or a college of ten tribunes, an adequate repreſentation of themſelves. If Valerius had propoſed, that the conſul ſhould have been made an integral part of the legiſlature, and that the Roman people ſhould chooſe another council of two or three hundred, equally repreſenting them, to be another integral part, he would then have ſeen, that the appointment of a dictator could never in any caſe become neceſſary.
LETTER XXXIII.
ANCIENT REPUBLICS, AND OPINIONS
OF PHILOSOPHERS,
Plato.
My dear Sir,
PLATO has given us the moſt accurate detail of the natural viciſſitudes of manners and principles, the uſual progreſs of the paſſions in ſociety, and revolutions of governments into one another.
In the fourth book of his Republic, he deſcribes his perfect commonwealth, where kings are philoſophers, and philoſophers kings: where the whole city might be in the happieſt condition, and not any one tribe remarkably happy beyond the reſt: in one word, where the laws govern, and juſtice is eſtablilhed: where the guardians of the laws are ſuch in reality, and preſerve the conſtitution, inſtead of deſtroying it, and promote the happineſs of the whole city, not their own particularly: where the ſtate is one, not many: where
