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+Project Gutenberg’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, by James Harrington
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Commonwealth of Oceana
+
+Author: James Harrington
+
+Posting Date: December 27, 2008 [EBook #2801]
+Release Date: September, 2001
+Last Updated: November 7, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMMONWEALTH OF OCEANA ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OCEANA
+
+By James Harrington
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO OCEANA
+
+JAMES HARRINGTON, eldest son of Sir Sapcotes Harrington of Exton, in
+Rutlandshire, was born in the reign of James I, in January, 1611, five
+years before the death of Shakespeare. He was two or three years younger
+than John Milton. His great-grandfather was Sir James Harrington, who
+married Lucy, daughter of Sir William Sidney, lived with her to their
+golden wedding-day, and had eighteen children, through whom he counted
+himself, before his death, patriarch in a family that in his own time
+produced eight dukes, three marquises, seventy earls, twenty-seven
+viscounts, and thirty-six barons, sixteen of them all being Knights of
+the Garter. James Harrington’s ideal of a commonwealth was the design,
+therefore, of a man in many ways connected with the chief nobility of
+England.
+
+Sir Sapcotes Harrington married twice, and had by each of his wives two
+sons and two daughters. James Harrington was eldest son by the first
+marriage, which was to Jane, daughter of Sir William Samuel of Upton, in
+Northamptonshire. James Harrington’s brother became a merchant; of his
+half-brothers, one went to sea, the other became a captain in the army.
+
+As a child, James Harrington was studious, and so sedate that it was
+said playfully of him he rather kept his parents and teachers in awe
+than needed correction; but in after-life his quick wit made him full of
+playfulness in conversation. In 1629 he entered Trinity College, Oxford,
+as a gentleman commoner. There he had for tutor William Chillingworth,
+a Fellow of the college, who after conversion to the Church of Rome had
+reasoned his way back into Protestant opinions. Chillingworth became a
+famous champion of Protestantism in the question between the Churches,
+although many Protestants attacked him as unsound because he would not
+accept the Athanasian Creed and had some other reservations.
+
+Harrington prepared himself for foreign travel by study of modern
+languages, but before he went abroad, and while he was still under age,
+his father died and he succeeded to his patrimony. The socage tenure of
+his estate gave him free choice of his own guardian, and he chose his
+mother’s mother, Lady Samuel.
+
+He then began the season of travel which usually followed studies at the
+university, a part of his training to which he had looked forward with
+especial interest. He went first to Holland, which had been in Queen
+Elizabeth’s time the battle-ground of civil and religious liberty.
+Before he left England he used to say he knew of monarchy, anarchy,
+aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, only as hard words to be looked for
+in a dictionary. But his interest in problems of government began to be
+awakened while he was among the Dutch. He served in the regiment of
+Lord Craven, and afterward in that of Sir Robert Stone; was much at The
+Hague; became familiar with the Court of the Prince of Orange, and with
+King James’s daughter, the Queen of Bohemia, who, with her husband the
+Prince Elector, was then a fugitive to Holland. Lord Harrington, who had
+once acted as governor to the princess, and won her affection, was James
+Harrington’s uncle, and she now cordially welcomed the young student of
+life for his uncle’s sake, and for his own pleasantness of outward wit
+and inward gravity of thought. Harrington was taken with him by the
+exiled and plundered Prince Elector, when he paid a visit to the Court
+of Denmark, and he was intrusted afterward with the chief care of the
+prince’s affairs in England.
+
+From Holland, James Harrington passed through Flanders into France, and
+thence to Italy. When he came back to England, some courtiers who were
+with him in Rome told Charles I that Harrington had been too squeamish
+at the Pope’s consecration of wax lights, in refusing to obtain a light,
+as others did, by kissing his Holiness’s toe. The King told Harrington
+that he might have complied with a custom which only signified respect
+to a temporal prince. But his Majesty was satisfied with the reply, that
+having had the honor to kiss his Majesty’s hand, he thought it beneath
+him to kiss any other prince’s foot.
+
+Of all places in Italy, Venice pleased Harrington best. He was deeply
+interested in the Venetian form of government, and his observations
+bore fruit in many suggestions for the administration of the
+Commonwealth of Oceana.
+
+After his return to England, being of age, James Harrington cared
+actively for the interests of his younger brothers and sisters. It was
+he who made his brother William a merchant. William Harrington throve,
+and for his ingenuity in matters of construction he was afterward made
+one of the Fellows of the newly formed Royal Society. He took pains over
+the training of his sisters, making no difference between sisters and
+half-sisters, and treating his step-mother as a mother. He filled
+his home with loving-kindness, and was most liberal in giving help
+to friends. When he was told that he often threw away his bounty on
+ungrateful persons, he playfully told his advisers they were mercenary
+and that he saw they sold their gifts, since they expected so great a
+return as gratitude.
+
+James Harrington’s bent was for the study of life, and he made no active
+suit for court employment. But he went to court, where Charles I liked
+him, and admitted him as one of his privy chamber extraordinary, in
+which character he went with the King in his first expedition against
+the Scots.
+
+Because Charles I knew him and liked him, and because he had shown
+himself no partisan of either side in the civil war, though he was
+known to be inclined, in the way of abstract opinion, toward a form of
+government that was not monarchy, the commissioners appointed in 1646
+to bring Charles from Newcastle named Harrington as one of the King’s
+attendants. The King was pleased, and Harrington was appointed a groom
+of the bedchamber at Holmby. He followed faithfully the fortunes of
+the fallen King, never saying even to the King himself a word in
+contradiction of his own principles of liberty, and finding nothing
+in his principles or in his temper that should prevent him from paying
+honor to his sovereign, and seeking to secure for him a happy issue
+out of his afflictions. Antony à Wood says that, “His Majesty loved
+Harrington’s company, and, finding him to be an ingenious man, chose
+rather to converse with him than with others of his chamber: they had
+often discourses concerning government; but when they happened to talk
+of a commonwealth the King seemed not to endure it.”
+
+Harrington used all the influence he had with those in whose power the
+King was, to prevent the urging of avoidable questions that would stand
+in the way of such a treaty as they professed to seek during the King’s
+imprisonment at Carisbrooke. Harrington’s friendly interventions on the
+King’s behalf before the Parliament commissioners at Newport caused
+him, indeed, to be suspected; and when the King was removed from
+Carisbrooke to Hurst Castle, Harrington was not allowed to remain in his
+service. But afterward, when King Charles was being taken to Windsor,
+Harrington got leave to bid him farewell at the door of his carriage. As
+he was about to kneel, the King took him by the hand and pulled him in.
+For a few days he was left with the King, but an oath was required of
+him that he would not assist in, or conceal knowledge of any attempt
+to procure, the King’s escape. He would not take the oath; and was this
+time not only dismissed from the King’s service but himself imprisoned,
+until Ireton obtained his release. Before the King’s death, Harrington
+found his way to him again, and he was among those who were with Charles
+I upon the scaffold.
+
+After the King’s execution, Harrington was for some time secluded in
+his study. Monarchy was gone; some form of commonwealth was to be
+established; and he set to work upon the writing of “Oceana,” calmly
+to show what form of government, since men were free to choose, to him
+seemed best.
+
+He based his work on an opinion he had formed that the troubles of
+the time were not due wholly to the intemperance of faction, the
+misgovernment of a king, or the stubbornness of a people, but to
+change in the balance of property; and he laid the foundations of his
+commonwealth in the opinion that empire follows the balance of property.
+Then he showed the commonwealth of Oceana in action, with safeguards
+against future shiftings of that balance, and with a popular government
+in which all offices were filled by men chosen by ballot, who should
+hold office for a limited term. Thus there was to be a constant flow of
+new blood through the political system, and the representative was to be
+kept true as a reflection of the public mind.
+
+The Commonwealth of Oceana was England. Harrington called Scotland
+Marpesia; and Ireland, Panopea. London he called Emporium; the Thames,
+Halcionia; Westminster, Hiera; Westminster Hall, Pantheon. The Palace of
+St. James was Alma; Hampton Court, Convallium; Windsor, Mount Celia. By
+Hemisna, Harrington meant the river Trent. Past sovereigns of England
+he renamed for Oceana: William the Conqueror became Turbo; King John,
+Adoxus; Richard II, Dicotome; Henry VII, Panurgus; Henry VIII, Coraunus;
+Elizabeth, Parthenia; James I, Morpheus. He referred to Hobbes as
+Leviathan; and to Francis Bacon, as Verulamius. Oliver Cromwell he
+renamed Olphaus Megaletor.
+
+Harrington’s book was seized while printing, and carried to Whitehall.
+Harrington went to Cromwell’s daughter, Lady Claypole, played with her
+three-year-old child while waiting for her, and said to her, when she
+came and found him with her little girl upon his lap, “Madam, you have
+come in the nick of time, for I was just about to steal this pretty
+lady.” “Why should you?” “Why shouldn’t I, unless you cause your father
+to restore a child of mine that he has stolen?” It was only, he said,
+a kind of political romance; so far from any treason against her father
+that he hoped she would let him know it was to be dedicated to him. So
+the book was restored; and it was published in the time of Cromwell’s
+Commonwealth, in the year 1656.
+
+This treatise, which had its origin in the most direct pressure of the
+problem of government upon the minds of men continues the course of
+thought on which Machiavelli’s “Prince” had formed one famous station,
+and Hobbes’s “Leviathan,” another.
+
+“Oceana,” when published, was widely read and actively attacked. One
+opponent of its doctrines was Dr. Henry Ferne, afterward Bishop of
+Chester. Another was Matthew Wren, eldest son to the Bishop of Ely.
+He was one of those who met for scientific research at the house of Dr.
+Wilkins, and had, said Harrington, “an excellent faculty of magnifying
+a louse and diminishing a commonwealth.”
+
+In 1659, Harrington published an abridgment of his Oceana as “The Art of
+Lawgiving,” in three books. Other pieces followed, in which he
+defended or developed his opinions. He again urged them when Cromwell’s
+Commonwealth was in its death-throes. Then he fell back upon argument
+at nightly meetings of a Rota Club which met in the New Palace Yard,
+Westminster. Milton’s old pupil, Cyriac Skinner, was one of its members;
+and its elections were by ballot, with rotation in the tenure of all
+offices. The club was put an end to at the Restoration, when Harrington
+retired to his study and amused himself by putting his “System of
+Politics” into the form of “Aphorisms.”
+
+On December 28, 1661, James Harrington, then fifty years old, was
+arrested and carried to the Tower as a traitor. His Aphorisms were on
+his desk, and as they also were to be carried off, he asked only that
+they might first be stitched together in their proper order. Why he was
+arrested, he was not told. One of his sisters pleaded in vain to the
+King. He was falsely accused of complicity in an imaginary plot, of
+which nothing could be made by its investigators. No heed was paid
+to the frank denials of a man of the sincerest nature, who never had
+concealed his thoughts or actions. “Why,” he was asked, at his first
+examination by Lord Lauderdale, who was one of his kinsmen, “why did
+he, as a private man, meddle with politics? What had a private man to
+do with government?” His answer was: “My lord, there is not any public
+person, nor any magistrate, that has written on politics, worth a
+button. All they that have been excellent in this way have been private
+men, as private men, my lord, as myself. There is Plato, there is
+Aristotle, there is Livy, there is Machiavel. My lord, I can sum up
+Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ in a very few words: he says, there is the
+Barbarous Monarchy--such a one where the people have no votes in making
+the laws; he says, there is the Heroic Monarchy--such a one where the
+people have their votes in making the laws; and then, he says, there is
+Democracy, and affirms that a man cannot be said to have liberty but in
+a democracy only.” Lord Lauderdale here showing impatience, Harrington
+added: “I say Aristotle says so. I have not said so much. And under what
+prince was it? Was it not under Alexander, the greatest prince then in
+the world? I beseech you, my lord, did Alexander hang up Aristotle? did
+he molest him? Livy, for a commonwealth, is one of the fullest authors;
+did not he write under Augustus Caesar? Did Caesar hang up Livy? did
+he molest him? Machiavel, what a commonwealthsman was he! but he wrote
+under the Medici when they were princes in Florence: did they hang up
+Machiavel, or did they molest him? I have done no otherwise than as the
+greatest politicians: the King will do no otherwise than as the greatest
+princes.”
+
+That was too much to hope, even in a dream, of the low-minded Charles
+II. Harrington could not obtain even the show of justice in a public
+trial. He was kept five months an untried prisoner in the Tower, only
+sheltered from daily brutalities by bribe to the lieutenant. When his
+habeas corpus had been moved for, it was at first flatly refused; and
+when it had been granted, Harrington was smuggled away from the Tower
+between one and two o’clock in the morning, and carried on board a ship
+that took him to closer imprisonment on St. Nicholas Island, opposite
+Plymouth. There his health suffered seriously, and his family obtained
+his removal to imprisonment in Plymouth by giving a bond of £5,000
+as sureties against his escape. In Plymouth, Harrington suffered from
+scurvy, and at last he became insane.
+
+When he had been made a complete wreck in body and in mind, his gracious
+Majesty restored Harrington to his family. He never recovered health,
+but still occupied himself much with his pen, writing, among other
+things, a serious argument to prove that they were themselves mad who
+thought him so.
+
+In those last days of his shattered life James Harrington married an old
+friend of the family, a witty lady, daughter of Sir Marmaduke Dorrell,
+of Buckinghamshire. Gout was added to his troubles; then he was
+palsied; and he died at Westminster, at the age of sixty-six, on
+September 11, 1677. He was buried in St. Margaret’s Church, by the grave
+of Sir Walter Raleigh, on the south side of the altar.
+
+H. M.
+
+
+
+
+
+OCEANA
+
+
+
+
+PART I. THE PRELIMINARIES
+
+Showing the Principles of Government
+
+JANOTTI, the most excellent describer of the Commonwealth of Venice,
+divides the whole series of government into two times or periods: the
+one ending with the liberty of Rome, which was the course or empire, as
+I may call it, of ancient prudence, first discovered to mankind by
+God himself in the fabric of the commonwealth of Israel, and afterward
+picked out of his footsteps in nature, and unanimously followed by the
+Greeks and Romans; the other beginning with the arms of Caesar, which,
+extinguishing liberty, were the transition of ancient into modern
+prudence, introduced by those inundations of Huns, Goths, Vandals,
+Lombards, Saxons, which, breaking the Roman Empire, deformed the whole
+face of the world with those ill-features of government, which at this
+time are become far worse in these western parts, except Venice, which,
+escaping the hands of the barbarians by virtue of its impregnable
+situation, has had its eye fixed upon ancient prudence, and is attained
+to a perfection even beyond the copy.
+
+Relation being had to these two times, government (to define it de jure,
+or according to ancient prudence) is an art whereby a civil society of
+men is instituted and preserved upon the foundation of common right or
+interest; or, to follow Aristotle and Livy, it is the empire of laws,
+and not of men.
+
+And government (to define it de facto, or according to modern prudence)
+is an art whereby some man, or some few men, subject a city or a nation,
+and rule it according to his or their private interest; which, because
+the laws in such cases are made according to the interest of a man, or
+of some few families, may be said to be the empire of men, and not of
+laws.
+
+The former kind is that which Machiavel (whose books are neglected) is
+the only politician that has gone about to retrieve; and that Leviathan
+(who would have his book imposed upon the universities) goes about to
+destroy. For “it is,” says he, “another error of Aristotle’s politics
+that in a well-ordered commonwealth, not men should govern, but the
+laws. What man that has his natural senses, though he can neither write
+nor read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and believes
+can kill or hurt him when he obeys not? or, who believes that the law
+can hurt him, which is but words and paper, without the hands and swords
+of men?” I confess that the magistrate upon his bench is that to the
+law which a gunner upon his platform is to his cannon. Nevertheless, I
+should not dare to argue with a man of any ingenuity after this manner.
+A whole army, though they can neither write nor read, are not afraid
+of a platform, which they know is but earth or stone; nor of a cannon,
+which, without a hand to give fire to it, is but cold iron; therefore a
+whole army is afraid of one man. But of this kind is the ratiocination
+of Leviathan, as I shall show in divers places that come in my way,
+throughout his whole politics, or worse; as where he says, “of Aristotle
+and of Cicero, of the Greeks, and of the Romans, who lived under popular
+States, that they derived those rights, not from the principles of
+nature, but transcribed them into their books out of the practice of
+their own commonwealths, as grammarians describe the rules of language
+out of poets.” Which is as if a man should tell famous Harvey that he
+transcribed his circulation of the blood, not out of the principles of
+nature, but out of the anatomy of this or that body.
+
+To go on therefore with his preliminary discourse, I shall divide it,
+according to the two definitions of government relating to Janotti’s two
+times, in two parts: the first, treating of the principles of government
+in general, and according to the ancients; the second, treating of
+the late governments of Oceana in particular, and in that of modern
+prudence.
+
+Government, according to the ancients, and their learned disciple
+Machiavel, the only politician of later ages, is of three kinds: the
+government of one man, or of the better sort, or of the whole people;
+which, by their more learned names, are called monarchy, aristocracy,
+and democracy. These they hold, through their proneness to degenerate,
+to be all evil. For whereas they that govern should govern according
+to reason, if they govern according to passion they do that which they
+should not do. Wherefore, as reason and passion are two things, so
+government by reason is one thing, and the corruption of government by
+passion is another thing, but not always another government: as a body
+that is alive is one thing, and a body that is dead is another thing,
+but not always another creature, though the corruption of one comes at
+length to be the generation of another. The corruption then of monarchy
+is called tyranny; that of aristocracy, oligarchy and that of democracy,
+anarchy. But legislators, having found these three governments at the
+best to be naught, have invented another, consisting of a mixture of
+them all, which only is good. This is the doctrine of the ancients.
+
+But Leviathan is positive that they are all deceived, and that there is
+no other government in nature than one of the three; as also that the
+flesh of them cannot stink, the names of their corruptions being but the
+names of men’s fancies, which will be understood when we are shown which
+of them was Senatus Populusque Romanus.
+
+To go my own way, and yet to follow the ancients, the principles
+of government are twofold: internal, or the goods of the mind; and
+external, or the goods of fortune. The goods of the mind are natural or
+acquired virtues, as wisdom, prudence, and courage, etc. The goods of
+fortune are riches. There be goods also of the body, as health, beauty,
+strength; but these are not to be brought into account upon this score,
+because if a man or an army acquires victory or empire, it is more from
+their discipline, arms, and courage than from their natural health,
+beauty, or strength, in regard that a people conquered may have more of
+natural strength, beauty, and health, and yet find little remedy. The
+principles of government then are in the goods of the mind, or in the
+goods of fortune. To the goods of the mind answers authority; to the
+goods of fortune, power or empire. Wherefore Leviathan, though he be
+right where he says that “riches are power,” is mistaken where he
+says that “prudence, or the reputation of prudence, is power;” for the
+learning or prudence of a man is no more power than the learning or
+prudence of a book or author, which is properly authority. A learned
+writer may have authority though he has no power; and a foolish
+magistrate may have power, though he has otherwise no esteem or
+authority. The difference of these two is observed by Livy in Evander,
+of whom he says that he governed rather by the authority of others than
+by his own power.
+
+To begin with riches, in regard that men are hung upon these, not of
+choice as upon the other, but of necessity and by the teeth; forasmuch
+as he who wants bread is his servant that will feed him, if a man thus
+feeds a whole people, they are under his empire.
+
+Empire is of two kinds, domestic and national, or foreign and
+provincial.
+
+Domestic empire is founded upon dominion. Dominion is property, real or
+personal; that is to say, in lands, or in money and goods.
+
+Lands, or the parts and parcels of a territory, are held by the
+proprietor or proprietors, lord or lords of it, in some proportion;
+and such (except it be in a city that has little or no land, and whose
+revenue is in trade) as is the proportion or balance of dominion or
+property in land, such is the nature of the empire.
+
+If one man be sole landlord of a territory, or overbalance the people,
+for example, three parts in four, he is grand seignior; for so the Turk
+is called from his property, and his empire is absolute monarchy.
+
+If the few or a nobility, or a nobility with the clergy, be landlords,
+or overbalance the people to the like proportion, it makes the Gothic
+balance (to be shown at large in the second part of this discourse),
+and the empire is mixed monarchy, as that of Spain, Poland, and late of
+Oceana.
+
+And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the lands so divided among
+them that no one man, or number of men, within the compass of the few or
+aristocracy, overbalance them, the empire (without the interposition of
+force) is a commonwealth.
+
+If force be interposed in any of these three cases, it must either frame
+the government to the foundation, or the foundation to the government;
+or holding the government not according to the balance, it is not
+natural, but violent; and therefore if it be at the devotion of a
+prince, it is tyranny; if at the devotion of the few, oligarchy; or
+if in the power of the people, anarchy: Each of which confusions, the
+balance standing otherwise, is but of short continuance, because against
+the nature of the balance, which, not destroyed, destroys that which
+opposes it.
+
+But there be certain other confusions, which, being rooted in the
+balance, are of longer continuance, and of worse consequence; as, first,
+where a nobility holds half the property, or about that proportion, and
+the people the other half; in which case, without altering the balance
+there is no remedy but the one must eat out the other, as the people did
+the nobility in Athens, and the nobility the people in Rome. Secondly,
+when a prince holds about half the dominion, and the people the other
+half (which was the case of the Roman emperors, planted partly upon
+their military colonies and partly upon the Senate and the people), the
+government becomes a very shambles, both of the princes and the people.
+Somewhat of this nature are certain governments at this day, which are
+said to subsist by confusion. In this case, to fix the balance is to
+entail misery; but in the three former, not to fix it is to lose the
+government. Wherefore it being unlawful in Turkey that any should
+possess land but the Grand Seignior, the balance is fixed by the law,
+and that empire firm. Nor, though the kings often sell was the throne
+of Oceana known to shake, until the statute of alienations broke the
+pillars, by giving way to the nobility to sell their estates. While
+Lacedaemon held to the division of land made by Lycurgus, it was
+immovable; but, breaking that, could stand no longer. This kind of law
+fixing the balance in lands is called agrarian, and was first introduced
+by God himself, who divided the land of Canaan to his people by lots,
+and is of such virtue that wherever it has held, that government has
+not altered, except by consent; as in that unparalleled example of the
+people of Israel, when being in liberty they would needs choose a
+king. But without an agrarian law, government, whether monarchical,
+aristocratical, or popular, has no long lease.
+
+As for dominion, personal or in money, it may now and then stir up a
+Melius or a Manlius, which, if the Commonwealth be not provided with
+some kind of dictatorian power, may be dangerous, though it has been
+seldom or never successful; because to property producing empire, it
+is required that it should have some certain root or foothold, which,
+except in land, it cannot have, being otherwise as it were upon the
+wing.
+
+Nevertheless, in such cities as subsist mostly by trade, and have little
+or no land, as Holland and Genoa, the balance of treasure may be equal
+to that of land in the cases mentioned.
+
+But Leviathan, though he seems to skew at antiquity, following his
+furious master Carneades, has caught hold of the public sword, to which
+he reduces all manner and matter of government; as, where he affirms
+this opinion (that any monarch receives his power by covenant; that is
+to say, upon conditions) “to proceed from the not understanding this
+easy truth, that covenants being but words and breath, have no power to
+oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what they have from
+the public sword.” But as he said of the law, that without this sword
+it is but paper, so he might have thought of this sword, that without a
+hand it is but cold iron. The hand which holds this sword is the militia
+of a nation; and the militia of a nation is either an army in the field,
+or ready for the field upon occasion. But an army is a beast that has a
+great belly, and must be fed: wherefore this will come to what pastures
+you have, and what pastures you have will come to the balance of
+property, without which the public sword is but a name or mere spitfrog.
+Wherefore, to set that which Leviathan says of arms and of contracts a
+little straighter, he that can graze this beast with the great belly,
+as the Turk does his Timariots, may well deride him that imagines he
+received his power by covenant, or is obliged to any such toy. It being
+in this case only that covenants are but words and breath. But if the
+property of the nobility, stocked with their tenants and retainers, be
+the pasture of that beast, the ox knows his master’s crib; and it is
+impossible for a king in such a constitution to reign otherwise than by
+covenant; or if he break it, it is words that come to blows.
