The popular usage of the terms in question, to which we have adverted, is mainly owing to three causes. 1. Kings not possessing the entire sovereign power have in many cases succeeded lungs who did possess the entire sovereign power ; in other words, kings not monarchs have in many cases succeeded kings who were monarchs. 2. Both in royal monarchies and in royal republics, the crown or regal title usually descends by inheritance. 3. Kings who are not monarchs enjoy the royal status and dignity, as much as monarchs properly so called ; they inter marry only with persons of monarchical or royal blood, and refuse to intermarry with persons of an inferior degree.
Governments such as those of England and France are included by popular usage, together with republics, in the term ' free' or constitutional governments,' as distinguished from pure monarchies, ab solute monarchies, or despotisms.
According to the existing phraseology therefore, the use of the two terms in question is as follows :— Monarchies are of two sorts, viz. first, pure, absolute, or unlimited monarchies, that is, monarchies properly so called; and, secondly, limited, mixed, or consti tutional monarchies, or monarchies im properly so called, that is, republics presided over by a king, or kingly governments where the king is not sove reign.
Republics are states in which several persons share the sovereign power, and in which the person at the head of the go verning body does not bear the title of king. Accordingly, Holland with a stadt
holder, Venice with a doge, and England with a protector, are called republics. not monarchies. If the head of the Venetian aristocracy had been styled king instead of doge, and if his office had descended by inheritance instead of being conferred by election, Venice would have been called a monarchy, and not a republic. The only exception to this usage of which we are aware, occurs in the case of Sparta, which is commonly called a republic, and not a monarchy, although' it had hereditary kings. The reason of this exception probably is, that there being two lines of kings at Sparta, it was thought too gross an inaccuracy to call its government monarchical, though its government would have been called mo narchical if there had been only one king, in spite of the narrow powers which that king might have possessed.
The comparative advantages of a po pular or republican government and of a monarchical government have been stated, with greater or less completeness and candour, by many writers. The best statement of the advantages of monarchy (properly so called), with which we are acquainted, is in Hobbes's Leviathan,' part ii. c. 19.