De Lolme was a citizen of Geneva, who published his _Constitution of England_ in 1775, after a twelve months' visit to shores sufficiently inhospitable to leave him to die in obscurity and want.

His book, as he tells us in his preface, was no mean success, though he derived no profit from it.

Like Blackstone, he was impressed by the necessity of obtaining a constitutional equilibrium, wherein he finds the secret of liberty.

The attitude was not unnatural in one who, with his head full of Montesquieu, was a witness of the struggle between Junius and the King.

He has, of course, the limitation common to all writers before Burke of thinking of government in purely mechanical terms.