+
+“But,” says he, “when an assembly of men is made sovereign, then no man
+imagines any such covenant to have part in the institution.” But what
+was that by Publicola of appeal to the people, or that whereby the
+people had their tribunes? “Fie,” says he, “nobody is so dull as to say
+that the people of Rome made a covenant with the Romans, to hold the
+sovereignty on such or such conditions, which, not performed, the Romans
+might depose the Roman people.” In which there be several remarkable
+things; for he holds the Commonwealth of Rome to have consisted of one
+assembly, whereas it consisted of the Senate and the people; that they
+were not upon covenant, whereas every law enacted by them was a covenant
+between them; that the one assembly was made sovereign, whereas the
+people, who only were sovereign, were such from the beginning, as
+appears by the ancient style of their covenants or laws--“The Senate has
+resolved, the people have decreed,” that a council being made sovereign,
+cannot be made such upon conditions, whereas the Decemvirs being a
+council that was made sovereign, was made such upon conditions; that all
+conditions or covenants making a sovereign being made, are void; whence
+it must follow that, the Decemviri being made, were ever after the
+lawful government of Rome, and that it was unlawful for the Commonwealth
+of Rome to depose the Decemvirs; as also that Cicero, if he wrote
+otherwise out of his commonwealth, did not write out of nature. But to
+come to others that see more of this balance.
+
+You have Aristotle full of it in divers places, especially where he
+says, that “immoderate wealth, as where one man or the few have greater
+possessions than the equality or the frame of the commonwealth will
+bear, is an occasion of sedition, which ends for the greater part in
+monarchy and that for this cause the ostracism has been received in
+divers places, as in Argos and Athens. But that it were better to
+prevent the growth in the beginning, than, when it has got head, to seek
+the remedy of such an evil.”
+
+Machiavel has missed it very narrowly and more dangerously for not fully
+perceiving that if a commonwealth be galled by the gentry it is by their
+overbalance, he speaks of the gentry as hostile to popular governments,
+and of popular governments as hostile to the gentry; and makes us
+believe that the people in such are so enraged against them, that where
+they meet a gentleman they kill him: which can never be proved by any
+one example, unless in civil war, seeing that even in Switzerland the
+gentry are not only safe, but in honor. But the balance, as I have laid
+it down, though unseen by Machiavel, is that which interprets him, and
+that which he confirms by his judgment in many others as well as in
+this place, where he concludes, “That he who will go about to make a
+commonwealth where there be many gentlemen, unless he first destroys
+them, undertakes an impossibility. And that he who goes about to
+introduce monarchy where the condition of the people is equal, shall
+never bring it to pass, unless he cull out such of them as are the most
+turbulent and ambitious, and make them gentlemen or noblemen, not in
+name but in effect; that is, by enriching them with lands, castles, and
+treasures, that may gain them power among the rest, and bring in the
+rest to dependence upon themselves, to the end that, they maintaining
+their ambition by the prince, the prince may maintain his power by
+them.”
+
+Wherefore, as in this place I agree with Machiavel, that a nobility
+or gentry, overbalancing a popular government, is the utter bane and
+destruction of it; so I shall show in another, that a nobility or
+gentry, in a popular government, not overbalancing it, is the very life
+and soul of it.
+
+By what has been said, it should seem that we may lay aside further
+disputes of the public sword, or of the right of the militia; which, be
+the government what it will, or let it change how it can, is inseparable
+from the overbalance in dominion: nor, if otherwise stated by the law
+or custom (as in the Commonwealth of Rome, where the people having the
+sword, the nobility came to have the overbalance), avails it to
+any other end than destruction. For as a building swaying from the
+foundation must fall, so it fares with the law swaying from reason, and
+the militia from the balance of dominion. And thus much for the balance
+of national or domestic empire, which is in dominion.
+
+The balance of foreign or provincial empire is of a contrary nature. A
+man may as well say that it is unlawful for him who has made a fair and
+honest purchase to have tenants, as for a government that has made a
+just progress and enlargement of itself to have provinces. But how a
+province may be justly acquired appertains to another place. In this
+I am to show no more than how or upon what kind of balance it is to be
+held; in order whereto I shall first show upon what kind of balance
+it is not to be held. It has been said, that national or independent
+empire, of what kind soever, is to be exercised by them that have
+the proper balance of dominion in the nation; wherefore provincial or
+dependent empire is not to be exercised by them that have the balance of
+dominion in the province, because that would bring the government
+from provincial and dependent, to national and independent. Absolute
+monarchy, as that of the Turks, neither plants its people at home nor
+abroad, otherwise than as tenants for life or at will; wherefore its
+national and provincial government is all one. But in governments that
+admit the citizen or subject to dominion in lands, the richest are they
+that share most of the power at home; whereas the richest among
+the provincials, though native subjects, or citizens that have been
+transplanted, are least admitted to the government abroad; for men, like
+flowers or roots being transplanted, take after the soil wherein they
+grow. Wherefore the Commonwealth of Rome, by planting colonies of its
+citizens within the bounds of Italy, took the best way of propagating
+itself, and naturalizing the country; whereas if it had planted such
+colonies without the bounds of Italy it would have alienated the
+citizens, and given a root to liberty abroad, that might have sprung up
+foreign or savage, and hostile to her: wherefore it never made any such
+dispersion of itself and its strength, till it was under the yoke of
+the Emperors, who, disburdening themselves of the people, as having less
+apprehension of what they could do abroad than at home, took a contrary
+course.
+
+The Mamelukes (which, till any man show me the contrary, I shall presume
+to have been a commonwealth consisting of an army, whereof the common
+soldier was the people, the commissioned officer the Senate, and the
+general the prince) were foreigners, and by nation Circassians, that
+governed Egypt; wherefore these never durst plant themselves upon
+dominion, which growing naturally up into the national interest, must
+have dissolved the foreign yoke in that province.
+
+The like in some sort may be said of Venice, the government whereof is
+usually mistaken; for Venice, though it does not take in the people,
+never excluded them. This commonwealth, the orders whereof are the
+most democratical or popular of all others, in regard of the exquisite
+rotation of the Senate, at the first institution took in the whole
+people; they that now live under the government without participation of
+it, are such as have since either voluntarily chosen so to do, or
+were subdued by arms. Wherefore the subject of Venice is governed by
+provinces, and the balance of dominion not standing, as has been said,
+with provincial government; as the Mamelukes durst not cast their
+government upon this balance in their provinces, lest the national
+interest should have rooted out the foreign, so neither dare the
+Venetians take in their subjects upon this balance, lest the foreign
+interest should root out the national (which is that of the 3,000
+now governing), and by diffusing the commonwealth throughout her
+territories, lose the advantage of her situation, by which in great
+part it subsists. And such also is the government of the Spaniard in the
+Indies, to which he deputes natives of his own country, not admitting
+the creoles to the government of those provinces, though descended from
+Spaniards.
+
+But if a prince or a commonwealth may hold a territory that is foreign
+in this, it may be asked why he may not hold one that is native in
+the like manner? To which I answer, because he can hold a foreign by a
+native territory, but not a native by a foreign; and as hitherto I
+have shown what is not the provincial balance, so by this answer it may
+appear what it is, namely, the overbalance of a native territory to
+a foreign; for as one country balances itself by the distribution
+of property according to the proportion of the same, so one country
+overbalances another by advantage of divers kinds. For example, the
+Commonwealth of Rome overbalanced her provinces by the vigor of a
+more excellent government opposed to a crazier. Or by a more exquisite
+militia opposed to one inferior in courage or discipline. The like was
+that of the Mamelukes, being a hardy people, to the Egyptians, that were
+a soft one. And the balance of situation is in this kind of wonderful
+effect; seeing the King of Denmark, being none of the most potent
+princes, is able at the Sound to take toll of the greatest; and as
+this King, by the advantage of the land, can make the sea tributary, so
+Venice, by the advantage of the sea, in whose arms she is impregnable,
+can make the land to feed her gulf. For the colonies in the Indies,
+they are yet babes that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their
+mother cities, but such as I mistake if when they come of age they do
+not wean themselves; which causes me to wonder at princes that delight
+to be exhausted in that way. And so much for the principles of power,
+whether national or provincial, domestic or foreign; being such as are
+external, and founded in the goods of fortune.
+
+I come to the principles of authority, which are internal, and founded
+upon the goods of the mind. These the legislator that can unite in his
+government with those of fortune, comes nearest to the work of God,
+whose government consists of heaven and earth; which was said by Plato,
+though in different words, as, when princes should be philosophers, or
+philosophers princes, the world would be happy. And says Solomon: “There
+is an evil which I have seen under the sun, which proceeds from the
+ruler (enimvero neque nobilem, neque ingenuum, nec libertinum quidem
+armis praeponere, regia utilitas est). Folly is set in great dignity,
+and the rich (either in virtue and wisdom, in the goods of the mind,
+or those of fortune upon that balance which gives them a sense of the
+national interest) sit in low places. I have seen servants upon horses,
+and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” Sad complaints, that
+the principles of power and of authority, the goods of the mind and
+of fortune, do not meet and twine in the wreath or crown of empire!
+Wherefore, if we have anything of piety or of prudence, let us raise
+ourselves out of the mire of private interest to the contemplation of
+virtue, and put a hand to the removal of “this evil from under the sun;”
+ this evil against which no government that is not secured can be good;
+this evil from which the government that is secure must be perfect.
+Solomon tells us that the cause of it is from the ruler, from those
+principles of power, which, balanced upon earthly trash, exclude the
+heavenly treasures of virtue, and that influence of it upon government
+which is authority. We have wandered the earth to find out the balance
+of power; but to find out that of authority we must ascend, as I said,
+nearer heaven, or to the image of God, which is the soul of man.
+
+The soul of man (whose life or motion is perpetual contemplation or
+thought) is the mistress of two potent rivals, the one reason, the other
+passion, that are in continual suit; and, according as she gives up her
+will to these or either of them, is the felicity or misery which man
+partakes in this mortal life.
+
+For, as whatever was passion in the contemplation of a man, being
+brought forth by his will into action, is vice and the bondage of sin;
+so whatever was reason in the contemplation of a man, being brought
+forth by his will into action, is virtue and the freedom of soul.
+
+Again, as those actions of a man that were sin acquire to himself
+repentance or shame, and affect others with scorn or pity, so those
+actions of a man that are virtue acquire to himself honor, and upon
+others authority.
+
+Now government is no other than the soul of a nation or city: wherefore
+that which was reason in the debate of a commonwealth being brought
+forth by the result, must be virtue; and forasmuch as the soul of a
+city or nation is the sovereign power, her virtue must be law. But the
+government whose law is virtue, and whose virtue is law, is the same
+whose empire is authority, and whose authority is empire.
+
+Again, if the liberty of a man consists in the empire of his reason, the
+absence whereof would betray him to the bondage of his passions, then
+the liberty of a commonwealth consists in the empire of her laws, the
+absence whereof would betray her to the lust of tyrants. And these I
+conceive to be the principles upon which Aristotle and Livy (injuriously
+accused by Leviathan for not writing out of nature) have grounded their
+assertion, “that a commonwealth is an empire of laws and not of men.”
+ But they must not carry it so. “For,” says he, “the liberty whereof
+there is so frequent and honorable mention in the histories and
+philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the writings and
+discourses of those that from them have received all their learning in
+the politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the liberty
+of the commonwealth.” He might as well have said that the estates of
+particular men in a commonwealth are not the riches of particular men,
+but the riches of the commonwealth; for equality of estates causes
+equality of power, and equality of power is the liberty, not only of the
+commonwealth, but of every man.
+
+But sure a man would never be thus irreverent with the greatest authors,
+and positive against all antiquity without some certain demonstration of
+truth--and what is it? Why, “there is written on the turrets of the city
+of Lucca in great characters at this day the word LIBERTAS; yet no man
+can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from
+the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether
+a commonwealth be monarchical or popular the freedom is the same.” The
+mountain has brought forth, and we have a little equivocation! For to
+say that a Lucchese has no more liberty or immunity from the laws of
+Lucca than a Turk has from those of Constantinople; and to say that a
+Lucchese has no more liberty or immunity by the laws of Lucca, than a
+Turk has by those of Constantinople, are pretty different speeches. The
+first may be said of all governments alike; the second scarce of any
+two; much less of these, seeing it is known that, whereas the greatest
+Bashaw is a tenant, as well of his head as of his estate, at the will
+of his lord, the meanest Lucchese that has land is a freeholder of
+both, and not to be controlled but by the law, and that framed by every
+private man to no other end (or they may thank themselves) than to
+protect the liberty of every private man, which by that means comes to
+be the liberty of the commonwealth.
+
+But seeing they that make the laws in commonwealths are but men, the
+main question seems to be, how a commonwealth comes to be an empire of
+laws, and not of men? or how the debate or result of a commonwealth is
+so sure to be according to reason; seeing they who debate, and they who
+resolve, be but men? “And as often as reason is against a man, so often
+will a man be against reason.”
+
+This is thought to be a shrewd saying, but will do no harm; for be it so
+that reason is nothing but interest, there be divers interests, and so
+divers reasons.
+
+As first, there is private reason, which is the interest of a private
+man.
+
+Secondly, there is reason of state, which is the interest (or error,
+as was said by Solomon) of the ruler or rulers, that is to say, of the
+prince, of the nobility, or of the people.
+
+Thirdly there is that reason, which is the interest of mankind, or of
+the whole. “Now if we see even in those natural agents that want sense,
+that as in themselves they have a law which directs them in the means
+whereby they tend to their own perfection, so likewise that another law
+there is, which touches them as they are sociable parts united into one
+body, a law which binds them each to serve to others’ good, and all to
+prefer the good of the whole, before whatsoever their own particular; as
+when stones, or heavy things, forsake their ordinary wont or centre,
+and fly upward, as if they heard themselves commanded to let go the good
+they privately wish, and to relieve the present distress of nature in
+common.” There is a common right, law of nature, or interest of the
+whole, which is more excellent, and so acknowledged to be by the agents
+themselves, than the right or interest of the parts only. “Wherefore,
+though it may be truly said that the creatures are naturally carried
+forth to their proper utility or profit, that ought not to be taken
+in too general a sense; seeing divers of them abstain from their own
+profit, either in regard of those of the same kind, or at least of their
+young.”
+
+Mankind then must either be less just than the creature, or acknowledge
+also his common interest to be common right. And if reason be nothing
+else but interest, and the interest of mankind be the right interest,
+then the reason of mankind must be right reason. Now compute well; for
+if the interest of popular government come the nearest to the interest
+of mankind, then the reason of popular government must come the nearest
+to right reason.
+
+But it may be said that the difficulty remains yet; for be the interest
+of popular government right reason, a man does not look upon reason as
+it is right or wrong in itself, but as it makes for him or against him.
+Wherefore, unless you can show such orders of a government as, like
+those of God in nature, shall be able to constrain this or that creature
+to shake off that inclination which is more peculiar to it, and take up
+that which regards the common good or interest, all this is to no more
+end than to persuade every man in a popular government not to carve
+himself of that which he desires most, but to be mannerly at the
+public table, and give the best from himself to decency and the common
+interest. But that such orders may be established as may, nay must, give
+the upper hand in all cases to common right or interest, notwithstanding
+the nearness of that which sticks to every man in private, and this in
+a way of equal certainty and facility, is known even to girls, being no
+other than those that are of common practice with them in divers cases.
+For example, two of them have a cake yet undivided, which was given
+between them: that each of them therefore might have that which is due,
+“Divide,” says one to the other, “and I will choose; or let me divide,
+and you shall choose.” If this be but once agreed upon, it is enough;
+for the divident, dividing unequally, loses, in regard that the other
+takes the better half. Wherefore she divides equally, and so both have
+right. “Oh, the depth of the wisdom of God.” And yet “by the mouths of
+babes and sucklings has He set forth His strength;” that which great
+philosophers are disputing upon in vain is brought to light by two
+harmless girls, even the whole mystery of a commonwealth, which lies
+only in dividing and choosing. Nor has God (if his works in nature be
+understood) left so much to mankind to dispute upon as who shall divide
+and who choose, but distributed them forever into two orders, whereof
+the one has the natural right of dividing, and the other of choosing.
+
+For example: A commonwealth is but a civil society of men: let us take
+any number of men (as twenty) and immediately make a commonwealth.
+Twenty men (if they be not all idiots, perhaps if they be) can never
+come so together but there will be such a difference in them that about
+a third will be wiser, or at least less foolish than all the rest; these
+upon acquaintance, though it be but small, will be discovered, and, as
+stags that have the largest heads, lead the herd; for while the six,
+discoursing and arguing one with another, show the eminence of their
+parts, the fourteen discover things that they never thought on; or are
+cleared in divers truths which had formerly perplexed them. Wherefore,
+in matter of common concernment, difficulty, or danger, they hang upon
+their lips, as children upon their fathers; and the influence thus
+acquired by the six, the eminence of whose parts are found to be a stay
+and comfort to the fourteen, is the authority of the fathers. Wherefore
+this can be no other than a natural aristocracy diffused by God
+throughout the whole body of mankind to this end and purpose; and
+therefore such as the people have not only a natural but a positive
+obligation to make use of as their guides; as where the people of Israel
+are commanded to “take wise men, and understanding, and known among
+their tribes, to be made rulers over them.” The six then approved of,
+as in the present case, are the senate, not by hereditary right, or in
+regard of the greatness of their estates only, which would tend to
+such power as might force or draw the people, but by election for their
+excellent parts, which tends to the advancement of the influence of
+their virtue or authority that leads the people. Wherefore the office of
+the senate is not to be commanders, but counsellors, of the people; and
+that which is proper to counsellors is first to debate, and afterward
+to give advice in the business whereupon they have debated, whence the
+decrees of the senate are never laws, nor so called; and these being
+maturely framed, it is their duty to propose in the case to the people.
+Wherefore the senate is no more than the debate of the commonwealth. But
+to debate is to discern or put a difference between things that, being
+alike, are not the same; or it is separating and weighing this reason
+against that, and that reason against this, which is dividing.
+
+The senate then having divided, who shall choose? Ask the girls: for if
+she that divided must have chosen also, it had been little worse for
+the other in case she had not divided at all, but kept the whole cake to
+herself, in regard that being to choose, too, she divided accordingly.
+Wherefore if the senate have any further power than to divide, the
+commonwealth can never be equal. But in a commonwealth consisting of
+a single council, there is no other to choose than that which divided;
+whence it is, that such a council fails not to scramble--that is, to
+be factious, there being no other dividing of the cake in that case but
+among themselves.
+
+Nor is there any remedy but to have another council to choose. The
+wisdom of the few may be the light of mankind; but the interest of
+the few is not the profit of mankind nor of a commonwealth. Wherefore,
+seeing we have granted interest to be reason, they must not choose lest
+it put out their light. But as the council dividing consists of the
+wisdom of the commonwealth, so the assembly or council choosing should
+consist of the interest of the commonwealth: as the wisdom of the
+commonwealth is in the aristocracy, so the interest of the commonwealth
+is in the whole body of the people. And whereas this, in case the
+commonwealth consist of a whole nation, is too unwieldy a body to be
+assembled, this council is to consist of such a representative as may be
+equal, and so constituted, as can never contract any other interest
+than that of the whole people; the manner whereof, being such as is best
+shown by exemplification, I remit to the model. But in the present case,
+the six dividing, and the fourteen choosing, must of necessity take in
+the whole interest of the twenty.
+
+Dividing and choosing, in the language of a commonwealth, is debating
+and resolving; and whatsoever, upon debate of the senate, is proposed
+to the people, and resolved by them, is enacted by the authority of the
+fathers, and by the power of the people, which concurring, make a law.
+
+But the law being made, says Leviathan, “is but words and paper without
+the hands and swords of men;” wherefore as these two orders of a
+commonwealth, namely, the senate and the people, are legislative, so of
+necessity there must be a third to be executive of the laws made, and
+this is the magistracy. In which order, with the rest being wrought up
+by art, the commonwealth consists of “the senate proposing, the people
+resolving, and the magistracy executing,” whereby partaking of the
+aristocracy as in the senate, of the democracy as in the people, and of
+monarchy as in the magistracy, it is complete. Now there being no other
+commonwealth but this in art or nature, it is no wonder if Machiavel
+has shown us that the ancients held this only to be good; but it seems
+strange to me that they should hold that there could be any other, for
+if there be such a thing as pure monarchy, yet that there should be such
+a one as pure aristocracy or pure democracy is not in my understanding.
+But the magistracy, both in number and function, is different in
+different commonwealths. Nevertheless there is one condition of it that
+must be the same in every one, or it dissolves the commonwealth where it
+is wanting. And this is no less than that, as the hand of the magistrate
+is the executive power of the law, so the head of the magistrate is
+answerable to the people, that his execution be according to the law; by
+which Leviathan may see that the hand or sword that executes the law is
+in it and not above it.
+
+Now whether I have rightly transcribed these principles of a
+commonwealth out of nature, I shall appeal to God and to the world--to
+God in the fabric of the Commonwealth of Israel, and to the world in
+the universal series of ancient prudence. But in regard the same
+commonwealths will be opened at large in the Council of legislators, I
+shall touch them for the present but slightly, beginning with that of
+Israel.
+
+The Commonwealth of Israel consisted of the Senate, the people, and the
+magistracy.
+
+The people by their first division, which was genealogical, were
+contained under their thirteen tribes, houses, or families; whereof the
+first-born in each was prince of his tribe, and had the leading of it:
+the tribe of Levi only, being set apart to serve at the altar, had no
+other prince but the high-priest. In their second division they were
+divided locally by their agrarian, or the distribution of the land
+of Canaan to them by lot, the tithe of all remaining to Levi; whence,
+according to their local division, the tribes are reckoned but twelve.
+
+The assemblies of the people thus divided were methodically gathered by
+trumpets to the congregation: which was, it should seem, of two sorts.
+For if it were called with one trumpet only, the princes of the tribes
+and the elders only assembled; but if it were called with two, the whole
+people gathered themselves to the congregation, for so it is rendered
+by the English; but in the Greek it is called Ecclesia, or the Church of
+God, and by the Talmudist the great “Synagogue.” The word Ecclesia
+was also anciently and properly used for the civil congregations, or
+assemblies of the people in Athens, Lacedaemon, and Ephesus, where it
+is so called in Scripture, though it be otherwise rendered by the
+translators, not much as I conceive to their commendation, seeing by
+that means they have lost us a good lesson, the apostles borrowing that
+name for their spiritual congregations, to the end that we might
+see they intended the government of the church to be democratical or
+popular, as is also plain in the rest of their constitutions.
+
+The church or congregation of the people of Israel assembled in a
+military manner, and had the result of the commonwealth, or the power of
+confirming all their laws, though proposed even by God himself; as
+where they make him king, and where they reject or depose him as civil
+magistrate, and elect Saul. It is manifest that he gives no such example
+to a legislator in a popular government as to deny or evade the power of
+the people, which were a contradiction; but though he deservedly blames
+the ingratitude of the people in that action, he commands Samuel, being
+next under himself supreme magistrate, “to hearken to their voice”
+ (for where the suffrage of the people goes for nothing, it is no
+commonwealth), and comforts him, saying, “They have not rejected thee,
+but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them.” But to
+reject him that he should not reign over them, was as civil magistrate
+to depose him. The power therefore which the people had to depose even
+God himself as he was civil magistrate, leaves little doubt but that
+they had power to have rejected any of those laws confirmed by them
+throughout the Scripture, which, to omit the several parcels, are
+generally contained under two heads: those that were made by covenant
+with the people in the land of Moab, and those which were made by
+covenant with the people in Horeb; which two, I think, amount to the
+whole body of the Israelitish laws.
+
+But if all and every one of the laws of Israel being proposed by God,
+were no otherwise enacted than by covenant with the people, then that
+only which was resolved by the people of Israel was their law; and so
+the result of that commonwealth was in the people. Nor had the people
+the result only in matter of law, but the power in some cases of
+judicature; as also the right of levying war, cognizance in matter
+of religion, and the election of their magistrates, as the judge or
+dictator, the king, the prince: which functions were exercised by the
+Synagoga magna, or Congregation of Israel, not always in one manner, for
+sometimes they were performed by the suffrage of the people, viva voce,
+sometimes by the lot only, and at others by the ballot, or by a mixture
+of the lot with the suffrage, as in the case of Eldad and Medad, which I
+shall open with the Senate.
