58 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



If we glance a look on the other States which 

 bear the name of Republic, we fnall find internal 

 diforder, and external weaknefs, increafing in pro- 

 portion to the inequality of the citizens. Poland 

 has referved to the Nobility exclufively, all the 

 authority, and left her Commonalty in the moft 

 deteftable flavery ; [o that war> which eftablifhes 

 between the citizens of one and the fame Nation, a 

 community of danger, eftablifhes, between thofe of 

 Poland, no community of reward. Her Hiftory 

 exhibits nothing but a long feries of bloody quar- 

 rels between Palatinate and Palatinate, City and 

 City, Family and Family, which have always ren- 

 dered her extremely miferable. The greateft part 

 of the Nobility themfelvcs are there reduced to 

 fuch wretchednefs, that they are obliged, for a 

 fubliftence, to ferve the Grandees in the moft con- 

 temptible employments, as our own Nobility for- 

 merly did under the feudal Government, and as is 

 the cafe to this day in Japan : for wherever the 

 pealantry are flaves, the yeomanry are menials. 

 The calamity has, at length, overtaken Poland, in 

 our own days, which would have fallen upon her 

 long ago, had not the Kingdoms which furround 

 her laboured then under the fame defects in their 

 feveral Conftitutions. She has been parcelled out 

 by her neighbours, in defpight of her long poli- 

 tical difcuffions, as the Empire of the Greeks was 



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