Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/380

328 and Rome, what, conclusions may naturally be formed for instruction of any other state, that may haply upon many points labour under the like circumstances.





PON the subject of impeachments we may observe, that the custom of accusing the nobles to the people, either by themselves, or their orators, (now styled an impeachment in the name of the commons) has been very ancient both in Greece and Rome, as well as Carthage; and therefore may seem to be the inherent right of a free people, nay, perhaps it is really so: but then it is to be considered, first, that this custom was peculiar to republicks, or such states where the administration lay principally in the hands of the commons, and ever raged more or less, according to their encroachments upon absolute power; having been always looked upon by the wisest men and best authors of those times, as an effect of licentiousness, and not of liberty; a distinction, which no multitude, either represented or collective, has been at any time very nice in observing. However, perhaps this custom in a popular state of impeaching particular men, may seem to be nothing else, but the people's choosing upon occasion to exercise their own jurisdiction in person; as if a king of England should sit as chief justice in his court of king's bench; which, they say, in former times he sometimes did. But in Sparta,