+
+The Senate of Israel, called in the old Testament the Seventy Elders,
+and in the New the Sanhedrim (which word is usually translated “the
+Council”), was appointed by God, and consisted of seventy elders besides
+Moses, which were at first elected by the people, but in what manner is
+rather intimated than shown. Nevertheless, because I cannot otherwise
+understand the passage concerning Eldad and Medad, of whom it is said
+“that they were of them that were written, but went not up to the
+tabernacle,” then with the Talmudists I conceive that Eldad and Medad
+had the suffrage of the tribes, and so were written as competitors for
+magistracy; but coming afterward to the lot, failed of it, and therefore
+went not up to the tabernacle, or place of confirmation by God, or to
+the session-house of the Senate, with the Seventy upon whom the lot fell
+to be senators; for the session-house of the Sanhedrim was first in the
+court of the tabernacle, and afterward in that of the Temple, where it
+came to be called the stone chamber or pavement. If this were the ballot
+of Israel, that of Venice is the same transposed; for in Venice the
+competitor is chosen as it were by the lot, in regard that the electors
+are so made, and the magistrate is chosen by the “suffrage of the great
+Council or assembly of the people.” But the Sanhedrim of Israel being
+thus constituted, Moses, for his time, and after him his successor sat
+in the midst of it as prince or archon, and at his left hand the orator
+or father of the Senate; the rest, or the bench, coming round with
+either horn like a crescent, had a scribe attending upon the tip of it.
+
+This Senate, in regard the legislator of Israel was infallible, and the
+laws given by God such as were not fit to be altered by men, is much
+different in the exercise of their power from all other senates, except
+that of the Areopagus in Athens, which also was little more than a
+supreme judicatory, for it will hardly, as I conceive, be found that
+the Sanhedrim proposed to the people till the return of the children of
+Israel out of captivity under Esdras, at which time there was a new law
+made--namely, for a kind of excommunication, or rather banishment, which
+had never been before in Israel. Nevertheless it is not to be thought
+that the Sanhedrim had not always that right, which from the time of
+Esdras is more frequently exercised, of proposing to the people, but
+that they forebore it in regard of the fulness and infallibility of the
+law already made, whereby it was needless. Wherefore the function
+of this Council, which is very rare in a senate, was executive, and
+consisted in the administration of the law made; and whereas the Council
+itself is often understood in Scripture by the priest and the Levite,
+there is no more in that save only that the priests and the Levites,
+who otherwise had no power at all, being in the younger years of this
+commonwealth, those that were best studied in the laws were the most
+frequently elected into the Sanhedrim. For the courts, consisting of
+three-and-twenty elders sitting in the gates of every city, and the
+triumvirates of judges constituted almost in every village, which were
+parts of the executive magistracy subordinate to the Sanhedrim, I shall
+take them at better leisure, and in the larger discourse; but these
+being that part of this commonwealth which was instituted by Moses upon
+the advice of Jethro the priest of Midian (as I conceive a heathen), are
+to me a sufficient warrant even from God himself, who confirmed them,
+to make further use of human prudence, wherever I find it bearing a
+testimony to itself, whether in heathen commonwealths or others; and the
+rather, because so it is, that we who have the holy Scriptures, and in
+them the original of a commonwealth, made by the same hand that made
+the world, are either altogether blind or negligent of it; while the
+heathens have all written theirs, as if they had had no other copy; as,
+to be more brief in the present account of that which you shall have
+more at large hereafter:
+
+Athens consisted of the Senate of the Bean proposing, of the Church or
+Assembly of the people resolving, and too often debating, which was the
+ruin of it; as also of the Senate of the Areopagus, the nine archons,
+with divers other magistrates, executing.
+
+Lacedaemon consisted of the Senate proposing, of the Church or
+congregation of the people resolving only, and never debating, which was
+the long life of it; and of the two kings, the court of the ephors, with
+divers other magistrates, executing.
+
+Carthage consisted of the Senate proposing and sometimes resolving too,
+of the people resolving and sometimes debating too, for which fault she
+was reprehended by Aristotle; and she had her suffetes, and her hundred
+men, with other magistrates, executing.
+
+Rome consisted of the Senate proposing, the concio or people resolving,
+and too often debating, which caused her storms; as also of the consuls,
+censors, aediles, tribunes, praetors, quaestors, and other magistrates,
+executing.
+
+Venice consists of the Senate, or pregati, proposing, and sometimes
+resolving too, of the great Council or Assembly of the people, in whom
+the result is constitutively; as also of the doge, the signory, the
+censors, the dieci, the quazancies, and other magistrates, executing.
+
+The proceeding of the Commonwealths of Switzerland and Holland is of a
+like nature, though after a more obscure manner; for the sovereignties,
+whether cantons, provinces, or cities, which are the people, send
+their deputies, commissioned and instructed by themselves (wherein they
+reserve the result in their own power), to the provincial or general
+convention, or Senate, where the deputies debate, but have no other
+power of result than what was conferred upon them by the people, or
+is further conferred by the same upon further occasion. And for
+the executive part they have magistrates or judges in every canton,
+province, or city, besides those which are more public, and relate to
+the league, as for adjusting controversies between one canton, province,
+or city and another, or the like between such persons as are not of the
+same canton, province, or city.
+
+But that we may observe a little further how the heathen politicians
+have written, not only out of nature, but as it were out of Scripture:
+as in the Commonwealth of Israel, God is said to have been king, so
+the commonwealth where the law is king, is said by Aristotle to be “the
+kingdom of God.” And where by the lusts or passions of men a power is
+set above that of the law deriving from reason, which is the dictate of
+God, God in that sense is rejected or deposed that he should not reign
+over them, as he was in Israel. And yet Leviathan will have it that “by
+reading of these Greek and Latin [he might as well in this sense have
+said Hebrew] authors, young men, and all others that are unprovided
+of the antidote of solid reason, receiving a strong and delightful
+impression of the great exploits of war achieved by the conductors
+of their armies, receive withal a pleasing idea of all they have done
+besides, and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from
+the emulation of particular men, but from the virtue of their popular
+form of government, not considering the frequent seditions and civil
+wars produced by the imperfection of their polity.” Where, first,
+the blame he lays to the heathen authors, is in his sense laid to the
+Scripture; and whereas he holds them to be young men, or men of no
+antidote that are of like opinions, it should seem that Machiavel,
+the sole retriever of this ancient prudence, is to his solid reason a
+beardless boy that has newly read Livy. And how solid his reason is, may
+appear where he grants the great prosperity of ancient commonwealths,
+which is to give up the controversy. For such an effect must have some
+adequate cause, which to evade he insinuates that it was nothing else
+but the emulation of particular men, as if so great an emulation could
+have been generated without as great virtue, so great virtue without
+the best education, and best education without the best law, or the best
+laws any otherwise than by the excellency of their polity.
+
+But if some of these commonwealths, as being less perfect in their
+polity than others, have been more seditious, it is not more an argument
+of the infirmity of this or that commonwealth in particular, than of the
+excellency of that kind of polity in general, which if they, that have
+not altogether reached, have nevertheless had greater prosperity, what
+would befall them that should reach?
+
+In answer to which question let me invite Leviathan, who of all other
+governments gives the advantage to monarchy for perfection, to a better
+disquisition of it by these three assertions.
+
+The first, that the perfection of government lies upon such a libration
+in the frame of it, that no man or men in or under it can have the
+interest, or, having the interest, can have the power to disturb it with
+sedition.
+
+The second, that monarchy, reaching the perfection of the kind, reaches
+not to the perfection of government, but must have some dangerous flaw
+in it.
+
+The third, that popular government, reaching the perfection of the kind,
+reaches the perfection of government, and has no flaw in it.
+
+The first assertion requires no proof.
+
+For the proof of the second, monarchy, as has been shown, is of two
+kinds: the one by arms, the other by a nobility and there is no
+other kind in art or nature; for if there have ‘been anciently some
+governments called kingdoms, as one of the Goths in Spain, and another
+of the Vandals in Africa, where the King ruled without a nobility and
+by a council of the people only it is expressly said by the authors that
+mention them that the, kings were but the captains, and that the people
+not only gave them laws, but deposed them as often as they pleased.
+Nor is it possible in reason that it should be otherwise in like cases;
+wherefore these were either no monarchies, or had greater flaws in them
+than any other.
+
+But for a monarchy by arms, as that of the Turk (which, of all models
+that ever were, comes up to the perfection of the kind), it is not in
+the wit or power of man to cure it of this dangerous flaw, that the
+Janizaries have frequent interest and perpetual power to raise sedition,
+and to tear the magistrate, even the prince himself, in pieces.
+Therefore the monarchy of Turkey is no perfect government.
+
+And for a monarchy by nobility, as of late in Oceana (which of all other
+models, before the declination of it, came up to the perfection in
+that kind), it was not in the power or wit of man to cure it of that
+dangerous flaw; that the nobility had frequent interest and perpetual
+power by their retainers and tenants to raise sedition; and (whereas the
+Janizaries occasion this kind of calamity no sooner than they make an
+end of it) to levy a lasting war, to the vast effusion of blood, and
+that even upon occasions wherein the people, but for their dependence
+upon their lords, had no concernment, as in the feud of the Red and
+White. The like has been frequent in Spain, France, Germany, and other
+monarchies of this kind; wherefore monarchy by a nobility is no perfect
+government.
+
+For the proof of the third assertion: Leviathan yields it to me, that
+there is no other commonwealth but monarchical or popular; wherefore
+if no monarchy be a perfect government, then either there is no perfect
+government, or it must be popular, for which kind of constitution I have
+something more to say than Leviathan has said or ever will be able to
+say for monarchy. As,
+
+First, that it is the government that was never conquered by any
+monarch, from the beginning of the world to this day, for if the
+commonwealths of Greece came under the yoke of the Kings of Macedon,
+they were first broken by themselves.
+
+Secondly, that it is the government that has frequently led mighty
+monarchs in triumph.
+
+Thirdly, that it is the government, which, if it has been seditious, it
+has not been so from any imperfection in the kind, but in the particular
+constitution; which, wherever the like has happened, must have been
+unequal.
+
+Fourthly, that it is the government, which, if it has been anything
+near equal, was never seditious; or let him show me what sedition has
+happened in Lacedaemon or Venice.
+
+Fifthly, that it is the government, which, attaining to perfect
+equality, has such a libration in the frame of it, that no man living
+can show which way any man or men, in or under it, can contract any such
+interest or power as should be able to disturb the commonwealth with
+sedition, wherefore an equal commonwealth is that only which is without
+flaw and contains in it the full perfection of government. But to
+return.
+
+By what has been shown in reason and experience, it may appear, that
+though commonwealths in general be governments of the senate proposing,
+the people resolving, and the magistracy executing, yet some are not so
+good at these orders as others, through some impediment or defect in
+the frame, balance, or capacity of them, according to which they are of
+divers kinds.
+
+The first division of them is into such as are single, as Israel,
+Athens, Lacedaemon, etc.; and such as are by leagues, as those of the
+Achaeans, AEtolians, Lycians, Switz, and Hollanders.
+
+The second (being Machiavel’s) is into such as are for preservation, as
+Lacedaemon and Venice, and such as are for increase, as Athens and
+Rome; in which I can see no more than that the former takes in no more
+citizens than are necessary for defence, and the latter so many as are
+capable of increase.
+
+The third division (unseen hitherto) is into equal and Unequal, and this
+is the main point, especially as to domestic peace and tranquillity; for
+to make a commonwealth unequal, is to divide it into parties, which sets
+them at perpetual variance, the one party endeavoring to preserve their
+eminence and inequality and the other to attain to equality; whence
+the people of Rome derived their perpetual strife with the nobility and
+Senate. But in an equal commonwealth there can be no more strife than
+there can be overbalance in equal weights; wherefore the Commonwealth
+of Venice, being that which of all others is the most equal in the
+constitution, is that wherein there never happened any strife between
+the Senate and the people.
+
+An equal commonwealth is such a one as is equal both in the balance or
+foundation, and in the superstructure; that is to say, in her agrarian
+law and in her rotation.
+
+An equal agrarian is a perpetual law, establishing and preserving the
+balance of dominion by such a distribution, that no one man or number of
+men, within the compass of the few or aristocracy, can come to overpower
+the whole people by their possessions in lands.
+
+As the agrarian answers to the foundation, so does rotation to the
+superstructures.
+
+Equal rotation is equal vicissitude in government, or succession
+to magistracy conferred for such convenient terms, enjoying equal
+vacations, as take in the whole body by parts, succeeding others,
+through the free election or suffrage of the people.
+
+The contrary, whereunto is prolongation of magistracy, which, trashing
+the wheel of rotation, destroys the life or natural motion of a
+commonwealth.
+
+The election or suffrage of the people is most free, where it is made or
+given in such a manner that it can neither oblige nor disoblige another,
+nor through fear of an enemy, or bashfulness toward a friend, impair a
+man’s liberty.
+
+Wherefore, says Cicero, the tablet or ballot of the people of Rome (who
+gave their votes by throwing tablets or little pieces of wood secretly
+into urns marked for the negative or affirmative) was a welcome
+constitution to the people, as that which, not impairing the assurance
+of their brows, increased the freedom of their judgment. I have not
+stood upon a more particular description of this ballot, because that of
+Venice exemplified in the model is of all others the most perfect.
+
+An equal commonwealth (by that which has been said) is a government
+established upon an equal agrarian, arising into the superstructures or
+three orders, the Senate debating and proposing, the people resolving,
+and the magistracy executing, by an equal rotation through the suffrage
+of the people given by the ballot. For though rotation may be without
+the ballot, and the ballot without rotation, yet the ballot not only as
+to the ensuing model includes both, but is by far the most equal
+way; for which cause under the name of the ballot I shall hereafter
+understand both that and rotation too.
+
+Now having reasoned the principles of an equal commonwealth, I should
+come to give an instance of such a one in experience, if I could find
+it; but if this work be of any value, it lies in that it is the first
+example of a commonwealth that is perfectly equal. For Venice, though
+it comes the nearest, yet is a commonwealth for preservation; and such
+a one, considering the paucity of citizens taken in, and the number
+not taken in, is externally unequal; and though every commonwealth that
+holds provinces must in that regard be such, yet not to that degree.
+Nevertheless, Venice internally, and for her capacity, is by far the
+most equal, though it has not, in my judgment, arrived at the full
+perfection of equality; both because her laws supplying the defect of
+an agrarian are not so clear nor effectual at the foundation, nor
+her superstructures, by the virtue of her ballot or rotation, exactly
+librated; in regard that through the paucity of her citizens her
+greater magistracies are continually wheeled through a few hands, as is
+confessed by Janotti, where he says, that if a gentleman comes once
+to be Savio di terra ferma, it seldom happens that he fails from
+thenceforward to be adorned with some one of the greater magistracies,
+as Savi di mare, Savi di terra ferma, Savi Grandi, counsellors, those
+of the decemvirate or dictatorian council, the aurogatori, or censors,
+which require no vacation or interval. Wherefore if this in Venice, or
+that in Lacedaemon, where the kings were hereditary, and the Senators
+(though elected by the people) for life, cause no inequality (which is
+hard to be conceived) in a commonwealth for preservation, or such a one
+as consists of a few citizens; yet is it manifest that it would cause
+a very great one in a commonwealth for increase, or consisting of the
+many, which, by engrossing the magistracies in a few hands, would be
+obstructed in their rotation.
+
+But there be who say (and think it a strong objection) that, let a
+commonwealth be as equal as you can imagine, two or three men when all
+is done will govern it; and there is that in it which, notwithstanding
+the pretended sufficiency of a popular State, amounts to a plain
+confession of the imbecility of that policy, and of the prerogative of
+monarchy; forasmuch as popular governments in difficult cases have had
+recourse to dictatorian power, as in Rome.
+
+To which I answer, that as truth is a spark to which objections are like
+bellows, so in this respect our commonwealth shines; for the eminence
+acquired by suffrage of the people in a commonwealth, especially if
+it be popular and equal, can be ascended by no other steps than the
+universal acknowledgment of virtue: and where men excel in virtue, the
+commonwealth is stupid and unjust, if accordingly they do not excel in
+authority. Wherefore this is both the advantage of virtue, which has her
+due encouragement, and of the commonwealth, which has her due services.
+These are the philosophers which Plato would have to be princes, the
+princes which Solomon would have to be mounted, and their steeds are
+those of authority, not empire; or, if they be buckled to the chariot of
+empire, as that of the dictatorian power, like the chariot of the
+sun, it is glorious for terms and vacations or intervals. And as a
+commonwealth is a government of laws and not of men, so is this the
+principality of virtue, and not of man; if that fail or set in one, it
+rises in another who is created his immediate successor. And this takes
+away that vanity from under the sun, which is an error proceeding more
+or less from all other rulers under heaven but an equal commonwealth.
+
+These things considered, it will be convenient in this place to speak a
+word to such as go about to insinuate to the nobility or gentry a fear
+of the people, or to the people a fear of the nobility or gentry; as if
+their interests were destructive to each other. When indeed an army may
+as well consist of soldiers without officers, or of officers without
+soldiers, as a commonwealth, especially such a one as is capable of
+greatness, of a people without a gentry, or of a gentry without a
+people. Wherefore this, though not always so intended, as may appear
+by Machiavel, who else would be guilty, is a pernicious error. There is
+something first in the making of a commonwealth, then in the governing
+of it, and last of all in the leading of its armies, which, though there
+be great divines, great lawyers, great men in all professions, seems to
+be peculiar only to the genius of a gentleman.
+
+For so it is in the universal series of story, that if any man has
+founded a commonwealth, he was first a gentleman. Moses had his
+education by the daughter of Pharaoh; Theseus and Solon, of noble birth,
+were held by the Athenians worthy to be kings; Lycurgus was of the royal
+blood; Romulus and Numa princes; Brutus and Publicola patricians;
+the Gracchi, that lost their lives for the people of Rome and the
+restitution of that commonwealth, were the sons of a father adored with
+two triumphs, and of Cornelia the daughter of Scipio, who being demanded
+in marriage by King Ptolemy, disdained to become the Queen of Egypt. And
+the most renowned Olphaus Megaletor, sole legislator, as you will see
+anon, of the Commonwealth of Oceana, was derived from a noble family;
+nor will it be any occasion of scruple in this case, that Leviathan
+affirms the politics to be no ancienter than his book “De Cive.” Such
+also as have got any fame in the civil government of a commonwealth, or
+by the leading of its armies, have been gentlemen; for so in all other
+respects were those plebeian magistrates elected by the people of Rome,
+being of known descents and of equal virtues, except only that they were
+excluded from the name by the usurpation of the patricians. Holland,
+through this defect at home, has borrowed princes for generals, and
+gentlemen of divers nations for commanders: and the Switzers, if they
+have any defect in this kind, rather lend their people to the colors
+of other princes, than make that noble use of them at home which should
+assert the liberty of mankind. For where there is not a nobility to
+hearten the people, they are slothful, regardless of the world, and of
+the public interest of liberty, as even those of Rome had been without
+their gentry: wherefore let the people embrace the gentry in peace, as
+the light of their eyes; and in war, as the trophy of their arms; and if
+Cornelia disdained to be Queen of Egypt, if a Roman consul looked down
+from his tribunal upon the greatest king, let the nobility love and
+cherish the people that afford them a throne so much higher in a
+commonwealth, in the acknowledgment of their virtue, than the crowns of
+monarchs.
+
+But if the equality of a commonwealth consist in the equality first
+of the agrarian, and next of the rotation, then the inequality of a
+commonwealth must consist in the absence or inequality of the agrarian,
+or of the rotation, or of both.
+
+Israel and Lacedaemon, which commonwealths (as the people of this, in
+Josephus, claims kindred of that) have great resemblance, were each of
+them equal in their agrarian, and unequal in their rotation, especially
+Israel, where the Sanhedrim, or Senate, first elected by the people, as
+appears by the words of Moses, took upon them ever after, without any
+precept of God, to substitute their successors by ordination; which
+having been there of civil use, as excommunication, community of goods,
+and other customs of the Essenes, who were many of them converted, came
+afterward to be introduced into the Christian Church. And the election
+of the judge, suffes, or dictator, was irregular, both for the occasion,
+the term, and the vacation of that magistracy. As you find in the book
+of Judges, where it is often repeated, that in those days there was no
+king in Israel--that is, no judge; and in the first of Samuel, where Eli
+judged Israel forty years, and Samuel, all his life. In Lacedaemon the
+election of the Senate being by suffrage of the people, though for life,
+was not altogether so unequal, yet the hereditary right of kings, were
+it not for the agrarian, had ruined her.
+
+Athens and Rome were unequal as to their agrarian, that of Athens being
+infirm, and this of Rome none at all; for if it were more anciently
+carried it was never observed. Whence, by the time of Tiberius Gracchus,
+the nobility had almost eaten the people quite out of their lands,
+which they held in the occupation of tenants and servants, whereupon the
+remedy being too late, and too vehemently applied, that commonwealth was
+ruined.
+
+These also were unequal in their rotation, but in a contrary manner.
+Athens, in regard that the Senate (chosen at once by lot, not by
+suffrage, and changed every year, not in part, but in the whole)
+consisted not of the natural aristocracy, nor sitting long enough to
+understand or to be perfect in their office, had no sufficient authority
+to restrain the people from that perpetual turbulence in the end, which
+was their ruin, notwithstanding the efforts of Nicias, who did all a man
+could do to help it. But as Athens, by the headiness of the people, so
+Rome fell by the ambition of the nobility, through the want of an equal
+rotation; which, if the people had got into the Senate, and timely
+into the magistracies (whereof the former was always usurped by the
+patricians, and the latter for the most part) they had both carried and
+held their agrarian, and that had rendered that commonwealth immovable.
+
+But let a commonwealth be equal or unequal, it must consist, as has been
+shown by reason and all experience, of the three general orders; that is
+to say, of the Senate debating and proposing, of the people resolving,
+and of the magistracy executing. Wherefore I can never wonder enough
+at Leviathan, who, without any reason or example, will have it that a
+commonwealth consists of a single person, or of a single assembly; nor
+can I sufficiently pity those “thousand gentlemen, whose minds, which
+otherwise would have wavered, he has framed (as is affirmed by himself)
+in to a conscientious obedience (for so he is pleased to call it) of
+such a government.”
+
+But to finish this part of the discourse, which I intend for as
+complete an epitome of ancient prudence, and in that of the whole art of
+politics, as I am able to frame in so short a time:
+
+The two first orders, that is to say, the Senate and the people, are
+legislative, whereunto answers that part of this science which by
+politicians is entitled “of laws;” and the third order is executive,
+to which answers that part of the same science which is styled “of the
+frame and course of courts or judicatories.” A word to each of these
+will be necessary.
+
+And first for laws: they are either ecclesiastical or civil, such as
+concern religion or government.
+
+Laws, ecclesiastical, or such as concern religion, according to
+the universal course of ancient prudence, are in the power of the
+magistrate; but, according to the common practice of modern prudence,
+since the papacy, torn out of his hands.
+
+But, as a government pretending to liberty, and yet suppressing
+liberty of conscience (which, because religion not according to a
+man’s conscience can to him be none at all, is the main) must be a
+contradiction, so a man that, pleading for the liberty of private
+conscience, refuses liberty to the national conscience, must be absurd.
+
+A commonwealth is nothing else but the national conscience. And if the
+conviction of a man’s private conscience produces his private religion,
+the conviction of the national conscience must produce a national
+religion. Whether this be well reasoned, as also whether these two
+may stand together, will best be shown by the examples of the ancient
+commonwealths taken in their order.
