remodelling of an oligarchy by an oligarch. The oligarchy was almost destitute of virtues, and the oligarch was wholly exempt from illusions. To paraphrase his own saying, he built the fortress, but he could not answer for the garrison. Mr Froude thoroughly appreciates this aspect of the achievement; but it has another aspect to which, we think, he scarcely does justice. Sulla was, indeed, an aristocrat of the aristocrats; his object was to place the rule of the aristocracy on a permanent basis; but in doing this he was not merely the champion of the optimates against the democrats; he was what any clear-sighted legislator, armed with such powers, must necessarily be in such times—the vindicator of order against anarchy. Montesquieu is by no means a great admirer of Sulla; he points out various ways in which Sulla undermined the Republic, by relaxing the discipline and stimulating the avidity of the army, by setting the example of entering Rome in arms, and so violating the asylum of liberty, by those proscriptions which made men feel that there was no safety save in the camp of a faction, and thus estranged them from the common cause. But he recognises that Sulla's measures were at least calculated to restore the reign of law; and therefore, we think, Montesquieu's view of Sulla is, on the whole, fairer than Mr Froude's. The system which Sulla established could not, indeed, escape early disaster when administered by the men in whose hands he was compelled to leave it; nor, even if these administrators had been more efficient, could
