Vox Populi Vox Dei

Your correspondent "QUÆSITOR" asks for the origin of the saying *Vox populi Vox Dei*. Warwick, in his *Spare Minutes* (1637), says— "That the voice of the common people is the voice of God, is the common voice of the people; yet it is as full of falsehood as commonnesse. The cry before Pilate's judgement-seat, 'Let him be crucified,' was *vox populi*, 'the cry of all the people.' How far was it the voice of God?" [Mr. G. Cornewall Lewis, in his valuable *Essay on the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion*, p. 172., has some very interesting remarks upon this proverb, which, "in its orig…