+
+In that of Israel the government of the national religion appertained
+not to the priests and Levites, otherwise than as they happened to be
+of the Sanhedrim, or Senate, to which they had no right at all but
+by election. It is in this capacity therefore that the people are
+commanded, under pain of death, “to hearken to them, and to do according
+to the sentence of the law which they should teach;” but in Israel the
+law ecclesiastical and civil was the same, therefore the Sanhedrim,
+having the power of one, had the power of both. But as the national
+religion appertained to the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim, so the
+liberty of conscience appertained, from the same date, and by the same
+right, to the prophets and their disciples; as where it is said, “I will
+raise up a prophet; and whoever will not hearken to my words which he
+shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.” The words relate to
+prophetic right, which was above all the orders of this commonwealth;
+whence Elijah not only refused to obey the King, but destroyed his
+messengers with fire. And whereas it was not lawful by the national
+religion to sacrifice in any other place than the Temple, a prophet was
+his own temple, and might sacrifice where he would, as Elijah did in
+Mount Carmel. By this right John the Baptist and our Saviour, to whom it
+more particularly related, had their disciples, and taught the people,
+whence is derived our present right of gathered congregations;
+wherefore the Christian religion grew up according to the orders of
+the Commonwealth of Israel, and not against them. Nor was liberty of
+conscience infringed by this government, till the civil liberty of
+the same was lost, as under Herod, Pilate, and Tiberius, a three-piled
+tyranny.
+
+To proceed, Athens preserved her religion, by the testimony of Paul,
+with great superstition: if Alcibiades, that atheistical fellow had not
+showed them a pair of heels, they had shaven off his head for shaving
+their Mercuries, and making their gods look ridiculously upon them
+without beards. Nevertheless, if Paul reasoned with them, they loved
+news, for which he was the more welcome; and if he converted Dionysius
+the Areopagite, that is, one of the senators, there followed neither any
+hurt to him, nor loss of honor to Dionysius. And for Rome, if Cicero,
+in his most excellent book “De Natura Deorum,” overthrew the national
+religion of that commonwealth, he was never the further from being
+consul. But there is a meanness and poorness in modern prudence, not
+only to the damage of civil government, but of religion itself; for
+to make a man in matter of religion, which admits not of sensible
+demonstration (jurare in verba magistri), engage to believe no otherwise
+than is believed by my lord bishop, or Goodman Presbyter is a pedantism
+that has made the sword to be a rod in the hands of schoolmasters; by
+which means, whereas the Christian religion is the furthest of any
+from countenancing war, there never was a war of religion but since
+Christianity, for which we are beholden to the Pope; for the Pope not
+giving liberty of conscience to princes and commonwealths, they cannot
+give that to their subjects which they have not themselves, whence
+both princes and subjects, either through his instigation or their own
+disputes, have introduced that execrable custom, never known in the
+world before, of fighting for religion, and denying the magistrate to
+have any jurisdiction concerning it, whereas the magistrate’s losing the
+power of religion loses the liberty of conscience, which in that case
+has nothing to protect it. But if the people be otherwise taught,
+it concerns them to look about them, and to distinguish between the
+shrieking of the lapwing and the voice of the turtle.
+
+To come to civil laws. If they stand one way and the balance another,
+it is the case of a government which of necessity must be new modelled;
+wherefore your lawyers, advising you upon the like occasions to fit your
+government to their laws, are no more to be regarded than your tailor
+if he should desire you to fit your body to his doublet. There is
+also danger in the plausible pretence of reforming the law, except the
+government be first good, in which case it is a good tree, and (trouble
+not yourselves overmuch) brings not forth evil fruit; otherwise, if
+the tree be evil, you can never reform the fruit, or if a root that is
+naught bring forth fruit of this kind that seems to be good, take the
+more heed, for it is the ranker poison. It was nowise probable, if
+Augustus had not made excellent laws, that the bowels of Rome could have
+come to be so miserably eaten out by the tyranny of Tiberius and his
+successors. The best rule as to your laws in general is that they be
+few. Rome, by the testimony of Cicero, Was best governed under those of
+the twelve tables; and by that of Tacitus, Plurimoe leges, corruptissima
+respublica. You will be told that where the laws be few they leave much
+to arbitrary power; but where they be many, they leave more, the laws
+in this case, according to Justinian and the best lawyers, being as
+litigious as the suitors. Solon made few, Lycurgus fewer, laws; and
+commonwealths have the fewest at this day of all other governments.
+
+Now to conclude this part with a word de judiciis, or of the
+constitution or course of courts; it is a discourse not otherwise
+capable of being well managed but by particular examples, both the
+constitution and course of courts being divers in different governments,
+but best beyond compare in Venice, where they regard not so much the
+arbitrary power of their courts as the constitution of them, whereby
+that arbitrary power being altogether unable to retard or do hurt to
+business, produces and must produce the quickest despatch, and the most
+righteous dictates of justice that are perhaps in human nature. The
+manner I shall not stand in this place to describe, because it is
+exemplified at large in the judicature of the people of Oceana. And
+thus much of ancient prudence, and the first branch of this preliminary
+discourse.
+
+THE SECOND PART OF THE PRELIMINARIES
+
+In the second part I shall endeavor to show the rise, progress, and
+declination of modern prudence.
+
+The date of this kind of policy is to be computed, as was shown, from
+those inundations of Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Lombards that overwhelmed
+the Roman Empire. But as there is no appearance in the bulk or
+constitution of modern prudence, that it should ever have been able to
+come up and grapple with the ancient, so something of necessity must
+have interposed whereby this came to be enervated, and that to receive
+strength and encouragement. And this was the execrable reign of the
+Roman emperors taking rise from (that felix scelus) the arms of
+Caesar, in which storm the ship of the Roman Commonwealth was forced
+to disburden itself of that precious freight, which never since could
+emerge or raise its head but in the Gulf of Venice.
+
+It is said in Scripture, “Thy evil is of thyself, O Israel!” to which
+answers that of the moralists, “None is hurt but by himself,” as also
+the whole matter of the politics; at present this example of the Romans,
+who, through a negligence committed in their agrarian laws, let in the
+sink of luxury, and forfeited the inestimable treasure of liberty for
+themselves and their posterity.
+
+Their agrarian laws were such whereby their lands ought to have been
+divided among the people, either without mention of a colony, in which
+case they were not obliged to change their abode; or with mention and
+upon condition of a colony, in which case they were to change their
+abode, and leaving the city, to plant themselves upon the lands so
+assigned. The lands assigned, or that ought to have been assigned, in
+either of these ways, were of three kinds: such as were taken from the
+enemy and distributed to the people; or such as were taken from the
+enemy, and, under color of being reserved to the public use, were
+through stealth possessed by the nobility; or such as were bought with
+the public money to be distributed. Of the laws offered in these cases,
+those which divided the lands taken from the enemy, or purchased with
+the public money, never occasioned any dispute; but such as drove at
+dispossessing the nobility of their usurpations, and dividing the common
+purchase of the sword among the people, were never touched but they
+caused earthquakes, nor could they ever be obtained by the people; or
+being obtained, be observed by the nobility, who not only preserved
+their prey, but growing vastly rich upon it, bought the people by
+degrees quite out of those shares that had been conferred upon them.
+This the Gracchi coming too late to perceive found the balance of the
+commonwealth to be lost; but putting the people (when they had least
+force) by forcible means upon the recovery of it, did ill, seeing
+it neither could nor did tend to any more than to show them by worse
+effects that what the wisdom of their leaders had discovered was true.
+For quite contrary to what has happened in Oceana, where, the balance
+falling to the people, they have overthrown the nobility, that nobility
+of Rome, under the conduct of Sylla, overthrew the people and the
+commonwealth; seeing Sylla first introduced that new balance which was
+the foundation of the succeeding monarchy, in the plantation of military
+colonies, instituted by his distribution of the conquered lands, not now
+of enemies, but of citizens, to forty-seven legions of his soldiers;
+so that how he came to be perpetual dictator, or other magistrates to
+succeed him in like power, is no miracle.
+
+These military colonies (in which manner succeeding emperors continued,
+as Augustus by the distribution of the veterans, whereby he had overcome
+Brutus and Cassius to plant their soldiery) consisted of such as I
+conceive were they that are called milites beneficiarii; in regard that
+the tenure of their lands was by way of benefices, that is, for life,
+and upon condition of duty or service in the war upon their own
+charge. These benefices Alexander Severus granted to the heirs of the
+incumbents, but upon the same conditions. And such was the dominion by
+which the Roman emperors gave their balance. But to the beneficiaries,
+as was no less than necessary for the safety of the prince, a matter of
+8,000 by the example of Augustus were added, which departed not from
+his sides, but were his perpetual guard, called Pretorian bands; though
+these, according to the incurable flaw already observed in this kind of
+government, became the most frequent butchers of their lords that are
+to be found in story. Thus far the Roman monarchy is much the same with
+that at this day in Turkey, consisting of a camp and a horse-quarter; a
+camp in regard of the Spahis and Janizaries, the perpetual guard of the
+prince, except they also chance to be liquorish after his blood; and a
+horse-quarter in regard of the distribution of his whole land to tenants
+for life, upon condition of continual service, or as often as they shall
+be commanded at their own charge by timars, being a word which they
+say signifies benefices, that it shall save me a labor of opening the
+government.
+
+But the fame of Mahomet and his prudence is especially founded in this,
+that whereas the Roman monarchy, except that of Israel, was the most
+imperfect, the Turkish is the most perfect that ever was. Which
+happened in that the Roman (as the Israelitish of the Sanhedrim and
+the congregation) had a mixture of the Senate and the people; and the
+Turkish is pure. And that this was pure, and the other mixed, happened
+not through the wisdom of the legislators, but the different genius of
+the nations; the people of the Eastern parts, except the Israelites,
+which is to be attributed to their agrarian, having been such as scarce
+ever knew any other condition than that of slavery; and these of the
+Wester having ever had such a relish of liberty, as through what despair
+soever could never be brought to stand still while the yoke was putting
+on their necks, but by being fed with some hopes of reserving to
+themselves some part of their freedom.
+
+Wherefore Julius Caesar (saith Suetonius) contented himself in naming
+half the magistrates, to leave the rest to the suffrage of the people.
+And Maecenas, though he would not have Augustus to give the people their
+liberty, would not have him take it quite away. Whence this empire,
+being neither hawk nor buzzard, made a flight accordingly; and the
+prince being perpetually tossed (having the avarice of the soldiery on
+this hand to satisfy upon the people, and the Senate and the people on
+the other to be defended from the soldiery), seldom died any other
+death than by one horn of this dilemma, as is noted more at large by
+Machiavel.
+
+But the Pretorian bands, those bestial executioners of their captain’s
+tyranny upon others, and of their own upon him, having continued from
+the time of Augustus, were by Constantine the Great (incensed against
+them for taking part with his adversary Maxentius) removed from their
+strong garrison which they held in Rome, and distributed into divers
+provinces. The benefices of the soldiers that were hitherto held for
+life and upon duty, were by this prince made hereditary, so that
+the whole foundation whereupon this empire was first built being now
+removed, shows plainly that the emperors must long before this have
+found out some other way of support; and this was by stipendiating the
+Goths, a people that, deriving their roots from the northern parts of
+Germany, or out of Sweden, had, through their victories obtained against
+Domitian, long since spread their branches to so near a neighborhood
+with the Roman territories that they began to overshadow them. For the
+emperors making use of them in their armies, as the French do at this
+day of the Switz, gave them that under the notion of a stipend, which
+they received as tribute, coming, if there were any default in the
+payment, so often to distrain for it, that in the time of Honorius
+they sacked Rome, and possessed themselves of Italy. And such was the
+transition of ancient into modern prudence, or that breach, which being
+followed in every part of the Roman Empire with inundations of Vandals,
+Huns, Lombards, Franks, Saxons, overwhelmed ancient languages, learning,
+prudence, manners, cities, changing the names of rivers, countries,
+seas, mountains, and men; Camillus, Caesar, and Pompey, being come to
+Edmund, Richard, and Geoffrey.
+
+To open the groundwork or balance of these new politicians: “Feudum,”
+ says Calvin the lawyer, “is a Gothic word of divers significations;
+for it is taken either for war, or for a possession of conquered lands,
+distributed by the victor to such of his captains and soldiers as had
+merited in his wars, upon condition to acknowledge him to be their
+perpetual lord, and themselves to be his subjects.”
+
+Of these there were three kinds or orders: the first of nobility
+distinguished by the titles of dukes, marquises, earls, and these
+being gratified with the cities, castles, and villages of the conquered
+Italians, their feuds participated of royal dignity, and were called
+regalia, by which they had right to coin money, create magistrates, take
+toll, customs, confiscations, and the like.
+
+Feuds of the second order were such as, with the consent of the King,
+were bestowed by these feudatory princes upon men of inferior quality,
+called their barons, on condition that next to the King they should
+defend the dignities and fortunes of their lords in arms.
+
+The lowest order of feuds were such, as being conferred by those of the
+second order upon private men, whether noble not noble, obliged them in
+the like duty to their superiors; the were called vavasors. And this is
+the Gothic balance, by which all the kingdoms this day in Christendom
+were at first erected; for which cause, if I had time, I should open in
+this place the Empire of Germany, and the Kingdoms of France, Spain, and
+Poland; but so much as has been said being sufficient for the discovery
+of the principles of modern prudence in general, I shall divide the
+remainder of my discourse, which is more particular, into three parts:
+
+The first, showing the constitution of the late monarchy of Oceana;
+
+The second, the dissolution of the same; and
+
+The third, the generation of the present commonwealth.
+
+The constitution of the late monarchy of Oceana is to be considered
+in relation to the different nations by whom it has been successively
+subdued and governed. The first of these were the Romans, the second the
+Teutons, the third the Scandians, and the fourth the Neustrians.
+
+The government of the Romans, who held it as a province, I shall omit,
+because I am to speak of their provincial government in another place,
+only it is to be remembered here, that if we have given over running up
+and down naked, and with dappled hides, learned to write and read, and
+to be instructed with good arts, for all these we are beholden to the
+Romans, either immediately or mediately by the Teutons; for that
+the Teutons had the arts from no other hand is plain enough by their
+language, which has yet no word to signify either writing or reading,
+but what is derived from the Latin. Furthermore, by the help of these
+arts so learned, we have been capable of that religion which we have
+long since received; wherefore it seems to me that we ought not to
+detract from the memory of the Romans, by whose means we are, as it
+were, of beasts become men, and by whose means we might yet of obscure
+and ignorant men (if we thought not too well of ourselves) become a wise
+and a great people.
+
+The Romans having governed Oceana provincially, the Teutons were the
+first that introduced the form of the late monarchy. To these succeeded
+the Scandians, of whom (because their reign was short, as also because
+they made little alteration in the government as to the form) I shall
+take no notice. But the Teutons going to work upon the Gothic balance,
+divided the whole nation into three sorts of feuds, that of ealdorman,
+that of king’s thane, and that of middle thane.
+
+When the kingdom was first divided into precincts will be as hard to
+show as when it began first to be governed. It being impossible that
+there should be any government without some division. The division that
+was in use with the Teutons was by counties, and every county had either
+its ealdorman or high reeve. The title of ealdorman came in time to
+eorl, or erl, and that of high reeve to high sheriff.
+
+Earl of the shire or county denoted the king’s thane, or tenant by grand
+sergeantry or knight’s service, in chief or in capite; his possessions
+were sometimes the whole territory from whence he had his denomination,
+that is, the whole county; sometimes more than one county, and sometimes
+less, the remaining part being in the crown. He had also sometimes a
+third, or some other customary part of the profits of certain cities,
+boroughs, or other places within his earldom. For an example of the
+possessions of earls in ancient times, Ethelred had to him and his heirs
+the whole Kingdom of Mercia, containing three or four counties; and
+there were others that had little less.
+
+King’s thane was also an honorary title, to which he was qualified
+that had five hides of land held immediately of the King by service of
+personal attendance; insomuch that if a churl or countryman had thriven
+to this proportion, having a church, a kitchen, a bell-house (that is,
+a hall with a bell in it to call his family to dinner), a borough-gate
+with a seat (that is, a porch) of his own, and any distinct office in
+the King’s court, then was he the King’s thane. But the proportion of a
+hide-land, otherwise called caruca, or a plough-land, is difficult to
+be understood, because it was not certain; nevertheless it is generally
+conceived to be so much as may be managed with one plough, and would
+yield the maintenance of the same, with the appurtenances in all kinds.
+
+The middle thane was feudal, but not honorary; he was also called a
+vavasor, and his lands a vavasory, which held of some mesne lord, and
+not immediately of the King.
+
+Possessions and their tenures, being of this nature, show the balance
+of the Teuton monarchy, wherein the riches of earls were so vast that to
+arise from the balance of their dominion to their power, they were
+not only called reguli, or little kings, but were such indeed; their
+jurisdiction being of two sorts, either that which was exercised by them
+in the court of their countries, or in the high court of the kingdom.
+
+In the territory denominating an earl, if it were all his own, the
+courts held, and the profits of that jurisdiction were to his own
+use and benefit. But if he had but some part of his county, then his
+jurisdiction and courts, saving perhaps in those possessions that were
+his own, were held by him to the King’s use and benefit; that is, he
+commonly supplied the office which the sheriffs regularly executed in
+counties that had no earls, and whence they came to be called viscounts.
+The court of the county that had an earl was held by the earl and the
+bishop of the diocese, after the manner of the sheriffs’ turns to this
+day; by which means both the ecclesiastical and temporal laws were given
+in charge together to the country. The causes of vavasors or vavasories
+appertained to the cognizance of this court, where wills were proved,
+judgment and execution given, cases criminal and civil determined.
+
+The King’s thanes had the like jurisdiction in their thane lands as
+lords in their manors, where they also kept courts.
+
+Besides these in particular, both the earls and King’s thanes, together
+with the bishops, abbots, and vavasors, or middle thanes, had in the
+high court or parliament in the kingdom a more public jurisdiction,
+consisting first of deliberative power for advising upon and assenting
+to new laws; secondly, giving counsel in matters of state and thirdly,
+of judicature upon suits and complaints. I shall not omit to enlighten
+the obscurity of these times, in which there is little to be found of
+a methodical constitution of this high court, by the addition of an
+argument, which I conceive to bear a strong testimony to itself, though
+taken out of a late writing that conceals the author. “It is well
+known,” says he, “that in every quarter of the realm a great many
+boroughs do yet send burgesses to the parliament which nevertheless be
+so anciently and so long since decayed and gone to naught, that they
+cannot be showed to have been of any reputation since the Conquest, much
+less to have obtained any such privilege by the grant of any succeeding
+king: wherefore these must have had this right by more ancient usage,
+and before the Conquest, they being unable now to show whence they
+derived it.”
+
+This argument, though there be more, I shall pitch upon as sufficient to
+prove: First, that the lower sort of the people had right to session
+in Parliament during the time of the Teutons. Secondly, that they were
+qualified to the same by election in their boroughs, and if knights of
+the shire, as no doubt they are, be as ancient in the counties. Thirdly
+if it be a good argument to say that the commons during the reign of the
+Teutons were elected into Parliament because they are so now, and no man
+can show when this custom began, I see not which way it should be an ill
+one to say that the commons during the reign of the Teutons constituted
+also a distinct house because they do so now, unless any man can show
+that they did ever sit in the same house with the lords. Wherefore
+to conclude this part, I conceive for these, and other reasons to be
+mentioned hereafter, that the Parliament of the Teutons consisted of the
+King, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons of the nation,
+notwithstanding the style of divers acts of Parliament, which runs,
+as that of Magna Charta, in the King’s name only, seeing the same was
+nevertheless enacted by the King, peers, and commons of the land, as is
+testified in those words by a subsequent act.
+
+The monarchy of the Teutons had stood in this posture about 220 years;
+when Turbo, Duke of Neustria, making his claim to the crown of one of
+their kings that died childless, followed it with successful arms, and,
+being possessed of the kingdom, used it as conquered, distributing the
+earldoms, thane-lands, bishoprics, and prelacies of the whole realm
+among his Neustrians. From this time the earl came to be called comes,
+consul, and dux, though consul and dux grew afterward out of use; the
+King’s thanes came to be called barons, and their lands baronies;
+the middle thane holding still of a mesne lord, retained the name of
+vavasor.
+
+The earl or comes continued to have the third part of the pleas of the
+county paid to him by the sheriff or vice--comes, now a distinct officer
+in every county depending upon the King; saving that such earls as had
+their counties to their own use were now counts-palatine, and had under
+the King regal jurisdiction; insomuch that they constituted their own
+sheriffs, granted pardons, and issued writs in their own names; nor did
+the King’s writ of ordinary justice run in their dominions till a late
+statute, whereby much of this privilege was taken away.
+
+For barons they came from henceforth to be in different times of three
+kinds: barons by their estates and tenures, barons by writ, and barons
+created by letters-patent. From Turbo the first to Adoxus the seventh
+king from the Conquest, barons had their denomination from their
+possessions and tenures. And these were either spiritual or temporal;
+for not only the thanelands, but the possessions of bishops, as also of
+some twenty six abbots, and two priors, were now erected into baronies,
+whence the lords spiritual that had suffrage in the Teuton Parliament as
+spiritual lords came to have it in the Neustrian Parliament as barons,
+and were made subject, which they had not formerly been, to knights’
+service in chief. Barony coming henceforth to signify all honorary
+possessions as well of earls as barons, and baronage to denote all
+kinds of lords as well spiritual as temporal having right to sit
+in Parliament, the baronies in this sense were sometimes more, and
+sometimes fewer, but commonly about 200 or 250, containing in them a
+matter of 60,000 feuda militum, or knights’ fees, whereof some 28,000
+were in the clergy.
+
+It is ill-luck that no man can tell what the land of a knight’s
+fee, reckoned in some writs at £40 a year, and in others at £10, was
+certainly worth, for by such a help we might have exactly demonstrated
+the balance of this government. But, says Coke, it contained twelve
+plough-lands, and that was thought to be the most certain account. But
+this again is extremely uncertain; for one plough out of some land that
+was fruitful might work more than ten out of some other that was
+barren. Nevertheless, seeing it appears by Bracton, that of earldoms and
+baronies it was wont to be said that the whole kingdom was composed, as
+also that these, consisting of 60,000 knights’ fees, furnished 60,000
+men for the King’s service, being the whole militia of this monarchy,
+it cannot be imagined that the vavasories or freeholds in the people
+amounted to any considerable proportion. Wherefore the balance and
+foundation of this government were in the 60,000 knights’ fees, and
+these being possessed by the 250 lords, it was a government of the few,
+or of the nobility, wherein the people might also assemble, but could
+have no more than a mere name. And the clergy, holding a third of the
+whole nation, as is plain by the Parliament-roll, it is an absurdity
+(seeing the clergy of France came first through their riches to be a
+state of that kingdom) to acknowledge the people to have been a state
+of this realm, and not to allow it to the clergy, who were so much more
+weighty in the balance, which is that of all other whence a state or
+order in a government is denominated. Wherefore this monarchy consisted
+of the King, and of the three ordines regni, or estates, the lords
+spiritual and temporal, and the commons; it consisted of these, I say,
+as to the balance, though, during the reign of some of these kings, not
+as to the administration.
+
+For the ambition of Turbo, and some of those that more immediately
+succeeded him, to be absolute princes, strove against the nature of
+their foundation, and, inasmuch as he had divided almost the whole
+realm among his Neustrians, with some encouragement for a while. But
+the Neustrians, while they were but foreign plants, having no security
+against the natives, but in growing up by their princes’ sides, were no
+sooner well rooted in their vast dominions than they came up according
+to the infallible consequence of the balance domestic, and, contracting
+the national interest of the baronage, grew as fierce in the vindication
+of the ancient rights and liberties of the same, as if they had been
+always natives: whence, the kings being as obstinate on the one side for
+their absolute power, as these on the other for their immunities, grew
+certain wars, which took their denomination from the barons.
+
+This fire about the middle of the reign of Adoxus began to break out.
