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38 Dr ARNOLD ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION. There are few subjects connected with the history and antiquities of Greece on which the researches of modern scholars have thrown a greater light, than on the structure of the Lacedaemonian constitution. The learned compilations of Cragius and Meursius were little more than compilations ; and although these laborious writers left only scanty glean- ings of information to be collected by their successors, yet they were unable to arrange into an uniform whole, and to present in a succinct and intelligible form, the mate- rials which their diligence had raked together. It was reserved for the acuteness and learning of MuUer, aided by a comprehensive view of the political relations of the ancient Greek and Italian states, to read in the traditions and accounts of the Spartan government its true form and condition ; and even if there are some places in which his enquiries may be amended or enlarged, and if his judgement is sometimes warped by his predilection for the dominant Spartans, yet his discussion has left little to be done by succeeding writers. Assisted by the researches of Miiller, and other late writers on the same subject, Dr Arnold has written a disser- tation on the history and nature of the Spartan constitution, which he has appended to the first volume of his Thucy- dides- The account in Thuc. i. 87. of the popular assembly of Sparta induced him to offer an explanation of the seeming paradox of a democratical assembly in an aristocratical state. In the development of his reasons he has undoubtedly de- scribed with perfect accuracy and great ability the charac- teristic features of the Lacedaemonian state : nevertheless as it appears to me that his solution of the difficulty proposed