POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of qualified citizens went on continually diminishing : &quot; the 

 implication being not only a relatively-increased power of the 

 oligarchy, but, probably, a growing supremacy of the wealthier 

 members within the oligarchy itself. Turning to the case of 

 Home, ever militant, we find that in course of time inequali 

 ties increased to the extent that the senate became &quot;an 

 order of lords, filling up its ranks by hereditary succession, 

 and exercising collegiate misrule.&quot; Moreover, &quot; out of the evil 

 of oligarchy there emerged the still worse evil of usurpation 

 of power by particular families.&quot; In the Italian Eepublics, 

 again, perpetually at war one with another, there resulted a 

 kindred narrowing of the governing body. The nobility, 

 deserting their castles, began to direct &quot; the municipal govern 

 ment of the cities, which consequently, during this period of 

 the Eepublics, fell chiefly into the hands of the superior fami 

 lies.&quot; Then at a later stage, when industrial progress had 

 generated wealthy commercial classes, these, competing with 

 the nobles for power, and finally displacing them, repeated 

 within their respective bodies this same process. The richer 

 gilds deprived the poorer of their shares in the choice of the 

 ruling agencies; the privileged class was continually dimi 

 nished by disqualifying regulations ; and newly risen families 

 were excluded by those of long standing. So that, as Sis- 

 mondi points out, those of the numerous Italian Eepublics 

 which remained nominally such at the close of the fifteenth 

 century, were, like &quot; Sienna and Lucca, each governed by a 

 single caste of citizens : . . . had no longer popular govern 

 ments.&quot; A kindred result occurred among the Dutch. 

 During the wars of the Flemish cities with the nobles and 

 with one another, the relatively popular governments of the 

 towns were narrowed. The greater gilds excluded the lesser 

 from the ruling body ; and their members, &quot; clothed in the 

 municipal purple . . . ruled with the power of an aristo 

 cracy . . . the local government was often an oligarchy, 

 while the spirit of the burghers was peculiarly democratic.&quot; 

 And with these illustrations may be joined that furnished by 