+And whereas the predecessors of this King had divers times been forced
+to summon councils resembling those of the Teutons, to which the lords
+only that were barons by dominion and tenure had hitherto repaired,
+Adoxus, seeing the effects of such dominion, began first not to call
+such as were barons by writ (for that was according to the practice of
+ancient times), but to call such by writs as were otherwise no barons;
+by which means, striving to avoid the consequence of the balance, in
+coming unwillingly to set the government straight, he was the first that
+set it awry. For the barons in his reign, and his successors, having
+vindicated their ancient authority, restored the Parliament with all
+the rights and privileges of the same, saving that from thenceforth the
+kings had found out a way whereby to help themselves against the mighty
+by creatures of their own, and such as had no other support but by their
+favor.. By which means this government, being indeed the masterpiece of
+modern prudence, has been cried up to the skies, as the only invention
+whereby at once to maintain the sovereignty of a prince and the
+liberty of the people. Whereas, indeed, it has been no other than a
+wrestling-match, wherein the nobility, as they have been stronger, have
+thrown the King, or the King, if he has been stronger, has thrown the
+nobility; or the King, where he has had a nobility, and could bring
+them to his party has thrown the people, as in France and Spain; or
+the people, where they have had no nobility, or could get them to be of
+their party, have thrown the King, as in Holland, and of later times in
+Oceana.
+
+But they came not to this strength, but by such approaches and degrees
+as remain to be further opened. For whereas the barons by writ, as the
+sixty-four abbots and thirty-six priors that were so called, were but
+pro temp ore, Dicotome, being the twelfth king from the Conquest, began
+to make barons by letters-patent, with the addition of honorary pensions
+for the maintenance of their dignities to them and their heirs; so that
+they were hands in the King’s purse and had no shoulders for his throne.
+Of these, when the house of peers came once to be full, as will be seen
+hereafter, there was nothing more empty. But for the present, the throne
+having other supports, they did not hurt that so much as they did
+the King; for the old barons, taking Dicotome’s prodigality to such
+creatures so ill that they deposed him, got the trick of it, and never
+gave over setting up and pulling down their kings according to their
+various interests, and that faction of the White and Red, into which
+they have been thenceforth divided, till Panurgus, the eighteenth king
+from the Conquest, was more by their favor than his right advanced to
+the crown. This King, through his natural subtlety, reflecting at once
+upon the greatness of their power, and the inconstancy of their favor,
+began to find another flaw in this kind of government, which is also
+noted by Machiavel namely, that a throne supported by a nobility is not
+so hard to be ascended as kept warm. Wherefore his secret jealousy, lest
+the dissension of the nobility, as it brought him in might throw him
+out, made him travel in ways undiscovered by them, to ends as little
+foreseen by himself, while to establish his own safety, he, by mixing
+water with their wine, first began to open those sluices that have since
+overwhelmed not the King only, but the throne. For whereas a nobility
+strikes not at the throne, without which they cannot subsist, but at
+some king that they do not like, popular power strikes through the King
+at the throne, as that which is incompatible with it. Now that Panurgus,
+in abating the power of the nobility, was the cause whence it came to
+fall into the hands of the people, appears by those several statutes
+that were made in his reign, as that for population, those against
+retainers, and that for alienations.
+
+By the statute of population, all houses of husbandry that were used
+with twenty acres of ground and upward, were to be maintained and kept
+up forever with a competent proportion of land laid to them, and in no
+wise, as appears by a subsequent statute, to be severed. By which means
+the houses being kept up, did of necessity enforce dwellers; and the
+proportion of land to be tilled being kept up, did of necessity enforce
+the dweller not to be a beggar or cottager, but a man of some substance,
+that might keep hinds and servants and set the plough a-going. This
+did mightily concern, says the historian of that prince, the might and
+manhood of the kingdom, and in effect amortize a great part of the lands
+to the hold and possession of the yeomanry or middle people, who living
+not in a servile or indigent fashion, were much unlinked from dependence
+upon their lords, and living in a free and plentiful manner, became
+a more excellent infantry, but such a one upon which the lords had so
+little power, that from henceforth they may be computed to have been
+disarmed.
+
+And as they had lost their infantry after this manner, so their cavalry
+and commanders were cut off by the statute of retainers; for whereas it
+was the custom of the nobility to have younger brothers of good houses,
+mettled fellows, and such as were knowing in the feats of arms about
+them, they who were longer followed with so dangerous a train, escaped
+not such punishments as made them take up.
+
+Henceforth the country lives and great tables of the nobility, which
+no longer nourished veins that would bleed for them, were fruitless and
+loathsome till they changed the air, and of princes became courtiers;
+where their revenues, never to have been exhausted by beef and mutton,
+were found narrow, whence followed racking of rents, and at length sale
+of lands, the riddance through the statute of alienations being rendered
+far more quick and facile than formerly it had been through the new
+invention of entails.
+
+To this it happened that Coraunus, the successor of that King,
+dissolving the abbeys, brought, with the declining state of the
+nobility, so vast a prey to the industry of the people, that the balance
+of the commonwealth was too apparently in the popular party to be
+unseen by the wise Council of Queen Parthenia, who, converting her reign
+through the perpetual love tricks that passed between her and her people
+into a kind of romance, wholly neglected the nobility. And by these
+degrees came the House of Commons to raise that head, which since has
+been so high and formidable to their princes that they have looked
+pale upon those assemblies. Nor was there anything now wanting to the
+destruction of the throne, but that the people, not apt to see their own
+strength, should be put to feel it; when a prince, as stiff in disputes
+as the nerve of monarchy was grown slack, received that unhappy
+encouragement from his clergy which became his utter ruin, while
+trusting more to their logic than the rough philosophy of his
+Parliament, it came to an irreparable breach; for the house of peers,
+which alone had stood in this gap, now sinking down between the King and
+the commons, showed that Crassus was dead and the isthmus broken. But
+a monarchy, divested of its nobility, has no refuge under heaven but an
+army. Wherefore the dissolution of this government caused the war, not
+the war the dissolution of this government.
+
+Of the King’s success with his arms it is not necessary to give any
+further account than that they proved as ineffectual as his nobility;
+but without a nobility or an army (as has been shown) there can be no
+monarchy. Wherefore what is there in nature that can arise out of these
+ashes but a popular government, or a new monarchy to be erected by the
+victorious army?
+
+To erect a monarchy, be it never so new, unless like Leviathan you can
+hang it, as the country-fellow speaks, by geometry (for what else is it
+to say, that every other man must give up his will to the will of
+this one man without any other foundation?), it must stand upon old
+principles--that is, upon a nobility or an army planted on a due balance
+of dominion. Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, was an adage of Caesar, and
+there is no standing for a monarchy unless it finds this balance, or
+makes it. If it finds it, the work is done to its hand; for, where there
+is inequality of estates, there must be inequality of power; and where
+there is inequality of power, there can be no commonwealth. To make it,
+the sword must extirpate out of dominion all other roots of power, and
+plant an army upon that ground. An army may be planted nationally or
+provincially. To plant it nationally, it must be in one of the four
+ways mentioned, that is, either monarchically in part, as the Roman
+beneficiarii; or monarchically, in the whole, as the Turkish Timariots;
+aristocratically that is, by earls and barons, as the Neustrians were
+planted by Turbo; or democratically, that is, by equal lots, as the
+Israelitish army in the land of Canaan by Joshua. In every one of these
+ways there must not only be confiscations, but confiscations to such a
+proportion as may answer to the work intended.
+
+Confiscation of a people that never fought against you, but whose arms
+you have borne, and in which you have been victorious, and this upon
+premeditation and in cold blood, I should have thought to be against
+any example in human nature, but for those alleged by Machiavel
+of Agathocles, and Oliveretto di Fermo, the former whereof being
+captain-general of the Syracusans, upon a day assembled the Senate and
+the people, as if he had something to communicate with them, when at a
+sign given he cut the senators in pieces to a man, and all the richest
+of the people, by which means he came to be king. The proceedings of
+Oliveretto, in making himself Prince of Fermo, were somewhat different
+in circumstances, but of the same nature. Nevertheless Catiline, who
+had a spirit equal to any of these in his intended mischief, could never
+bring the like to pass in Rome. The head of a small commonwealth, such
+a one as was that of Syracuse or Fermo, is easily brought to the block;
+but that a populous nation, such as Rome, had not such a one, was the
+grief of Nero. If Sylvia or Caesar attained to be princes, it was by
+civil war, and such civil war as yielded rich spoils, there being a vast
+nobility to be confiscated; which also was the case in Oceana, when
+it yielded earth by earldoms, and baronies to the Neustrian for the
+plantation of his new potentates. Where a conqueror finds the riches of
+a land in the hands of the few, the forfeitures are easy, and amount to
+vast advantage; but where the people have equal shares, the confiscation
+of many comes to little, and is not only dangerous but fruitless.
+
+The Romans, in one of their defeats of the Volsci, found among the
+captives certain Tusculans, who, upon examination, confessed that the
+arms they bore were by command of their State; whereupon information
+being given to the Senate by the general Camillus, he was forthwith
+commanded to march against Tusculum which doing accordingly, he found
+the Tusculan fields full of husbandmen, that stirred not otherwise from
+the plough than to furnish his army with all kinds of accommodations
+and victuals. Drawing near to the city, he saw the gates wide open, the
+magistrates coming out in their gowns to salute and bid him welcome;
+entering, the shops were all at work, and open, the streets sounded
+with the noise of schoolboys at their books; there was no face of war.
+Whereupon Camillus, causing the Senate to assemble, told them, that
+though the art was understood, yet had they at length found out the true
+arms whereby the Romans were most undoubtedly to be conquered, for
+which cause he would not anticipate the Senate, to which he desired them
+forthwith to send, which they did accordingly; and their dictator with
+the rest of their ambassadors being found by the Roman senators as
+they went into the house standing sadly at the door were sent for in as
+friends, and not as enemies; where the dictator having said, “If we
+have offended, the fault was not so great as is our penitence and your
+virtue,” the Senate gave them peace forthwith, and soon after made the
+Tusculans citizens of Rome.
+
+But putting the case, of which the world is not able to show an example,
+that the forfeiture of a populous nation, not conquered, but friends,
+and in cool blood, might be taken, your army must be planted in one of
+the ways mentioned. To plant it in the way of absolute monarchy, that
+is, upon feuds for life, such as the Timars, a country as large and
+fruitful as that of Greece, would afford you but 16,000 Timariots, for
+that is the most the Turk (being the best husband that ever was of
+this kind) makes of it at this day: and if Oceana, which is less in
+fruitfulness by one-half, and in extent by three parts, should have no
+greater a force, whoever breaks her in one battle, may be sure she shall
+never rise; for such (as was noted by Machiavel) is the nature of the
+Turkish monarchy, if you break it in two battles, you have destroyed its
+whole militia, and the rest being all slaves, you hold it without any
+further resistance. Wherefore the erection of an absolute monarchy in
+Oceana, or in any other country that is no larger, without making it a
+certain prey to the first invader is altogether impossible.
+
+To plant by halves, as the Roman emperors did their beneficiaries,
+or military colonies, it must be either for life; and this an army of
+Oceaners in their own country, especially having estates of inheritance,
+will never bear because such an army so planted is as well confiscated
+as the people; nor had the Mamelukes been contented with such usage in
+Egypt, but that they were foreigners, and daring not to mix with the
+natives, it was of absolute necessity to their being.
+
+Or planting them upon inheritance, whether aristocratically as the
+Neustrians, or democratically as the Israelites, they grow up by certain
+consequences into the national interest, and this, if they be planted
+popularly, comes to a commonwealth; if by way of nobility, to a mixed
+monarchy, which of all other will be found to be the only kind of
+monarchy whereof this nation, or any other that is of no greater
+extent, has been or can be capable; for if the Israelites, though their
+democratical balance, being fixed by their agrarian, stood firm, be yet
+found to have elected kings, it was because, their territory lying open,
+they were perpetually invaded, and being perpetually invaded, turned
+themselves to anything which, through the want of experience, they
+thought might be a remedy; whence their mistake in election of their
+kings, under whom they gained nothing, but, on the contrary, lost all
+they had acquired by their commonwealth, both estates and liberties, is
+not only apparent, but without parallel. And if there have been, as
+was shown, a kingdom of the Goths in Spain, and of the Vandals in Asia,
+consisting of a single person and a Parliament (taking a parliament to
+be a council of the people only, without a nobility), it is expressly
+said of those councils that they deposed their kings as often as they
+pleased; nor can there be any other consequence of such a government,
+seeing where there is a council of the people they do never receive
+laws, but give them; and a council giving laws to a single person, he
+has no means in the world whereby to be any more than a subordinate
+magistrate but force: in which case he is not a single person and a
+parliament, but a single person and an army, which army again must be
+planted as has been shown, or can be of no long continuance.
+
+It is true, that the provincial balance bring in nature quite contrary
+to the national, you are no way to plant a provincial army upon
+dominion. But then you must have a native territory in strength,
+situation, or government, able to overbalance the foreign, or you can
+never hold it. That an army should in any other case be long supported
+by a mere tax, is a mere fancy as void of all reason and experience as
+if a man should think to maintain such a one by robbing of orchards; for
+a mere tax is but pulling of plum-trees, the roots whereof are in other
+men’s grounds, who, suffering perpetual violence, come to hate the
+author of it; and it is a maxim, that no prince that is hated by his
+people can be safe. Arms planted upon dominion extirpate enemies and
+make friends; but maintained by a mere tax, have enemies that have
+roots, and friends that have none.
+
+To conclude, Oceana, or any other nation of no greater extent, must have
+a competent nobility, or is altogether incapable of monarchy; for where
+there is equality of estates, there must be equality of power, and where
+there is equality of power, there can be no monarchy.
+
+To come then to the generation of the commonwealth. It has been shown
+how, through the ways and means used by Panurgus to abase the nobility,
+and so to mend that flaw which we have asserted to be incurable in this
+kind of constitution, he suffered the balance to fall into the power of
+the people, and so broke the government; but the balance being in the
+people, the commonwealth (though they do not see it) is already in the
+nature of them. There wants nothing else but time, which is slow
+and dangerous, or art, which would be more quick and secure, for the
+bringing those native arms, wherewithal they are found already, to
+resist, they know not how, everything that opposes them, to such
+maturity as may fix them upon their own strength and bottom.
+
+But whereas this art is prudence, and that part of prudence which
+regards the present work is nothing else but the skill of raising such
+superstructures of government as are natural to the known foundations,
+they never mind the foundation, but through certain animosities,
+wherewith by striving one against another they are infected, or through
+freaks, by which, not regarding the course of things, nor how they
+conduce to their purpose, they are given to building in the air, come to
+be divided and subdivided into endless parties and factions, both civil
+and ecclesiastical, which, briefly to open, I shall first speak of the
+people in general, and then of their divisions.
+
+A people, says Machiavel, that is corrupt, is not capable of a
+commonwealth. But in showing what a corrupt people is, he has either
+involved himself, or me; nor can I otherwise come out of the labyrinth,
+than by saying, the balance altering a people, as to the foregoing
+government, must of necessity be corrupt; but corruption in this sense
+signifies no more than that the corruption of one government, as in
+natural bodies, is the generation of another. Wherefore if the balance
+alters from monarchy, the corruption of the people in this case is
+that which makes them capable of a commonwealth. But whereas I am not
+ignorant that the corruption which he means is in manners, this also is
+from the balance. For the balance leading from monarchical into popular
+abates the luxury of the nobility, and, enriching the people, brings the
+government from a more private to a more public interest which coming
+nearer, as has been shown, to justice and right reason, the people upon
+a like alteration is so far from such a corruption of manners as should
+render them incapable of a commonwealth, that of necessity they must
+thereby contract such a reformation of manners as will bear no other
+kind of government. On the other side, where the balance changes from
+popular to oligarchical or monarchical, the public interest, with the
+reason and justice included in the sane, becomes more private; luxury is
+introduced in the room of temperance, and servitude in that of freedom,
+which causes such a corruption of manners both in the nobility and
+people, as, by the example of Rome in the time of the Triumvirs, is more
+at large discovered by the author to have been altogether incapable of a
+commonwealth.
+
+But the balance of Oceana changing quite contrary to that of Rome, the
+manners of the people were not thereby corrupted, but, on the contrary,
+adapted to a commonwealth. For differences of opinion in a people not
+rightly informed of their balance, or a division into parties (while
+there is not any common ligament of power sufficient to reconcile or
+hold them) is no sufficient proof of corruption. Nevertheless, seeing
+this must needs be matter of scandal and danger, it will not be amiss,
+in showing what were the parties, to show what were their errors.
+
+The parties into which this nation was divided, were temporal or
+spiritual; and the temporal parties were especially two, the one
+royalists, the other republicans, each of which asserted their different
+causes, either out of prudence or ignorance, out of interest or
+conscience.
+
+For prudence, either that of the ancients is inferior to the modern,
+which we have hitherto been setting face to face, that anyone may judge,
+or that of the royalist must be inferior to that of the commonwealths
+man. And for interest, taking the commonwealths man to have really
+intended the public, for otherwise he is a hypocrite and the worst of
+men, that of the royalist must of necessity have been more private.
+Wherefore, the whole dispute will come upon matter of conscience, and
+this, whether it be urged by the right of kings, the obligation of
+former laws, or of the oath of allegiance, is absolved by the balance.
+
+For if the right of kings were as immediately derived from the breath
+of God as the life of man, yet this excludes not death and dissolution.
+But, that the dissolution of the late monarchy was as natural as the
+death of man, has been already shown. Wherefore it remains with the
+royalists to discover by what reason or experience it is possible for a
+monarchy to stand upon a popular balance; or, the balance being popular,
+as well the oath of allegiance, as all other monarchical laws, imply an
+impossibility, and are therefore void.
+
+To the commonwealths man I have no more to say, but that if he excludes
+any party, he is not truly such, nor shall ever found a commonwealth
+upon the natural principle of the same, which is justice. And the
+royalist for having not opposed a commonwealth in Oceana, where the
+laws were so ambiguous that they might be eternally disputed and never
+reconciled, can neither be justly for that cause excluded from his full
+and equal share in the government; nor prudently for this reason, that
+a commonwealth consisting of a party will be in perpetual labor for her
+own destruction: whence it was that the Romans, having conquered the
+Albans, incorporated them with equal right into the commonwealth. And
+if the royalists be “flesh of your flesh,” and nearer of blood than were
+the Albans to the Romans, you being also both Christians, the argument
+is the stronger. Nevertheless there is no reason that a commonwealth
+should any more favor a party remaining in fixed opposition against it,
+than Brutus did his own sons. But if it fixes them upon that opposition,
+it is its own fault, not theirs; and this is done by excluding them. Men
+that have equal possessions and the same security for their estates and
+their liberties that you have, have the same cause with you to defend
+both; but if you will liberty, though for monarchy; and be trampling,
+they fight for you for tyranny, though under the name of a commonwealth:
+the nature of orders in a government rightly instituted being void of
+all jealousy, because, let the parties which it embraces be what they
+will, its orders are such as they neither would resist if they could,
+nor could if they would, as has been partly already shown, and will
+appear more at large by the following model.
+
+The parties that are spiritual are of more kinds than I need mention;
+some for a national religion, and others for liberty of conscience,
+with such animosity on both sides, as if these two could not consist
+together, and of which I have already sufficiently spoken, to show that
+indeed the one cannot well subsist without the other But they of all the
+rest are the most dangerous, who, holding that the saints must govern,
+go about to reduce the commonwealth to a party, as well for the reasons
+already shown, as that their pretences are against Scripture, where the
+saints are commanded to submit to the higher powers, and to be subject
+to the ordinance of man. And that men, pretending under the notion
+of saints or religion to civil power, have hitherto never failed to
+dishonor that profession, the world is full of examples, whereof I shall
+confine myself at present only to a couple, the one of old, the other of
+new Rome.
+
+In old Rome, the patricians or nobility pretending to be the godly
+party, were questioned by the people for engrossing all the magistracies
+of that commonwealth, and had nothing to say why they did so, but that
+magistracy required a kind of holiness which was not in the people;
+at which the people were filled with such indignation as had come to
+cutting of throats, if the nobility had not immediately laid by the
+insolency of that plea; which nevertheless when they had done, the
+people for a long time after continued to elect no other but patrician
+magistrates.
+
+The example of new Rome in the rise and practice of the hierarchy (too
+well known to require any further illustration) is far more immodest.
+
+This has been the course of nature; and when it has pleased or shall
+please God to introduce anything that is above the course of nature,
+he will, as he has always done, confirm it by miracle; for so in his
+prophecy of the reign of Christ upon earth he expressly promises, seeing
+that “the souls of them that were beheaded for Jesus, shall be seen to
+live and reign with him;” which will be an object of sense, the rather,
+because the rest of the dead are not to live again till the thousand
+years be finished. And it is not lawful for men to persuade us that a
+thing already is, though there be no such object of our sense, which God
+has told us shall not be till it be an object of our sense.
+
+The saintship of a people as to government, consists in the election
+of magistrates fearing God, and hating covetousness, and not in their
+confining themselves, or being confined, to men of this or that party or
+profession. It consists in making the most prudent and religious choice
+they can; yet not in trusting to men, but, next God, to their own
+orders. “Give us good men, and they will make us good laws,” is the
+maxim of a demagogue, and is (through the alteration which is commonly
+perceivable in men, when they have power to work their own wills)
+exceeding fallible. But “give us good orders, and they will make us
+good men,” is the maxim of a legislator, and the most infallible in the
+politics.
+
+But these divisions (however there be some good men that look sadly on
+them) are trivial things; first as to the civil concern, because the
+government, whereof this nation is capable, being once seen, takes
+in all interests. And, secondly, as to the spiritual; because as the
+pretence of religion has always been turbulent in broken governments, so
+where the government has been sound and steady, religion has never
+shown itself with any other face than that of its natural sweetness
+and tranquillity, nor is there any reason why it should, wherefore
+the errors of the people are occasioned by their governors. If they
+be doubtful of the way, or wander from it, it is because their guides
+misled them; and the guides of the people are never so well qualified
+for leading by any virtue of their own, as by that of the government.
+
+The government of Oceana (as it stood at the time whereof we discourse,
+consisting of one single Council of the people, exclusively of the King
+and the Lords) was called a Parliament: nevertheless the parliaments of
+the Teutons and of the Neustrians consisted, as has been shown, of the
+King, lords, and commons; wherefore this, under an old name, was a
+new thing a parliament consisting of a single assembly elected by the
+people, and invested with the whole power of the government, without
+any covenants, conditions, or orders whatsoever. So new a thing, that
+neither ancient nor modern prudence can show any avowed example of the
+like. And there is scarce anything that seems to me so strange as that
+(whereas there was nothing more familiar with these councillors than to
+bring the Scripture to the house) there should not be a man of them that
+so much as offered to bring the house to the Scripture, wherein, as
+has been shown, is contained that original, whereof all the rest of the
+commonwealths seem to be copies. Certainly if Leviathan (who is surer
+of nothing than that a popular commonwealth consists but of one council)
+transcribed his doctrine out of this assembly, for him to except against
+Aristotle and Cicero for writing out of their own commonwealths was not
+so fair play; or if the Parliament transcribed out of him, it had been
+an honor better due to Moses. But where one of them should have an
+example but from the other, I cannot imagine, there being nothing of
+this kind that I can find in story, but the oligarchy of Athens, the
+Thirty Tyrants of the same, and the Roman Decemvirs.
+
+For the oligarchy, Thucydides tells us, that it was a Senate or council
+of 400, pretending to a balancing council of the people consisting of
+5,000, but not producing them; wherein you have the definition of
+an oligarchy, which is a single council both debating and resolving,
+dividing and choosing, and what that must come to was shown by the
+example of the girls, and is apparent by the experience of all times;
+wherefore the thirty set up by the Lacedaemonians (when they had
+conquered Athens) are called tyrants by all authors, Leviathan only
+excepted, who will have them against all the world to have been an
+aristocracy, but for what reason I cannot imagine; these also, as void
+of any balance, having been void of that which is essential to every
+commonwealth, whether aristocratical or popular, except he be pleased
+with them, because that, according to the testimony of Xenophon, they
+killed more men in eight months than the Lacedaemonians had done in ten
+years; “oppressing the people (to use Sir Walter Raleigh’s words) with
+all base and intolerable slavery.”
+
+The usurped government of the Decemvirs in Rome was of the same kind.
+Wherefore in the fear of God let Christian legislators (setting the
+pattern given in the Mount on the one side, and these execrable examples
+on the other) know the right hand from the left; and so much the rather,
+because those things which do not conduce to the good of the governed
+are fallacious, if they appear to be good for the governors. God, in
+chastising a people, is accustomed to burn his rod. The empire of these
+oligarchies was not so violent as short, nor did they fall upon the
+people, but in their own immediate ruin. A council without a balance is
+not a commonwealth, but an oligarchy; and every oligarchy, except it
+be put to the defence of its wickedness or power against some outward
+danger, is factious. Wherefore the errors of the people being from their
+governors (which maxim in the politics bearing a sufficient testimony to
+itself, is also proved by Machiavel), if the people of Oceana have been
+factious, the cause is apparent, but what remedy?
