the beginning of Livy’s Hiftory, we find 
Kim propofing to write on the affairs popu- 
i Romani, whom he. foon after terms 
princeps terrarum populus ; conformable to 
which phrafe is Virgil’s 
»——Populum late regem, belloque fuperbum: 
A people reigning wide, and proud in war. 
+ This is, likewife, the firf fenfe afcribed 
by Johnfon to the word people, though I 
mutt obferve that his quotation from Co- 
riolanus, ‘* What is the city but the peo-. 
ple?” is not very conclufive, fince it is 
fpoken by the plebeian tribune Sicinius, 
who might ule it in.a party fenfe. Indeed 
there are fome remarkable inaccuracies 
in Johnfon’s Wluftrations of this word. 
~ ‘Thus, under the meaning of wulgar, he 
gives a quotation from Cowley: 
Tmuft like beafts or common people die, &c. 
in which it is evident that the adjec- 
tive commen fixes this peculiar fignifica- 
tion on the word geeple.. Again, as autho- 
rity for the fenfe of ** perfons of a parti- 
cular clafs,”’ he quotes from Bacon, ‘If 
a man temper his aétions to content every 
combination of people,” &c. where it is the 
whole claufe printed in Italics, and not the 
fingle word people, which expreffes that 
fenfe. The fame may he faid of couniry 
people in his next quotation. With fo 
little philofophical precifion is this boafted 
work compoied.! 
The proper ufe of the term people is 
preferved in the familiar phrafe of Prince 
and People; and I concéive a prince, 
king, or fupreme governor, holding his 
ftation for life, and not amenable to the 
common laws of the fate, to be the only 
perfon not included in the enumeration of 
people. No particular clafs of the com 
munity is exempted from the number ; and 
though .we have Lords aud Commons, both 
are equally part af the people of this realm. 
This conception cf the term is the. only 
ene which accords with the genius of a 
free flate, for to that it is effential that 
rights and laws fhould be common, and 
that no line of feparation. thould” be 
dyawn between one part of the fubjeéts 
and another, at leaft in matters reaily im- 
portant. - The patrician and plebeian dif- 
tinétions in Rome, as they originally pre- 
vai'ed, were abfolutely incompatible with 
the genuine republican fpirit, and were 
perpetually the caufe of tyranny on the. 
one. part, and _fedition on the other. In 
reality, without a common appellation 
there cannot be a common intereft; and 
every defignation which excepts a portion 
eut.of the general mafs, fets it vp as an 
object of ill-will or fulpicion, unlets where , 
206 . On the Word People, 
it implies fome diftin@ion clearly connested 
with the public welfare. ** While the 
prieft did eat, the people ftared,” fays 
Bryden, where he certainly does not 
mean to reprefent the diftinétion between 
the two as being favourable to the latter. - 
Tt cannot have efcaped an attentive ob- _ 
ferver, that in all the party contentions 
which have agitated this reign, a ¢ertain 
fet of writers have conitanily attempted 
to confound the term people with thofe of 
populace-and vulgar. When the people 
of Lugland have demanded certain rights 
and privileges which they conceived their 
natural and conflitutional due, the adyo- 
cates for ariftocracy or pure monarchy 
bave always chofen to reprefent them as 
mob, or rabble, though at the fame time 
they_knew that under this name were coms 
prized many in the moft refpedtable or- 
ders of fociety. It has been a curious 
thing to remark, how fome of thefe wri- 
ters, originally {prung from the very 
cregs Gf the people, have never ufed the 
word but in an. opprobrious fenfe, and - 
have pronounced the “ Odi profanum vul- 
gus’ with as much emphafis, ‘as if they 
had partaken of ¢¢ all the blood-of all the 
Howards.” 
topic of political legiflation in the moft 
diétatorial manner, they have infolently 
told their fellow-people that they had ne- 
thing todo with laws but to obey them; 
and, with no other warrant than that of 
their own pen and paper, have afflumed 
magifterial jurifdiGion. Psrts and ta- 
lenis, indeed, form the beft title of natu. 
ral fuperiority between man and man 3 
but thefe venal writers, while they have | 
taken confequence from thofe qualities for 
themfelves, as in alliance with rank and 
power, have refufled the fame to others 
who have exercifed- them in the caule of 
the public. This artifice of degrading 
people into populace has been more iuccefs- 
ful, even with perfons of fome fenfe, than 
might have been expected ; for in fact it is 
an extremely grofs. one, in a country where 
the benefits of education and inftruction are 
widely extended, and reach a vaft number 
who certainly have no pretenfions to be ex- 
empted trom the clafs of people, however it 
may be narrowed by mifapplication of 
the term. ' 
The phrafe majefy of the people could 
never appear ridiculous if it were confider- 
ed as the counterpart of majefty of the 
crown; and it would be difficult to point 
out any other majefty in this country. 
Either then (as fome would probably 
with to have it confidered) here, as for- 
merly in France, the king is al/, and the 
‘fubje&s 
een ER A a 
[April x, 
While debating upon every: ° 
