IN REPUBLICS. 371 
already sung by a great poet, * would 
furnish their historian with a rich and 
brilliant subject. Hitherto, we have not 
been enabled to compare those in which 
ants engage, to those of any other species 
of animals. 
If it be true, that war is one of the 
consequences of social order, what shall 
we be induced to think, on perceiving 
regular armies issuing from the gates 
of two rival cities, and going to the ren- 
contre upon an eminence, where battle is 
given, and where equal courage and car- 
nage are displayed on each side? What 
shall we say of those bodies of troops, 
who only wait the signal of danger, to 
come to the assistance of the advanced 
guard? of those champions, which 
struggle in pairs? of those chains of 
wrestlers, who balance their strength, and 
seize the favourable moment to destroy 
the equilibrium ? of those prisoners led 
* Vide Virgil's Georgics; 4th Canto. These 
combats have been described with great accuracy 
by the poet. — A, 
rR 6 