+
+In answer to this question, I come now to the army, of which the most
+victorious captain and incomparable patriot, Olphaus Megaletor, was now
+general, who being a much greater master of that art whereof I have made
+a rough draught in these preliminaries, had such sad reflections upon
+the ways and proceedings of the Parliament as cast him upon books and
+all other means of diversion, among which he happened on this place of
+Machiavel: “Thrice happy is that people which chances to have a man able
+to give them such a government at once, as without alteration may secure
+them of their liberties; seeing it was certain that Lacedaemon, in
+observing the laws of Lycurgus, continued about 800 years without any
+dangerous tumult or corruption.” My lord general (as it is said
+of Themistocles, that he could not sleep for the glory obtained by
+Miltiades at the battle of Marathon) took so new and deep an impression
+at these words of the much greater glory of Lycurgus, that, being on
+this side assaulted with the emulation of his illustrious object, and on
+the other with the misery of the nation, which seemed (as it were
+ruined by his victory) to cast itself at his feet, he was almost wholly
+deprived of his natural rest, till the debate he had within himself came
+to a firm resolution, that the greatest advantages of a commonwealth
+are, first, that the legislator should be one man; and, secondly, that
+the government should be made all together, or at once. For the first,
+it is certain, says Machiavel, that a commonwealth is seldom or never
+well turned or constituted, except it has been the work of one man; for
+which cause a wise legislator, and one whose mind is firmly set, not
+upon private but the public interest, not upon his posterity but upon
+his country, may justly endeavor to get the sovereign power into his
+own hands, nor shall any man that is master of reason blame such
+extraordinary means as in that case will be necessary, the end proving
+no other than the constitution of a well-ordered commonwealth.
+
+The reason of this is demonstrable; for the ordinary means not failing,
+the commonwealth has no need of a legislator, but the ordinary
+means failing, there is no recourse to be had but to such as are
+extraordinary. And, whereas a book or a building has not been known to
+attain to its perfection if it has not had a sole author or architect, a
+commonwealth, as to the fabric of it, is of the like nature. And thus
+it may be made at once; in which there be great advantages; for a
+commonwealth made at once, takes security at the same time it lends
+money; and trusts not itself to the faith of men, but launches
+immediately forth into the empire of laws, and, being set straight,
+brings the manners of its citizens to its rule, whence followed that
+uprightness which was in Lacedaemon. But manners that are rooted in men,
+bow the tenderness of a commonwealth coming up by twigs to their bent,
+whence followed the obliquity that was in Rome, and those perpetual
+repairs by the consuls’ axes, and tribunes’ hammers, which could never
+finish that commonwealth but in destruction.
+
+My lord general being clear in these points, and of the necessity
+of some other course than would be thought upon by the Parliament,
+appointed a meeting of the army, where he spoke his sense agreeable
+to these preliminaries with such success to the soldiery, that the
+Parliament was soon after deposed; had he himself, in the great hall
+of the Pantheon or palace of justice, situated in Emporium, the capital
+city, was created by the universal suffrage of the army, Lord Archon, or
+sole legislator of Oceana, upon which theatre you have, to conclude this
+piece, a person introduced, whose fame shall never draw its curtain.
+
+The Lord Archon being created, fifty select persons to assist him,
+by laboring in the mines of ancient prudence, and bringing its hidden
+treasures to new light, were added, with the style also of legislators,
+and sat as a council, whereof he was the sole director and president.
+
+
+
+
+PART II. THE COUNCIL OF LEGISLATORS
+
+OF this piece, being the greater half of the whole work, I shall be able
+at this time to give no further account, than very briefly to show at
+what it aims.
+
+My Lord Archon, in opening the Council of legislators, made it
+appear how unsafe a thing it is to follow fancy in the fabric of a
+commonwealth; and how necessary that the archives of ancient prudence
+should be ransacked before any councillor should presume to offer any
+other matter in order to the work in hand, or toward the consideration
+to be had by the Council upon a model of government. Wherefore he caused
+an urn to be brought, and every one of the councillors to draw a lot. By
+the lots as they were drawn,
+
+     The Commonwealth of                        Fell to
+
+     Israel......                            Phosphorus de Auge
+     Athens.....                             Navarchus de Paralo
+     Lacedaemon.....                         Laco de Scytale
+     Carthage..                              Mago de Syrtibus
+     The Achaeans, AEtolians, and Lycians....Aratus de Isthmo
+     The Switz Alpester                      de Fulmine
+     Holland and the United Provinces        Glaucus de Ulna
+     Rome......                              Dolabella de Enyo
+     Venice.....                             Lynceus de Stella
+
+These contained in them all those excellencies whereof a commonwealth
+is capable; so that to have added more had been to no purpose. Upon
+time given to the councillors, by their own studies and those of their
+friends, to prepare themselves, they were opened in the order, and by
+the persons mentioned at the Council of legislators, and afterward by
+order of the same were repeated at the council of the prytans to the
+people; for in drawing of the lots, there were about a dozen of them
+inscribed with the letter P, whereby the councillors that drew them
+became prytans.
+
+The prytans were a committee or council sitting in the great hall of
+Pantheon, to whom it was lawful for any man to offer anything in order
+to the fabric of the commonwealth; for which cause, that they might not
+be oppressed by the throng, there was a rail about the table where they
+sat, and on each side of the same a pulpit; that on the right hand for
+any man that would propose anything, and that on the left for any
+other that would oppose him. And all parties (being indemnified by
+proclamation of the Archon) were invited to dispute their own interests,
+or propose whatever they thought fit (in order to the future government)
+to the council of the prytans, who, having a guard of about two or three
+hundred men, lest the heat of dispute might break the peace, had
+the right of moderators, and were to report from time to time such
+propositions or occurrences as they thought fit, to the Council of
+legislators sitting more privately in the palace called Alma.
+
+This was that which made the people (who were neither safely to
+be admitted, nor conveniently to be excluded in the framing of the
+commonwealth) verily believe, when it came forth, that it was no other
+than that whereof they themselves had been the makers.
+
+Moreover, this Council sat divers months after the publishing and during
+the promulgation of the model to the people; by which means there is
+scarce anything was said or written for or against the said model but
+you shall have it with the next impression of this work, by way of
+oration addressed to and moderated by the prytans.
+
+By this means the Council of legislators had their necessary solitude
+and due aim in their greater work, as being acquainted from time to time
+with the pulse of the people, and yet without any manner of interruption
+or disturbance.
+
+Wherefore every commonwealth in its place having been opened by due
+method--that is, first, by the people; secondly, by the Senate; and,
+thirdly, by the magistracy-the Council upon mature debate took such
+results or orders out of each, and out of every part of each of them,
+as upon opening the same they thought fit; which being put from time to
+time in writing by the clerk or secretary, there remained no more in
+the conclusion, than putting the orders so taken together, to view and
+examine them with a diligent eye, that it might be clearly discovered
+whether they did interfere, or could anywise come to interfere or jostle
+one with the other. For as such orders jostling or coming to jostle one
+another are the certain dissolution of the commonwealth, so, taken upon
+the proof of like experience, and neither jostling nor showing which way
+they can possibly come to jostle one another, they make a perfect
+and (for aught that in human prudence can be foreseen) an immortal
+commonwealth.
+
+And such was the art whereby my Lord Archon (taking council of
+the Commonwealth of Israel, as of Moses; and of the rest of the
+commonwealths, as of Jethro) framed the model of the Commonwealth of
+Oceana.
+
+
+
+
+PART III. THE MODEL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF OCEANA
+
+WHEREAS my Lord Archon, being from Moses and Lycurgus the first
+legislator that hitherto is found in history to have introduced or
+erected an entire commonwealth at once, happened, like them also, to be
+more intent upon putting the same into execution or action, than into
+writing; by which means the model came to be promulgated or published
+with more brevity and less illustration than are necessary for their
+understanding who have not been acquainted with the whole proceedings
+of the Council of legislators, and of the prytans, where it was asserted
+and cleared from all objections and doubts: to the end that I may supply
+what was wanting in the promulgated epitome to a more full and
+perfect narrative of the whole, I shall rather take the commonwealth
+practically; and as it has now given an account of itself in some years’
+revolutions (as Dicearchus is said to have done that of Lacedaemon,
+first transcribed by his hand some three or four hundred years after
+the institution), yet not omitting to add for proof to every order such
+debates and speeches of the legislators in their Council, or at least
+such parts of them as may best discover the reason of the government;
+nor such ways and means as were used in the institution or rise of the
+building, not to be so well conceived, without some knowledge given of
+the engines wherewithal the mighty weight was moved. But through the
+entire omission of the Council of legislators or workmen that squared
+every stone to this structure in the quarries of ancient prudence, the
+proof of the first part of this discourse will be lame, except I
+insert, as well for illustration as to avoid frequent repetition, three
+remarkable testimonies in this place.
+
+The first is taken out of the Commonwealth of Israel: “So Moses
+hearkened to the voice of Jethro, his father-in-law, and did all that
+he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them
+heads over the people;” tribunes, as it is in the vulgar Latin; or
+phylarchs, that is, princes of the tribes, sitting upon twelve thrones,
+and judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and next to these he chose
+rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers
+of tens, which were the steps and rise of this commonwealth from its
+foundation or root to its proper elevation or accomplishment in the
+Sanhedrim, and the congregation, already opened in the preliminaries.
+
+The second is taken out of Lacedaemon, as Lycurgus (for the greater
+impression of his institutions upon the minds of his citizens) pretended
+to have received the model of that commonwealth from the oracle of
+Apollo at Delphos, the words whereof are thus recorded by Plutarch in
+the life of that famous legislator: “When thou shalt have divided the
+people into tribes (which were six) and oboe (which were five in every
+tribe), thou shalt constitute the Senate, consisting, with the two
+Kings, of thirty councillors, who, according as occasion requires, shall
+cause the congregation to be assembled between the bridge and the river
+Gnacion, where the Senate shall propose to the people, and dismiss them
+without suffering them to debate.” The oboe were lineages into which
+every tribe was divided, and in each tribe there was another division
+containing all those of the same that were of military age, which being
+called the mora, was subdivided into troops and companies that were kept
+in perpetual discipline under the command of a magistrate called the
+polemarch.
+
+The third is taken out of the Commonwealth of Rome, or those parts of
+it which are comprised in the first and second books of Livy, where the
+people, according to the institution by Romulus, are first divided into
+thirty curias or parishes, whereof he elected, by three out of each
+curia, the Senate, which, from his reign to that or Servius Tullius,
+proposed to the parishes or parochial congregations; and these
+being called the Comitia curiata, had the election of the kings,
+the confirmation of their laws, and the last appeal in matters of
+judicature, as appears in the case of Horatius that killed his sister;
+till, in the reign of Servius (for the other kings kept not to the
+institution of Romulus), the people being grown somewhat, the power
+of the Curiata was for the greater part translated to the Centuriata
+comitia instituted by this King, which distributed the people, according
+to the sense of valuation of their estates, into six classes, every one
+containing about forty centuries, divided into youth and elders; the
+youth for field-service, the elders for the defence of their territory,
+all armed and under continual discipline, in which they assembled both
+upon military and civil occasions. But when the Senate proposed to the
+people, the horse only, whereof there were twelve centuries, consisting
+of the richest sort over and above those of the foot enumerated, were
+called with the first classes of the foot to the suffrage; or if these
+accorded not, then the second classes were called to them, but seldom or
+never any of the rest. Wherefore the people, after the expulsion of the
+kings, growing impatient of this inequality, rested not till they had
+reduced the suffrage as it had been in the Comitia curiato to the
+whole people again; but in another way, that is to say, by the Comitia
+tributa, which thereupon were instituted, being a council where the
+people in exigencies made laws without the Senate, which laws were
+called plebiscita. This Council is that in regard whereof Cicero and
+other great wits so frequently inveigh against the people, and sometimes
+even Livy as at the first institution of it. To say the truth, it was a
+kind of anarchy, whereof the people could not be excusable, if there had
+not, through the courses taken by the Senate, been otherwise a necessity
+that they must have seen the commonwealth run into oligarchy.
+
+The manner how the Comitia curiata, centuriata or tributa were called,
+during the time of the commonwealth, to the suffrage, was by lot: the
+curia, century, or tribe, whereon the first lot fell, being styled
+principium, or the prerogative; and the other curioe, centuries or
+tribes, whereon the second, third, and fourth lots, etc., fell, the
+jure vocatoe. From henceforth not the first classes, as in the times
+of Servius, but the prerogative, whether curia, century, or tribe, came
+first to the suffrage, whose vote was called omen proerogativum, and
+seldom failed to be leading to the rest of the tribes. The jure vocatoe,
+in the order of their lots, came next: the manner of giving suffrage
+was, by casting wooden tablets, marked for the affirmative or the
+negative, into certain urns standing upon a scaffold, as they marched
+over it in files, which for the resemblance it bore was called the
+bridge. The candidate, or competitor, who had most suffrages in a curia,
+century, or tribe, was said to have that curia, century, or tribe;
+and he who had most of the curioe, centuries, or tribes, carried the
+magistracy.
+
+These three places being premised, as such upon which there will be
+frequent reflection, I come to the narrative, divided into two parts,
+the first containing the institution, the second the constitution of the
+commonwealth, in each whereof I shall distinguish the orders, as those
+which contain the whole model, from the rest of the discourse, which
+tends only to the explanation or proof of them.
+
+In the institution or building of a commonwealth, the first work, as
+that of builders, can be no other than fitting and distributing the
+materials.
+
+The materials of a commonwealth are the people, and the people of Oceana
+were distributed by casting them into certain divisions, regarding their
+quality, their age, their wealth, and the places of their residence or
+habitation, which was done by the ensuing orders.
+
+The first order “distributes the people into freemen or citizens and
+servants, while such; for if they attain to liberty, that is, to live of
+themselves, they are freemen or citizens.”
+
+This order needs no proof, in regard of the nature of servitude, which
+is inconsistent with freedom, or participation of government in a
+commonwealth.
+
+The second order “distributes citizens into youth and elders (such as
+are from eighteen years of age to thirty, being accounted youth; and
+such as are of thirty and upward, elders), and establishes that
+the youth shall be the marching armies, and the elders the standing
+garrisons of this nation.”
+
+  A commonwealth, whose arms are in the hands of her
+servants, had need be situated, as is elegantly said of Venice by
+Contarini, out of the reach of their clutches; witness the danger run
+by that of Carthage in the rebellion of Spendius and Matho. But though
+a city, if one swallow makes a summer, may thus chance to be safe, yet
+shall it never be great; for if Carthage or Venice acquired any fame
+in their arms, it is known to have happened through the mere virtue of
+their captains, and not of their orders; wherefore Israel, Lacedaemon,
+and Rome entailed their arms upon the prime of their citizens, divided,
+at least in Lacedaemon and Rome, into youth and elders: the youth for
+the field, and the elders for defence of the territory.
+
+The third order “distributes the citizens into horse and foot, by the
+sense or valuation of their estates; they who have above £100 a year in
+lands, goods, or moneys, being obliged to be of the horse, and they
+who have under that sum to be of the foot. But if a man has prodigally
+wasted and spent his patrimony, he is neither capable of magistracy,
+office, or suffrage in the commonwealth.”
+
+Citizens are not only to defend the commonwealth, but according to their
+abilities, as the Romans under Servius Tullius (regard had to their
+estates), were some enrolled in the horse centuries, and others of the
+foot, with arms enjoined accordingly, nor could it be otherwise in the
+rest of the commonwealths, though out of historical remains, that are
+so much darker, it be not so clearly probable. And the necessary
+prerogative to be given by a commonwealth to estates, is in some measure
+in the nature of industry, and the use of it to the public. “The Roman
+people,” says Julius Exuperantius, “were divided into classes, and taxed
+according to the value of their estates. All that were worth the sums
+appointed were employed in the wars; for they most eagerly contend
+for the victory; who fight for liberty in defence of their country and
+possessions. But the poorer sort were polled only for their heads (which
+was all they had) and kept in garrison at home in time of war; for these
+might betray the armies for bread, by reason of their poverty, which is
+the reason that Marius, to whom the care of the government ought not to
+have been committed, was the first that led them into the field;” and
+his success was accordingly. There is a mean in things; as exorbitant
+riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty
+cannot hold it, nor is by any means to be trusted with it. The clause in
+the order concerning the prodigal is Athenian, and a very laudable one;
+for he that could not live upon his patrimony, if he comes to touch the
+public money, makes a commonwealth bankrupt.
+
+The fourth order “distributes the people according to the places of
+their habitation, into parishes, hundreds, and tribes.”
+
+For except the people be methodically distributed, they cannot be
+methodically collected; but the being of a commonwealth consists in the
+methodical collection of the people: wherefore you have the Israelitish
+divisions into rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of
+tens; and of the whole commonwealth into tribes: the Laconic into oboe,
+moras, and tribes; the Roman into tribes, centuries, and classes; and
+something there must of necessity be in every government of the like
+nature, as that in the late monarchy--by counties. But this being the
+only institution in Oceana, except that of the agrarian, which required
+any charge or included any difficulty, engages me to a more particular
+description of the manner how it was performed, as follows:
+
+A thousand surveyors, commissioned and instructed by the Lord Archon
+and the Council, being divided into two equal numbers, each under the
+inspection of two surveyors-general, were distributed into the northern
+and southern parts of the territory, divided by the river Hemisua, the
+whole whereof contains about 10,000 parishes, some ten of those being
+assigned to each surveyor; for as to this matter there needed no great
+exactness, it tending only by showing whither everyone was to, begin, to
+the more orderly carrying repair and whereabout to on of the work; the
+nature of their instructions otherwise regarding rather the number of
+the inhabitants than of the parishes. The surveyors, therefore, being
+every one furnished with a convenient proportion of urns, balls,
+and balloting-boxes--in the use whereof they had been formerly
+exercised--and now arriving each at his respective parish, being with
+the people by teaching them their first lesson, which was the ballot;
+and though they found them in the beginning somewhat froward, as at
+toys, with which, while they were in expectation of greater matters from
+a Council of legislators, they conceived themselves to be abused, they
+came within a little while to think them pretty sport, and at length
+such as might very soberly be used in good earnest; whereupon the
+surveyors began the institution included in--
+
+The first order, requiring “That upon the first Monday next ensuing the
+last of December the bigger bell in every parish throughout the nation
+be rung at eight of the clock in the morning, and continue ringing
+for the space of one hour; and that all the elders of the parish
+respectively repair to the church before the bell has done ringing,
+where, dividing themselves into two equal numbers, or as near equal as
+may be, they shall take their places according to their dignities, if
+they be of divers qualities, and according to their seniority, if they
+be of the same, the one half on the one side, and the other half on the
+other, in the body of the church, which done, they shall make oath to
+the overseers of the parish for the time being (instead of these the
+surveyors were to officiate at the institution, or first assembly) by
+holding up their hands, to make a fair election according to the laws of
+the ballot, as they are hereafter explained, of such persons, amounting
+to a fifth part of their whole number, to be their deputies, and to
+exercise their power in manner hereafter explained, as they shall think
+in their consciences to be fittest for that trust, and will acquit
+themselves of it to the best advantage of the commonwealth. And oath
+being thus made, they shall proceed to election, if the elders of the
+parish amount to 1,000 by the ballot of the tribe, as it is in due place
+explained, and if the elders of the parish amount to fifty or upward,
+but within the number of 1,000, by the ballot of the hundred, as it is
+in due place explained. But, if the elders amount not to fifty, then
+they shall proceed to the ballot of the parish, as it is in this place
+and after this manner explained.
+
+“The two overseers for the time being shall seat themselves at the upper
+end of the middle alley, with a table before them, their faces being
+toward the congregation, and the constable for the time being shall set
+an urn before the table, into which he shall put so many balls as there
+be elders present, whereof there shall be one that is gilded, the rest
+being white; and when the constable has shaken the urn, sufficiently to
+mix the balls, the overseers shall call the elders to the urn, who from
+each side of the church shall come up the middle alley in two files,
+every man passing by the urn, and drawing out one ball; which, if it be
+silver, he shall cast into a bowl standing at the foot of the urn, and
+return by the outward alley on his side to his place. But he who
+draws the golden ball is the proposer, and shall be seated between the
+overseers, where he shall begin in what order he pleases, and name such
+as, upon his oath already taken, he conceives fittest to be chosen,
+one by one, to the elders; and the party named shall withdraw while the
+congregation is balloting his name by the double box or boxes appointed
+and marked on the outward part, to show which side is affirmative
+and which negative, being carried by a boy or boys appointed by the
+overseers, to every one of the elders, who shall hold up a pellet made
+of linen rags between his finger and his thumb, and put it after such
+a manner into the box, as though no man can see into which side he puts
+it, yet any man may see that he puts in but one pellet or suffrage. And
+the suffrage of the congregation being thus, given, shall be returned
+with the box or boxes to the overseers, who opening the same, shall pour
+the affirmative balls into a white bowl standing upon the table on the
+right hand, to be numbered by the first overseer; and the negative into
+a green bowl standing on the left hand, to be numbered by the second
+overseer; and the suffrages being numbered, he who has the major part in
+the affirmative is one of the deputies of the parish, and when so many
+deputies are chosen as amount to a full fifth part of the whole number
+of the elders, the ballot for that time shall cease. The deputies being
+chosen are to be listed by the overseers in order as they were chosen,
+except only that such as are horse must be listed in the first place
+with the rest, proportionable to the number of the congregation, after
+this manner.”
+
+Anno Domini
+
+
+     THE LIST OF THE FIRST MOVER
+
+     A.A. Equestrian Order, First Deputy
+     B.B. Second Deputy,
+     C.C. Third Deputy,
+     D.D. Fourth Deputy,
+     E.E. Fifty Deputy,
+
+     Of the parish of  in the hundred of  and the tribe
+     of, which parish at the present election contains twenty
+     elders, whereof one is of the horse or equestrian order.
+
+“The first and second in the list are overseers by consequence; the
+third is the constable, and the fourth and fifth are churchwardens; the
+persons so chosen are deputies of the parish for the space of one year
+from their election, and no longer, nor may they be elected two years
+together. This list, being the primum mobile, or first mover of
+the commonwealth, is to be registered in a book diligently kept and
+preserved by the overseers, who are responsible in their places, for
+these and other duties to be hereafter mentioned, to the censors of the
+tribe; and the congregation is to observe the present order, as they
+will answer the contrary to the phylarch, or prerogative troop of the
+tribe, which, in case of failure in the whole or any part of it, have
+power to fine them or any of them at discretion, but under an appeal to
+the Parliament.”
+
+For proof of this order, first, in reason, it is with all politicians
+past dispute that paternal power is in the right of nature; and this is
+no other than the derivation of power from fathers of families as the
+natural root of a commonwealth. And for experience, if it be otherwise
+in that of Holland, I know no other example of the like kind. In Israel,
+the sovereign power came clearly from the natural root, the elders of
+the whole people; and Rome was born, Comitiis curiatis, in her parochial
+congregations, out of which Romulus first raised her Senate, then all
+the rest of the orders of that commonwealth, which rose so high: for the
+depth of a commonwealth is the just height of it--
+
+     “She raises up her head unto the skies,
+     Near as her root unto the centre lies.”
+
+And if the Commonwealth of Rome was born of thirty parishes, this of
+Oceana was born of 10,000. But whereas mention in the birth of this
+is made of an equestrian order, it may startle such as know that the
+division of the people of Rome, at the institution of that commonwealth
+into orders, was the occasion of its ruin. The distinction of the
+patrician as a hereditary order from the very institution, engrossing
+all the magistracies, was indeed the destruction of Rome; but to a
+knight or one of the equestrian order, says Horace,
+
+     “Si quadringentis sex septem millia desunt,
+     Plebs eris.”
