Constitution needed something to keep its defects in
countenance.

In mixed Governments there is no responsibility: the parts cover each
other till responsibility is lost; and the corruption which moves the
machine, contrives at the same time its own escape. When it is laid down
as a maxim, that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state
of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and
responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself. It then
descends upon the Minister, who shelters himself under a majority in
Parliament, which, by places, pensions, and corruption, he can always
command; and that majority justifies itself by the same authority with
which it protects the Minister. In this rotatory motion, responsibility
is thrown off from the parts, and from the whole.

When there is a Part in a Government which can do no wrong, it implies
that it does nothing; and is only the machine of another power, by whose
advice and direction it acts. What is supposed to be the King in the
mixed Governments, is the Cabinet; and as the Cabinet is always a part
of the Parliament, and the members justifying in one character what
they advise and act in another, a mixed Government becomes a continual
enigma; entailing upon a country by the quantity of corruption necessary
to solder the parts, the expense of supporting all the forms of
government at once, and finally resolving itself into a Government
by Committee; in which the advisers, the actors, the approvers, the
justifiers,