Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/49

Rh principium, sacerdotum, et reliqui populi. And for the election of an archbishop, the Saxon Chronicle says. That he commanded by letters all bishops, abbots, and thanes, to meet him at Gloucester, ad procerum conventum. Lastly, some affirm these assemblies to have been an imitation of the three estates in Normandy. I am very sensible how much time and pains have been employed by several learned men to search out the original of parliaments in England, wherein I doubt they have little satisfied others or themselves. I know likewise that to engage in the same inquiry, would neither suit my abilities nor my subject. It may be sufficient for my purpose, if I be able to give some little light into this matter, for the curiosity of those who are less informed.

The institution of a state or commonwealth out of a mixture of the three forms of government received in the schools, however it be derided as a solecism and absurdity by some late writers on politicks, has been very ancient in the world, and is celebrated by the gravest authors of antiquity. For, although the supreme power cannot properly be said to be divided, yet it may be so placed in three several hands, as each to be a check upon the other; or formed into a balance, which is held by him that has the executive power, with the nobility and people in counterpoise in each scale. Thus the kingdom of Media is represented by Xenophon before the reign of Cyrus; so Polybius tells us, the best government is a mixture of the three forms, regno, optimatium, et populi imperio: the same was that of Sparta in its primitive institution by Lycurgus, made up of reges, seniores, et populus; the like may be asserted of Rome, Carthage, and other states: and