+
+By which it should seem that this order was not otherwise hereditary
+than a man’s estate, nor did it give any claim to magistracy; wherefore
+you shall never find that it disquieted the commonwealth, nor does the
+name denote any more in Oceana than the duty of such a man’s estate to
+the public.
+
+But the surveyors, both in this place and in others, forasmuch as they
+could not observe all the circumstances of this order, especially that
+of the time of election, did for the first as well as they could; and,
+the elections being made and registered, took each of them copies
+of those lists which were within their allotments, which done they
+produced--
+
+The sixth order, directing “in case a parson or vicar of a parish comes
+to be removed by death or by the censors, that the congregation of the
+parish assemble and depute one or two elders by the ballot, who upon
+the charge of the parish shall repair to one of the universities of this
+nation with a certificate signed by the overseers, and addressed to
+the vice-chancellor, which certificate, giving notice of the death
+or removal of the parson or vicar, of the value of the parsonage or
+vicarage, and of the desire of the congregation to receive a probationer
+from that university, the vice-chancellor, upon the receipt thereof,
+shall call a convocation, and having made choice of a fit person, shall
+return him in due time to the parish, where the person so returned shall
+return the full fruits of the benefice or vicarage, and do the duty of
+the parson or vicar, for the space of one year, as probationer; and
+that being expired, the congregation of the elders shall put their
+probationer to the ballot, and if he attains not to two parts in three
+of the suffrage affirmative, he shall take his leave of the parish, and
+they shall send in like manner as before for another probationer; but
+if their probationer obtains two parts in three of the suffrage
+affirmative, he is then pastor of that parish. And the pastor of the
+parish shall pray with the congregation, preach the Word, and administer
+the sacraments to the same, according to the directory to be hereafter
+appointed by the Parliament. Nevertheless such as are of gathered
+congregations, or from time to time shall join with any of them, are in
+no wise obliged to this way of electing their teachers, or to give
+their votes in this case, but wholly left to the liberty of their own
+consciences, and to that way of worship which they shall choose, being
+not popish, Jewish, or idolatrous. And to the end they may be the better
+protected by the State in the exercise of the same, they are desired to
+make choice, and such manner as they best like, of certain magistrates
+in every one of their congregations, which we could wish might be four
+in each of them, to be auditors in cases of differences or distaste, if
+any through variety of opinions, that may be grievous or injurious to
+them, shall fall out. And such auditors or magistrates shall have power
+to examine the matter, and inform themselves, to the end that if they
+think it of sufficient weight, they may acquaint the phylarch with it,
+or introduce it into the Council of Religion; where all such causes
+as those magistrates introduce shall from time to time be heard and
+determined according to such laws as are or shall hereafter be provided
+by the Parliament for the just defence of the liberty of conscience.”
+
+This order consists of three parts, the first restoring the power of
+ordination to the people, which, that it originally belongs to them,
+is clear, though not in English yet in Scripture, where the apostles
+ordained elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation, that
+is, by the suffrage of the people, which was also given in some of
+those cities by the ballot. And though it may be shown that the apostles
+ordained some by the laying on of hands, it will not be shown that they
+did so in every congregation.
+
+Excommunication, as not clearly provable out of the Scripture, being
+omitted, the second part of the order implies and establishes a national
+religion; for there be degrees of knowledge in divine things; true
+religion is not to be learned without searching the Scripture; the
+Scriptures cannot be searched by us unless we have them to search; and
+if we have nothing else, or (which is all one) understand nothing else
+but a translation, we may be (as in the place alleged we have been)
+beguiled or misled by the translation, while we should be searching the
+true sense of the Scripture, which cannot be attained in a natural way
+(and a commonwealth is not to presume upon that which is supernatural)
+but by the knowledge of the original and of antiquity, acquired by our
+own studies, or those of some others, for even faith comes by hearing.
+Wherefore a commonwealth not making provision of men from time to time,
+knowing in the original languages wherein the Scriptures were written,
+and versed in those antiquities to which they so frequently relate, that
+the true sense of them depends in great part upon that knowledge,
+can never be secure that she shall not lose the Scripture, and by
+consequence her religion; which to preserve she must institute some
+method of this knowledge, and some use of such as have acquired it,
+which amounts to a national religion.
+
+The commonwealth having thus performed her duty toward God, as a
+rational creature, by the best application of her reason to Scripture,
+and for the preservation of religion in the purity of the same, yet
+pretends not to infallibility, but comes in the third part of the order,
+establishing liberty of conscience according to the instructions given
+to her Council of Religion, to raise up her hands to heaven for further
+light; in which proceeding she follows that (as was shown in the
+preliminaries) of Israel, who, though her national religion was always
+a part of her civil law, gave to her prophets the upper hand of all her
+orders.
+
+But the surveyors having now done with the parishes, took their leave;
+so a parish is the first division of land occasioned by the first
+collection of the people of Oceana, whose function proper to that place
+is comprised in the six preceding orders.
+
+The next step in the progress of the surveyors was to a meeting of the
+nearest of them, as their work lay, by twenties; where conferring their
+lists, and computing the deputies contained therein, as the number of
+them in parishes, being nearest neighbors, amounted to 100, or as even
+as might conveniently be brought with that account, they cast them and
+those parishes into the precinct which (be the deputies ever since
+more or fewer) is still called the hundred; and to every one of these
+precincts they appointed a certain place, being the most convenient town
+within the same, for the annual rendezvous; which done, each surveyor,
+returning to his hundred, and summoning the deputies contained in his
+lists to the rendezvous, they appeared and received--
+
+The seventh order, requiring, “That upon the first Monday next ensuing
+the last of January, the deputies of every parish annually assemble
+in arms at the rendezvous of the hundred, and there elect out of their
+number one justice of the peace, one juryman, one captain, one ensign of
+their troop or century, each of these out of the horse; and one juryman,
+one coroner, one high constable, out of the foot. The election to be
+made by the ballot in this manner. The jurymen for the time being are
+to be overseers of the ballot (instead of these, the surveyors are to
+officiate at the first assembly), and to look to the performance of
+the same according to what was directed in the ballot of the parishes,
+saving that the high constable setting forth the urn shall have five
+several suits of gold balls, and one dozen of every suit; whereof the
+first shall be marked with the letter A, the second with the letter B,
+the third with C, the fourth with D, and the fifth with E: and of each
+of these suits he shall cast one ball into his hat, or into a little
+urn, and shaking the balls together, present them to the first overseer,
+who shall draw one, and the suit which is so drawn by the overseer shall
+be of use for that day, and no other; for example, if the overseer drew
+an A, the high constable shall put seven gold balls marked with the
+letter A into the urn, with so many silver ones as shall bring them
+even with the number of the deputies, who being sworn, as before, at
+the ballot of the parish to make a fair election, shall be called to the
+urn; and every man coming in manner as was there shown, shall draw one
+ball, which, if it be silver, he shall cast it into a bowl standing at
+the foot of the urn, and return to his place: but the first that draws a
+gold ball (showing it to the overseers, who if it has not the letter of
+the present ballot, have power to apprehend and punish him) is the first
+elector, the second the second elector, and so to the seventh; which
+order they are to observe in their function. “The electors as they are
+drawn shall be placed upon the bench by the overseers, till the whole
+number be complete, and then be conducted, with the list of the officers
+to be chosen, into a place apart, where, being private, the first
+elector shall name a person to the first office in the list; and if the
+person so named, being balloted by the rest of the electors, attains
+not to the better half of the suffrages in the affirmative, the first
+elector shall continue nominating others, till one of them so nominated
+by him attains to the plurality of the suffrages in the affirmative, and
+be written first competitor to the first office. This done, the second
+elector shall observe in his turn the like order; and so the rest of the
+electors, naming competitors each to his respective office in the list,
+till one competitor be chosen to every office: and when one competitor
+is chosen to every office, the first elector shall begin again to name
+a second competitor to the first office, and the rest successively shall
+name to the rest of the offices till two competitors be chosen to every
+office; the like shall be repeated till three competitors be chosen to
+every office. And when three competitors are chosen to every office, the
+list shall be returned to the overseers, or such as the overseers, in
+case they or either of them happened to be electors, have substituted
+in his or their place or places; and the overseers or substitutes
+having caused the list to be read to the congregation, shall put
+the competitors, in order as they are written, to the ballot of the
+congregation; and the rest of the proceedings being carried on in
+the manner directed in the fifth order, that competitor, of the three
+written to each office, who has most of the suffrages above half in the
+affirmative, is the officer. The list being after this manner completed,
+shall be entered into a register, to be kept at the rendezvous of the
+hundred, under inspection of the magistrates of the same, after the
+manner following:
+
+Anno Domini
+
+
+     THE LIST OF THE NEBULOSA
+
+     A.A. Equestrian Order, Justice of the Peace,
+     B.B. Equestrian Order, First Juryman,
+     C.C. Equestrian Order, Captain of the Hundred,
+     D.D. Equestrian Order, Ensign,
+     E.E. Second Juryman,
+     F.F. High Constable,
+     G.G. Coroner,
+
+     Of the hundred of  in the tribe of, which hundred
+     consists at this election of 105 deputies.
+
+“The list being entered, the high constable shall take three copies of
+the same, whereof he shall presently return one to the lord high sheriff
+of the tribe, a second to the lord custos rotulorum, and a third to the
+censors; or these, through the want of such magistrates at the first
+muster, may be returned to the orator, to be appointed for that tribe.
+To the observation of all and every part of this order, the officers and
+deputies of the hundred are all and every of them obliged, as they will
+answer it to the phylarch, who has power, in case of failure in the
+whole or any part, to fine all or any of them so failing at discretion,
+or according to such laws as shall hereafter be provided in that case,
+but under an appeal to the Parliament.” There is little in this order
+worthy of any further account, but that it answers to the rulers
+of hundreds in Israel, to the mora or military part of the tribe in
+Lacedaemon, and to the century in Rome. The jurymen, being two in a
+hundred, and so forty in a tribe, give the latitude allowed by the law
+for exceptions. And whereas the golden balls at this ballot begin to be
+marked with letters, whereof one is to be drawn immediately before it
+begins, this is to the end that the letter being unknown, men may be
+frustrated of tricks or foul play, whereas otherwise a man may bring a
+golden ball with him, and make as if he had drawn it out of the urn. The
+surveyors, when they had taken copies of these lists, had accomplished
+their work in the hundreds.
+
+So a hundred is the second division of land occasioned by the second
+collection of the people, whose civil and military functions proper to
+this place are comprised in the foregoing order.
+
+Having stated the hundreds, they met once again by twenties, where there
+was nothing more easy than to cast every twenty hundreds, as they lay
+most conveniently together, into one tribe; so the whole territory of
+Oceana, consisting of about 10,000 parishes, came to be cast into 1,000
+hundreds, and into fifty tribes. In every tribe at the place appointed
+for the annual rendezvous of the same, were then, or soon after begun
+those buildings which are now called pavilions; each of them standing
+with one open side upon fair columns, like the porch of some ancient
+temple, and looking into a field capable of the muster of some 4,000
+men; before each pavilion stand three pillars sustaining urns for
+the ballot, that on the right hand equal in height to the brow of
+a horseman, being called the horse urn, that on the left hand, with
+bridges on either side to bring it equal in height with the brow of a
+footman, being called the foot urn, and the middle urn, with a bridge
+on the side toward the foot urn, the other side, as left for the horse,
+being without one; and here ended the whole work of the surveyors, who
+returned to the Lord Archon with this--
+
+
+ACCOUNT OF THE CHARGE
+
+   Imprimis: Urns, balls, and balloting-boxes for 10,000 parishes,
+   the same being wooden-ware,                     £20,000
+   Item: Provision of the like kind for a thousand hundreds
+
+                                        3,000
+   Item: Urns and balls of metal, with balloting-boxes for fifty
+   tribes,
+
+                                        2,000
+   Item: For erecting of fifty pavilions,
+
+                                       60,000
+   Item: Wages for four surveyors-general at £1,000 a man
+
+                                        4,000
+   Item: Wages for the rest of the surveyors, being 1,000 at £250 a
+   man
+
+                                      250,000
+
+               Sum Total             £339,000
+
+This is no great matter of charge for the building of a commonwealth, in
+regard that it has cost (which was pleaded by the surveyors) as much
+to rig a few ships. Nevertheless that proves not them to be honest,
+nor their account to be just; but they had their money for once, though
+their reckoning be plainly guilty of a crime, to cost him his neck that
+commits it another time, it being impossible for a commonwealth (without
+an exact provision that it be not abused in this kind) to subsist; for
+if no regard should be had of the charge (though that may go deep), yet
+the debauchery and corruption whereto, by negligence in accounts, it
+infallibly exposes its citizens, and thereby lessens the public faith,
+which is the nerve and ligament of government, ought to be prevented.
+But the surveyors being despatched, the Lord Archon was very curious in
+giving names to his tribes, which having caused to be written in scrolls
+cast into an urn, and presented to the councillors, each of them drew
+one, and was accordingly sent to the tribe in his lot, as orators of
+the same, a magistracy no otherwise instituted, than for once and pro
+tempore, to the end that the council upon so great an occasion might
+both congratulate with the tribes, and assist at the first muster in
+some things of necessity to be differently carried from the established
+administration and future course of the commonwealth.
+
+The orators being arrived, every one as soon as might be, at the
+rendezvous of his tribe, gave notice to the hundreds, and summoned the
+muster which appeared for the most part upon good horses, and already
+indifferently well armed; as to instance in one for all, the tribe of
+Nubia, where Hermes de Caduceo, lord orator of the same, after a short
+salutation and a hearty welcome, applied himself to his business, which
+began with--
+
+The eighth order requiring “That the lord high sheriff as
+commander-in-chief, and the lord custos rotulorum as muster-master of
+the tribe (or the orator for the first muster), upon reception of the
+lists of their hundreds, returned to them by the high constables of the
+same, presently cause them to be cast up, dividing the horse from
+the foot, and listing the horse by their names in troops, each troop
+containing about 100 in number, to be inscribed First, Second, or Third
+troop, etc., according to the order agreed upon by the said magistrates;
+which done, they shall list the foot in like manner, and inscribe the
+companies in like order. These lists upon the eve of the muster shall
+be delivered to certain trumpeters and drummers, whereof there shall
+be fifteen of each sort (as well for the present as otherwise to be
+hereafter mentioned) stipendiated by the tribe. And the trumpeters and
+drummers shall be in the field before the pavilion, upon the day of the
+muster, so soon as it is light, where they shall stand every one with
+his list in his hand, at a due distance, placed according to the order
+of the list, the trumpeters with the lists of the horse on the right
+hand, and the drummers with the lists of the foot on the left hand;
+where having sounded awhile, each of them shall begin to call and
+continue calling the names of the deputies, as they come into the field,
+till both the horse and foot be gathered by that means into their due
+order. The horse and foot being in order, the lord lieutenant of the
+tribe shall cast so many gold balls marked with the figures 1, 2, 3, 4,
+etc., as there be troops of horse in the field, together with so many
+silver balls as there be companies, marked in the same manner, into
+a little urn, to which he shall call the captains; and the captains
+drawing the gold balls shall command the horse, and those that draw the
+silver the foot, each in the order of his lot. The like shall be done by
+the conductor at the same time for the ensigns at another urn; and they
+that draw the gold balls shall be cornets, the left ensigns.”
+
+This order may puzzle the reader, but tends to a wonderful speed of the
+muster, to which it would be a great matter to lose a day in ranging
+and marshalling, whereas by virtue of this the tribe is no sooner in the
+field than in battalia, nor sooner in battalia than called to the urns
+or the ballot by virtue of--
+
+The ninth order, “Whereby the censors (or the orator for the first
+muster) upon reception of the lists of the hundreds from the high
+constables, according as is directed by the seventh order are to make
+their notes for the urns beforehand, with regard had to the lists of the
+magistrates, to be elected by the ensuing orders, that is to say, by the
+first list called the prime magnitude, six; and by the second called the
+galaxy, nine. Wherefore the censors are to put into the middle urn for
+the election of the first list twenty-four gold balls, with twenty-six
+blanks or silver balls, in all sixty; and into the side urns sixty gold
+balls, divided into each according to the different number of the horse
+and foot; that is to say, if the horse and the foot be equal, equally,
+and if the horse and the foot be unequal, unequally, by an arithmetical
+proportion. The like shall be done the second day of the muster for
+the second list, except that the censors shall put into the middle urn
+thirty-six gold balls with twenty-four blanks, in all sixty; and sixty
+gold balls into the side urns, divided respectively into the number of
+the horse and the foot; and the gold balls in the side urns at either
+ballot are by the addition of blanks to be brought even with the
+number of the ballotants at either urn respectively. The censors having
+prepared their notes, as has been shown, and being come at the day
+appointed into the field, shall present a little urn to the lord high
+sheriff, who is to draw twice for the letters to be used that day,
+the one at the side urns, and the other at the middle. And the censors
+having fitted the urns accordingly, shall place themselves in certain
+movable seats or pulpits (to be kept for that use in the pavilion) the
+first censor before the horse urn, the second before the foot urn, the
+lord lieutenant doing the office of censor pro tempore at the middle
+urn; where all and every one of them shall cause the laws of the ballot
+to be diligently observed, taking a special care that no man be suffered
+to come above once to the urn (whereof it more particularly concerns
+the sub-censors, that is to say, the overseers of every parish, to be
+careful, they being each in this regard responsible for their respective
+parishes) or to draw above one ball, which if it be gold, he is to
+present to the censor, who shall look upon the letter; and if it be not
+that of the day, and of the respective urn, apprehend the party, who for
+this or any other like disorder is obnoxious to the phylarch.”
+
+This order being observed by the censors, it is not possible for the
+people, if they can but draw the balls, though they understand nothing
+at all of the ballot, to be out. To philosophize further upon this art,
+though there be nothing more rational, were not worth the while, because
+in writing it will be perplexed, and the first practice of it gives
+the demonstration; whence it came to pass that the orator, after some
+needless pains in the explanation of the two foregoing orders, betaking
+himself to exemplify the same, found the work done to his hand, for the
+tribe, as eager upon a business of this nature, had retained one of
+the surveyors, out of whom (before the orator arrived) they had got the
+whole mystery by a stolen muster, at which in order to the ballot they
+had made certain magistrates pro tempore. Wherefore he found not only
+the pavilion (for this time a tent) erected with three posts, supplying
+the place of pillars to the urns, but the urns being prepared with a
+just number of balls for the first ballot, to become the field, and the
+occasion very gallantly with their covers made in the manner of helmets,
+open at either ear to give passage to the hands of the ballotants, and
+slanting with noble plumes to direct the march of the people.
+
+Wherefore he proceeded to--
+
+The tenth order, “Requiring of the deputies of the parishes, that upon
+every Monday next ensuing the last of February, they make their personal
+appearance, horse and foot in arms accordingly, at the rendezvous of
+the tribe, where, being in discipline, the horse upon the right, and the
+foot upon the left, before the pavilion, and having made oath by holding
+up their hands, upon the tender of it by the lord high sheriff, to make
+election without favor, and of such only as they shall judge fittest
+for the commonwealth, the conductor shill take three balls, the one
+inscribed with these words (outward files), another with these words
+(inward files), and the third with these (middle files), which balls he
+shall cast into a little urn, and present it to the lord high sheriff,
+who, drawing one, shall give the words of command, as they are thereupon
+inscribed, and the ballot shall begin accordingly. For example, if the
+ball be inscribed ‘Middle files,’ the ballot shall begin by the middle;
+that is, the two files that are middle to the horse shall draw out first
+to the horse urn, and the two files that are middle to the foot shall
+draw out first to the foot urn, and be followed by all the rest of the
+files as they are next to them in order. The like shall be done by the
+inward, or by the outward files in case they be first called. And the
+files, as every man has drawn his ball, if it be silver, shall behind
+at the urn to countermarch to their places, but he that has drawn a gold
+ball at a side urn shall proceed to the middle urn, where if the balls
+he draws be silver he shall also countermarch, but if it be gold he
+shall take his place upon a form set across the pavilion, with his face
+toward the lord high sheriff, who shall be seated in the middle of the
+pavilion, with certain clerks by him, one of which shall write down the
+names of every elector, that is, of every one that drew a gold ball at
+the middle urn, and in the order his ball was drawn, till the electors
+amount to six in number. And the first six electors, horse and foot
+promiscuously, are the first order of electors; the second six (still
+accounting them as they are drawn) the second order, the third six the
+third order, and the fourth six the fourth order of electors; every
+elector having place in his order, according to the order wherein he was
+drawn. But so soon as the first order of electors is complete, the lord
+high sheriff shall send them with a copy of the following list, and a
+clerk that understands the ballot, immediately to a little tent standing
+before the pavilion in his eye, to which no other person but themselves,
+during the election, shall approach. The list shall be written in this
+manner:”
+
+Anno Domini
+
+
+     THE LIST OF THE PRIME MAGNITUDE, OR FIRST DAY’S ELECTION OF
+     MAGISTRATES
+
+     1. The Lord High Sheriff, Commander-in-Chief,
+     2. Lord Lieutenant,
+     3. Lord Custos Rotulorum, Muster-Master-General,
+     4. The Conductor, being Quarter-master General,
+     5. The First Censor,
+     6. The Second Censor,
+
+     Of the tribe of Nubia, containing at the present muster 700 horse
+     and 1,500 foot, in all 22,000 deputies.
+
+“And the electors of the first band or order, being six, shall each
+of them name to his respective magistracy in the left such as are not
+already elected in the hundreds, till one competitor be chosen to every
+magistracy in the list by the ballot of the electors of the first order,
+which done, the list with the competitors thereunto annexed shall be
+returned to the lord high sheriff by the clerk attending that order, but
+the electors shall keep their places; for they have already given their
+suffrage, and may not enter into the ballot of the tribe. If there
+arises any dispute in an order of electors, one of the censors or
+sub-censors appointed by them in case they be electors, shall enter into
+the tent of that order, and that order shall stand to his judgment in
+the decision of the controversy. The like shall be done exactly by each
+other order of electors, being sent as they are drawn, each with another
+copy of the same list, into a distinct tent, till there be returned to
+the lord high sheriff four competitors to every magistracy in the list;
+that is to say, one competitor elected to every office in every one of
+the four orders, which competitors the lord high sheriff shall cause
+to be pronounced or read by a crier to the congregation, and the
+congregation having heard the whole lists repeated, the names shall be
+put by the lord high sheriff to the tribe, one by one, beginning with
+the first competitor in the first order, thence proceeding to the first
+competitor in the second order, and so to the first in the third and
+fourth orders. And the suffrages being taken in boxes by boys (as has
+been already shown) shall be poured into the bowls standing before the
+censors, who shall be seated at each end of the table in the pavilion,
+the one numbering the affirmatives and the other the negatives, and he
+of the four competitors to the first magistracy that has most above half
+the suffrages of the tribe in the affirmative, is the first magistrate.
+The like is to be done successively by the rest of the competitors in
+their order. But because soon after the boxes are sent out for the first
+name, there be others sent out for the second, and so for the third,
+etc., by which means divers names are successively at one and the same
+time in balloting; the boy that carries a box shall sing or repeat
+continually the name of the competitor for whom that box is carrying,
+with that also of the magistracy to which he is proposed. A magistrate
+of the tribe happening to be an elector, may substitute any one of his
+own order to execute his other function. The magistrates of the prime
+magnitude being thus elected, shall receive the present charge of the
+tribe.”
