Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/212

204 seem utterly ignorant, farther than a quotation or index. They would fain derive our government as now constituted, from antiquity: And because they have seen Tacitus quoted for his Majoribus omnes; and have read of the Goths military institution in their progress and conquests, they presently dream of a parliament. Had their reading reached so far, they might have deduced it much more fairly from Aristotle and Polybius; who both distinctly name the composition of rex, seniores, et populus; and the latter, as I remember particularly, with the highest approbation. The princes in the Saxon Heptarchy did indeed call their nobles sometimes together upon weighty affairs, as most other princes of the world have done in all ages. But, they made war and peace, and raised money, by their own authority: they gave or mended laws by their charters, and they raised armies by their tenures. Besides, some of those kingdoms fell in by conquests, before England was reduced under one head, and therefore could pretend no rights, but by the concessions of the conqueror.

Farther, which is more material, upon the admission of Christianity, great quantities of land were acquired by the clergy, so that the great council of the nation was often entirely of churchmen, and ever a considerable part. But our present constitution is an artificial thing, not fairly to be traced, in my opinion, beyond Henry I. Since which time it has in every age admitted several alterations; and differs now as much, even from what it was then, as almost any two species of government described by Aristotle. And it would be much more reasonable to affirm, that the government of Rome continued the