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proportions of the ancient model. The assembly of a free, of an armed, people, will ever speak in loud and weighty acclamations. But the regular distribution of the thirty-five tribes, the nice balance of the wealth and numbers of the centuries, the debates of the adverse orators, and the slow operations of votes and ballots, could not easily be adapted by a blind multitude, ignorant of the arts, and insensible of the benefits, of legal government. It was proposed by Arnold to revive and discriminate the equestrian order; but what could be the motive or measure of such distinction? ^34 The pecuniary qualification of the knights must have been reduced to the poverty of the times: those times no longer required their civil functions of judges and farmers of the revenue; and their primitive duty, their military service on horseback, was more nobly supplied by feudal tenures and the spirit of chivalry. The jurisprudence of the republic was useless and unknown: the nations and families of Italy who lived under the Roman and Barbaric laws were insensibly mingled in a common mass; and some faint tradition, some imperfect fragments, preserved the memory of the Code and Pandects of Justinian. With their liberty the Romans might doubtless have restored the appellation and office of consuls; had they not disdained a title so promiscuously adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled on the humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land. But the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested the public counsels, suppose or must produce a legitimate democracy. The old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the tyrants, of the state; nor would the enemies of peace and order, who insulted the vicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed sanctity of a plebeian magistrate. ^35

[Footnote 30: Ducange (Gloss. Latinitatis Mediae et Infimae Aetatis, Decarchones, tom. ii. p. 726) gives me a quotation from Blondus, (Decad. ii. l. ii.:) Duo consules ex nobilitate quotannis fiebant, qui ad vetustum consulum exemplar summaererum praeessent. And in Sigonius (de Regno Italiae, l. v. Opp. tom. ii. p. 400) I read of the consuls and tribunes of the xth century. Both Blondus, and even Sigonius, too freely copied the classic method of supplying from reason or fancy the deficiency of records.]

[Footnote 31: In the panegyric of Berengarius (Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 408) a Roman is mentioned as consulis natus in the beginning of the xth century. Muratori (Dissert. v.) discovers, in the years 952 and 956, Gratianus in Dei nomine consul et dux, Georgius consul et dux; and in 1015, Romanus, brother of Gregory VIII., proudly, but vaguely, styles himself consul et dux et omnium Roma norum senator.]

[Footnote 32: As late as the xth century, the Greek emperors conferred on the dukes of Venice, Naples, Amalphi, &c., the title of consuls, (see Chron. Sagornini, passim;) and the successors of Charlemagne would not abdicate any of their prerogative. But in general the names of consul and senator, which may be found among the French and Germans, signify no more than count and lord, (Signeur, Ducange Glossar.) The monkish writers are often ambitious of fine classic words.]

[Footnote 33: The most constitutional form is a diploma of Otho III., (A. D 998,) consulibus senatus populique Romani; but the act is probably spurious. At the coronation of Henry I., A.D. 1014, the historian Dithmar (apud Muratori, Dissert. xxiii.) describes him, a senatoribus duodecem vallatum, quorum sex rasi barba, alii prolixa, mystice incedebant cum baculis. The senate is mentioned in the panegyric of Berengarius, (p. 406.)]

[Footnote 34: In ancient Rome the equestrian order was not ranked with the senate and people as a third branch of the republic till the consulship of Cicero, who assumes the merit of the establishment, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 3. Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 144 - 155.)]

[Footnote 35: The republican plan of Arnold of Brescia is thus stated by Gunther: -

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