+
+If it be objected against this order that the magistrates to be elected
+by it will be men of more inferior rank than those of the hundreds, in
+regard that those are chosen first, it may be remembered that so were
+the burgesses in the former government, nevertheless the knights of the
+shire were men of greater quality; and the election at the hundred is
+made by a council of electors, of whom less cannot be expected than the
+discretion of naming persons fittest for those capacities, with an eye
+upon these to be elected at the tribe. As for what may be objected in
+point of difficulty, it is demonstrable by the foregoing orders, that a
+man might bring 10,000 men, if there were occasion, with as much ease,
+and as suddenly to perform the ballot, as he can make 5,000 men, drawing
+them out by double files, to march a quarter of a mile. But because at
+this ballot, to go up and down the field, distributing the linen pellets
+to every man, with which he is to ballot or give suffrage, would lose
+a great deal of time, therefore a man’s wife, his daughters, or others,
+make him his provision of pellets before the ballot, and he comes into
+the field with a matter of a score of them in his pocket. And now I have
+as good as done with the sport. The next is--
+
+The eleventh order, “Explaining the duties and functions of the
+magistrates contained in the list of the prime magnitude, and those of
+the hundreds, beginning with the lord high sheriff, who, over and above
+his more ancient offices, and those added by the former order, is
+the first magistrate of the phylarch, or prerogative troop. The lord
+lieutenant, over and above his duty mentioned, is commander-in-chief
+of the musters of the youth, and second magistrate of the phylarch. The
+custos rotulorum is to return the yearly muster-rolls of the tribe, as
+well that of the youth as of the elders, to the rolls in emporium, and
+is the third magistrate of the phylarch. The censors by themselves and
+their sub-censors, that is, the overseers of the parishes, are to see
+that the respective laws of the ballot be observed in all the popular
+assemblies of the tribe. They have power also to put such national
+ministers, as in preaching shall intermeddle with matters of government,
+out of their livings, except the party appeals to the phylarch, or to
+the Council of Religion, where in that case the censors shall prosecute.
+All and every one of these magistrates, together with the justices of
+peace, and the jurymen of the hundreds, amounting in the whole number to
+threescore and six, are the prerogative troop or phylarch of the tribe.
+
+“The function of the phylarch or prerogative troop is fivefold:
+
+“First, they are the council of the tribe, and as such to govern the
+musters of the same according to the foregoing orders, having cognizance
+of what has passed in the congregation or elections made in the parishes
+or the hundreds, with power to punish any undue practices, or variation
+from their respective rules and orders, under an appeal to the
+Parliament. A marriage legitimately is to be pronounced by the parochial
+congregation, the muster of the hundred, or the phylarch. And if a
+tribe have a desire (which they are to express at the muster by their
+captains, every troop by his own) to petition the Parliament the
+phylarch, as the council, shall frame the petition in the pavilion, and
+propose it by clauses to the ballot of the whole tribe; and the clauses
+that shall be affirmed by the ballot of the tribe, and signed by the
+hands of the six magistrates of the prime magnitude, shall be received
+and esteemed by the Parliament as the petition of the tribe, and no
+other.
+
+“Secondly, the phylarch has power to call to their assistance what
+other troops of the tribe they please (he they elders or youth, whose
+discipline will be hereafter directed), and with these to receive the
+judges itinerant in their circuits, whom the magistrates of the phylarch
+shall assist upon the bench, and the juries elsewhere in their proper
+functions according to the more ancient laws and customs of this nation.
+
+“Thirdly, the phylarch shall hold the court called the quartersessions
+according to the ancient custom, and therein shall also hear causes in
+order to the protection of liberty of conscience, by such rules as are
+or shall hereafter be appointed by the Parliament.
+
+“Fourthly, all commissions issued into the tribes by the Parliament,
+or by the chancery, are to be directed to the phylarch, or some of that
+troop, and executed by the same respectively.
+
+“Fifthly, in the case of levies of money the Parliament shall tax
+the phylarchs, the phylarchs shall tax the hundreds, the hundreds the
+parishes, and the parishes shall levy it upon themselves. The parishes
+having levied the tax-money accordingly, shall return it to the officers
+of the hundreds, the hundred to the phylarchs, and the phylarchs to the
+Exchequer. But if a man has ten children living, he shall pay no taxes;
+if he has five living, he shall pay but half taxes; if he has been
+married three years, or be above twenty-five years of age, and has no
+child or children lawfully begotten, he shall pay double taxes. And
+if there happen to grow any dispute upon these or such other orders as
+shall or may hereto be added hereafter, the phylarchs shall judge the
+tribes, and the Parliament shall judge the phylarchs. For the rest, if
+any man shall go about to introduce the right or power of debate into
+any popular council or congregation of this nation, the phylarch or any
+magistrate of the hundred, or of the tribe, shall cause him presently to
+be sent in custody to the Council of War.”
+
+The part of the order relating to the rolls in Emporium being of
+singular use, is not unworthy to be somewhat better opened. In what
+manner the lists of the parishes, hundreds, and tribes are made, has
+been shown in their respective orders, where, after the parties are
+elected, they give an account of the whole number of the elders or
+deputies in their respective assemblies or musters; the like for this
+part exactly is done by the youth in their discipline (to be hereafter
+shown) wherefore the lists of the parishes, youth and elders, being
+summed up, give the whole number of the people able to bear arms, and
+the lists of the tribes, youth and elders, being summed up, give the
+whole number of the people bearing arms. This account, being annually
+recorded by the master of the rolls, is called the “Pillar of Nilus,”
+ because the people, being the riches of the commonwealth, as they are
+found to rise or fall by the degrees of this pillar, like that river,
+give an account of the public harvest.
+
+Thus much for the description of the first day’s work at the muster,
+which happened (as has been shown) to be done as soon as said; for as in
+practice it is of small difficulty, so requires it not much time, seeing
+the great Council of Venice, consisting of a like number, begins at
+twelve of the clock, and elects nine magistrates in one afternoon. But
+the tribe being dismissed for this night, repaired to their quarters,
+under the conduct of their new magistrates. The next morning returning
+to the field very early, the orator proceeded to--
+
+The twelfth order, “Directing the muster of the tribe in the second
+day’s election, being that of the list called the galaxy; in which the
+censors shall prepare the urns according to the directions given in the
+ninth order for the second ballot; that is to say, with thirty-six gold
+balls in the middle urn, making four orders, and nine electors in every
+order, according to the number of the magistrates in the list of the
+galaxy, which is as follows:
+
+1. Knight 2. Knight
+
+To be chosen out of the horse. 3. Deputy 4. Deputy 5. Deputy
+
+To be chosen out of the horse. 6. Deputy 7. Deputy 8. Deputy 9. Deputy
+
+To be chosen out of the foot.
+
+“The rest of the ballot shall proceed exactly according to that of the
+first day. But, forasmuch as the commonwealth demands as well the fruits
+of a man’s body as of his mind, he that has not been married shall not
+be capable of these magistracies till he be married. If a deputy already
+chosen to be an officer in the parish, in the hundred, or in the
+tribe, be afterward chosen of the galaxy, it shall be lawful for him to
+delegate his office in the parish, in the hundred, or in the tribe,
+to any one of his own order being not already chosen into office. The
+knights and deputies being chosen, shall be brought to the head of the
+tribe by the lord high sheriff, who shall administer to them this oath:
+‘Ye shall well and truly observe and keep the orders and customs of this
+commonwealth which the people have chosen.’ And if any of them shall
+refuse the oath, he shall be rejected, and that competitor which had
+the most voices next shall be called in his place, who, if he takes the
+oath, shall be entered in the list; but if he also refuses the oath, he
+who had most voices next shall be called, and so till the number of
+nine out of those competitors which had most voices be sworn knights and
+deputies of the galaxy. (This clause, in regard to the late divisions,
+and to the end that no violence be offered to any man’s conscience,
+to be of force but for the first three years only.) The knights of
+the galaxy being elected and sworn, are to repair, by the Monday next
+ensuing to the last of March, to the Pantheon or palace of justice,
+situated in the metropolis of this commonwealth (except the Parliament,
+by reason of a contagious sickness, or some other occasion, has
+adjourned to another part of the nation), where they are to take their
+places in the Senate, and continue in full power and commission as
+senators for the full term of three years next ensuing the date of
+their election. The deputies of the galaxy are to repair by the same day
+(except as before excepted) to the halo situated in Emporium, where they
+are to be listed of the prerogative tribe, or equal representative
+of the people; and to continue in full power and commission as their
+deputies for the full term of three years next ensuing their election.
+But, forasmuch as the term of every magistracy or office in this
+commonwealth requires an equal vacation, a knight or deputy of
+the galaxy, having fulfilled his term of three years, shall not be
+re-elected into the same galaxy or any other, till he has also fulfilled
+his three years’ vacation.”
+
+Whoever shall rightly consider the foregoing orders, will be as little
+able to find how it is possible that a worshipful knight should declare
+himself in ale and beef worthy to serve his country, as how my lord high
+sheriff’s honor, in case he were protected from the law, could play
+the knave. But though the foregoing orders, so far as they regard the
+constitution of the Senate and the people, requiring no more as to an
+ordinary election than is therein explained, that is but one-third part
+of their knights and deputies, are perfect; yet must we in this place,
+and as to the institution, of necessity erect a scaffold. For the
+commonwealth to the first creation of her councils in full number,
+required thrice as many as are eligible by the foregoing orders.
+Wherefore the orator whose aid in this place was most necessary, rightly
+informing the people of the reason, stayed them two days longer at the
+muster, and took this course. One list, containing two knights and seven
+deputies, he caused to be chosen upon the second day; which list being
+called the first galaxy, qualified the parties elected of it with power
+for the term of one year, and no longer: another list, containing two
+knights and seven deputies more, he caused to be chosen the third day,
+which list being called the second galaxy, qualified the parties elected
+of it with power for the term of two years, and no longer. And upon the
+fourth day he chose the third galaxy, according as it is directed by the
+order, empowered for three years; which lists successively falling (like
+the signs or constellations of one hemisphere, which setting, cause
+those of the other to rise) cast the great orbs of this commonwealth
+into an annual, triennial, and perpetual revolution.
+
+The business of the muster being thus happily finished, Hermes de
+Caduceo, lord orator of the tribe of Nubia, being now put into her first
+rapture, caused one of the censor’s pulpits to be planted in front of
+the squadron, and ascending into the same, spake after this manner:
+
+“MY LORDS, THE MAGISTRATES AND THE PEOPLE OF THE TRIBE OF NUBIA:
+
+“We have this day solemnized the happy nuptials of the two greatest
+princes that are upon the earth or in nature, arms and councils, in the
+mutual embraces whereof consists your whole commonwealth; whose councils
+upon their perpetual wheelings, marches, and countermarches, create her
+armies, and whose armies with the golden volleys of the ballot at once
+create and salute her councils. There be those (such is the world at
+present) that think it ridiculous to see a nation exercising its civil
+functions in military discipline; while they, committing their buff to
+their servants, come themselves to hold trenchards. For what avails it
+such as are unarmed, or (which is all one) whose education acquaints
+them not with the proper use of their swords, to be called citizens?
+What were 2,000 or 3,000 of you, though never so well affected to your
+country, but naked, to one troop of mercenary soldiers? If they should
+come upon the field and say, ‘Gentlemen, it is thought fit that such
+and such men should be chosen by you,’ where were your liberty? or,
+‘Gentlemen, parliaments are exceeding good, but you are to have a
+little patience; these times are not so fit for them,’ where were your
+commonwealth? What causes the monarchy of the Turks but servants in
+arms? What was it that begot the glorious Commonwealth of Rome but the
+sword in the hands of her citizens? Wherefore my glad eyes salute the
+serenity and brightness of this day with a shower that shall not cloud
+it.
+
+“Behold the army of Israel become a commonwealth, and the Commonwealth
+of Israel remaining an army, with her rulers of tens and of fifties, her
+rulers of hundreds and thousands, drawing near (as this day throughout
+our happy fields) to the lot by her tribes, increased above threefold,
+and led up by her phylarchs or princes, to sit upon fifty thrones,
+judging the fifty tribes of Oceana! Or, is it Athens, breaking from
+her iron sepulchre, where she has been so long trampled by hosts of
+Janizaries? For certainly that is the voice of Theseus, having gathered
+his scattered Athenians into one city. This freeborn nation lives
+not upon the dole or bounty of one man, but distributing her annual
+magistracies and honors with her own hand, is herself King People--(At
+which the orator was awhile interrupted with shouts, but at length
+proceeded.) is it grave Lacedaemon in her armed tribe, divided by her
+oboe and her mora, which appears to chide me that I teach the people to
+talk, or conceive such language as is dressed like a woman, to be a fit
+usher of the joys of liberty into the hearts of men? is it Rome in
+her victorious arms (for so she held her concio or congregation) that
+congratulates with us, for finding out that which she could not hit
+on, and binding up her Comitia curiata, centuriata, and tributa, in one
+inviolable league of union? Or is it the great council of incomparable
+Venice, bowling forth by the selfsame ballot her immortal commonwealth?
+For, neither by reason nor by experience is it impossible that a
+commonwealth should be immortal; seeing the people being the materials,
+never die; and the form, which is motion, must, without opposition, be
+endless. The bowl which is thrown from your hand, if there be no rub, no
+impediment, shall never cease: for which cause the glorious luminaries
+that are the bowls of God, were once thrown forever; and next these,
+those of Venice. But certainly, my lords, whatever these great examples
+may have shown us, we are the first that have shown to the world a
+commonwealth established in her rise upon fifty such towers, and so
+garrisoned as are the tribes of Oceana, containing 100,000 elders upon
+the annual list, and yet but an outguard; besides her marching armies to
+be equal in the discipline, and in the number of her youth.
+
+“And forasmuch as sovereign power is a necessary but a formidable
+creature, not unlike the powder which (as you are soldiers) is at once
+your safety and your danger, being subject to take fire against you
+as well as for you, how well and securely is she, by your galaxies so
+collected as to be in full force and vigor and yet so distributed that
+it is impossible you should be blown up by your own magazine? Let them
+who will have it, that power if it be confined cannot be sovereign, tell
+us, whether our rivers do not enjoy a more secure and fruitful reign
+within their proper banks, than if it were lawful for them, in ravaging
+our harvests, to spill themselves? whether souls, not confined to their
+peculiar bodies, do govern them any more than those of witches in their
+trances? whether power, not confined to the bounds of reason and virtue,
+has any other bounds than those of vice and passion? or if vice and
+passion be boundless, and reason and virtue have certain limits, on
+which of these thrones holy men should anoint their sovereign? But to
+blow away this dust, the sovereign power of a commonwealth is no more
+bounded, that is to say straitened, than that of a monarch; but is
+balanced. The eagle mounts not to her proper pitch, if she be bounded,
+nor is free if she be not balanced. And lest a monarch should think he
+can reach further with his sceptre, the Roman eagle upon such a balance
+spread her wings from the ocean to Euphrates. Receive the sovereign
+power; you have received it, hold it fast, embrace it forever in your
+shining arms. The virtue of the loadstone is not impaired or limited,
+but receives strength and nourishment, by being bound in iron. And so
+giving your lordships much joy, I take my leave of this tribe.”
+
+The orator descending, had the period of his speech made with a vast
+applause and exultation of the whole tribe, attending him for that night
+to his quarter, as the phylarch with some commanded troops did the next
+day to the frontiers of the tribe, where leave was taken on both sides
+with more tears than grief.
+
+So a tribe is the third division of land occasioned by the third
+collection of the people, whose functions proper to that place are
+contained in the five foregoing orders.
+
+The institution of the commonwealth was such as needed those props and
+scaffolds which may have troubled the reader; but I shall here take them
+away, and come to the constitution which stands by itself, and yields a
+clearer prospect.
+
+The motions, by what has been already shown, are spherical; and
+spherical motions have their proper centre, for which cause (ere I
+proceed further) it will be necessary, for the better understanding
+of the whole, that I discover the centre whereupon the motions of this
+commonwealth are formed.
+
+The centre, or basis of every government, is no other than the
+fundamental laws of the same.
+
+Fundamental laws are such as state what it is that a man, and what the
+means may call his own, that is to say, property; be whereby a man may
+enjoy his own, that is to say, protection. The first is also called
+dominion, and the second empire or sovereign power, whereof this (as
+has been shown) is the natural product of the former, for such as is the
+balance of dominion in a nation, such is the nature of its empire.
+
+Wherefore the fundamental laws of Oceana, or the centre of this
+commonwealth, are the agrarian and the ballot: the agrarian by the
+balance of dominion preserving equality in the root; and the ballot by
+an equal rotation conveying it into the branch, or exercise of sovereign
+power, as, to begin with the former, appears by--
+
+The thirteenth order, “Constituting the agrarian laws of Oceana,
+Marpesia, and Panopea, whereby it is ordained, first, for all such lands
+as are lying and being within the proper territories of Oceana, that
+every man who is at present possessed, or shall hereafter be possessed,
+of an estate in land exceeding the revenue of £2,000 a year, and having
+more than one son, shall leave his lands either equally divided among
+them, in case the lands amount to above £2,000 a year to each, or so
+near equally, in case they come under, that the greater part or portion
+of the same remaining to the eldest exceed not the value of £2,000
+revenue. And no man, not in present possession of lands above the
+value of £2,000 by the year, shall receive, enjoy (except by lawful
+inheritance) acquire, or, purchase to himself lands within the said
+territories, amounting, with those already in his possession, above the
+said revenue. And if a man has a daughter or daughters, except she be an
+heiress or they be heiresses, he shall not leave or give to any. One
+of them in marriage, or otherwise, for her portion, above the value of
+£1,500 in lands, goods, and moneys. Nor shall any friend, kinsman, or
+kinswoman add to her or their portion or portions that are so provided
+for, to make any one of them greater. Nor shall any man demand or have
+more in marriage with any woman. Nevertheless an heiress shall enjoy her
+lawful inheritance, and a widow, whatsoever the bounty or affection
+of her husband shall bequeath to her, to be divided in the first
+generation, wherein it is divisible according as has been shown.
+
+“Secondly, for lands lying and being within the territories of Marpesia,
+the agrarian shall hold in all parts as it is established in Oceana,
+except only in the standard or proportion of estates in land, which
+shall be set for Marpesia, at £500. And,
+
+“Thirdly, for Panopea, the agrarian shall hold in all parts, as in
+Oceana. And whosoever possessing above the proportion allowed by
+these laws, shall be lawfully convicted of the same, shall forfeit the
+overplus to the use of the State.”
+
+Agrarian laws of all others have ever been the greatest bugbears, and
+so in the institution were these, at which time it was ridiculous to see
+how strange a fear appeared in everybody of that which, being good for
+all, could hurt nobody. But instead of the proof of this order, I shall
+out of those many debates that happened ere it could be passed, insert
+two speeches that were made at the Council of legislators, the first by
+the Right Honorable Philautus de Garbo, a young man, being heir-apparent
+to a very noble family, and one of the councillors, who expressed
+himself as follows:
+
+“May it please your Highness, my Lord Archon of Oceana.
+
+“If I did not, to my capacity, know from how profound a councillor I
+dissent, it would certainly be no hard task to make it as light as the
+day. First, that an agrarian is altogether unnecessary; secondly, that
+it is dangerous to a commonwealth; thirdly, that it is insufficient to
+keep out monarchy; fourthly, that it ruins families; fifthly, that it
+destroys industry; and last of all, that though it were indeed of any
+good use, it will be a matter of such difficulty to introduce in this
+nation, and so to settle that it may be lasting, as is altogether
+invincible.
+
+“First, that an agrarian is unnecessary to a commonwealth, what clearer
+testimony can there be than that the commonwealths which are our
+contemporaries (Venice, to which your Highness gives the upper hand of
+all antiquity, being one) have no such thing? And there can be no reason
+why they have it not, seeing it is in the sovereign power at any time to
+establish such an order, but that they need it not; wherefore no wonder
+if Aristotle, who pretends to be a good commonwealths man, has long
+since derided Phaleas, to whom it was attributed by the Greeks, for his
+invention.
+
+“Secondly, that an agrarian is dangerous to a commonwealth is affirmed
+upon no slight authority seeing Machiavel is positive that it was the
+dissension which happened about the agrarian that caused the destruction
+of Rome; nor do I think that it did much better in Lacedaemon, as I
+shall show anon.
+
+“Thirdly, that it is insufficient to keep out monarchy cannot without
+impiety be denied, the holy Scriptures bearing witness that the
+Commonwealth of Israel, notwithstanding her agrarian, submitted her neck
+to the arbitrary yoke of her princes.
+
+“Fourthly, therefore, to come to my next assertion, that it is
+destructive to families: this also is so apparent, that it needs pity
+rather than proof. Why alas, do you bind a nobility (which no generation
+shall deny to have been the first that freely sacrificed their blood to
+the ancient liberties of this people) on an unholy altar? Why are the
+people taught that their liberty, which, except our noble ancestors had
+been born, must have long since been buried, cannot now be born except
+we be buried? A commonwealth should have the innocence of the dove. Let
+us leave this purchase of her birth to the serpent, which eats itself
+out of the womb of its mother.
+
+“Fifthly but it may be said, perhaps, that we are fallen from our first
+love, become proud and idle. It is certain, my lords, that the hand
+of God is not upon us for nothing. But take heed how you admit of such
+assaults and sallies upon men’s estates, as may slacken the nerve of
+labor, and give others also reason to believe that their sweat is vain;
+or else, whatsoever be pretended, your agrarian (which is my fifth
+assertion) must indeed destroy industry. For, that so it did in
+Lacedaemon is most apparent, as also that it could do no otherwise,
+where every man having his forty quarters of barley, with wine
+proportionable, supplied him out of his own lot by his laborer or helot;
+and being confined in that to the scantling above which he might not
+live, there was not any such thing as a trade, or other art, except that
+of war, in exercise. Wherefore a Spartan, if he were not in arms, must
+sit and play with his Angers, whence ensued perpetual war, and, the
+estate of the city being as little capable of increase as that of the
+citizens, her inevitable ruin. Now what better ends you can propose to
+yourselves in the like ways, I do not so well see as I perceive that
+there may be worse; for Lacedaemon yet was free from civil war: but if
+you employ your citizens no better than she did, I cannot promise you
+that you shall fare so well, because they are still desirous of war that
+hope that it may be profitable to them; and the strongest security you
+can give of peace, is to make it gainful. Otherwise men will rather
+choose that whereby they may break your laws, than that whereby your
+laws may break them. Which I speak not so much in relation to the
+nobility or such as would be holding, as to the people or them that
+would be getting; the passion in these being so much the stronger, as
+a man’s felicity is weaker in the fruition of things, than in their
+prosecution and increase.
+
+“Truly, my lords, it is my fear, that by taking of more hands, and the
+best from industry, you will farther endamage it, than can be repaired
+by laying on a few, and the worst; while the nobility must be forced to
+send their sons to the plough, and, as if this were not enough, to marry
+their daughters also to farmers.
+
+“Sixthly, but I do not see (to come to the last point) how it is
+possible that this thing should be brought about, to your good I mean,
+though it may to the destruction of many. For that the agrarian of
+Israel, or that of Lacedaemon, might stand, is no such miracle; the
+lands, without any consideration of the former proprietor, being
+surveyed and cast into equal lots, which could neither be bought, nor
+sold, nor multiplied: so that they knew whereabout to have a man. But in
+this nation no such division can be introduced, the lands being already
+in the hands of proprietors, and such whose estates lie very rarely
+together, but mixed one with another being also of tenures in nature
+so different, that as there is no experience that an agrarian was ever
+introduced in such a case, so there is no appearance how or reason
+why it should: but that which is against reason and experience is
+impossible.”
+
+The case of my Lord Philautus was the most concerned in the whole
+nation; for he had four younger brothers, his father being yet living,
+to whom he was heir of £10,000 a year. Wherefore being a man both of
+good parts and esteem, his words wrought both upon men’s reason and
+passions, and had borne a stroke at the head of the business, if my Lord
+Archon had not interposed the buckler in this oration:
+
+“MY LORDS, THE LEGISLATORS OF OCEANA:
+
+“My Lord Philautus has made a thing which is easy to seem hard; if the
+thanks were due to his eloquence, it would be worthy of less praise
+than that he owes it to his merit, and the love he has most deservedly
+purchased of all men: nor is it rationally to be feared that he who is
+so much beforehand in his private, should be in arrear in his public,
+capacity. Wherefore, my lord’s tenderness throughout his speech arising
+from no other principle than his solicitude lest the agrarian should
+be hurtful to his country, it is no less than my duty to give the best
+satisfaction I am able to so good a patriot, taking every one of his
+doubts in the order proposed. And,
+
+“First, whereas my lord, upon observation of the modern commonwealths,
+is of opinion that an agrarian is not necessary: it must be confessed
+that at the first sight of them there is some appearance favoring
+his assertion, but upon accidents of no precedent to us. For the
+commonwealths of Switzerland and Holland, I mean of those leagues, being
+situated in countries not alluring the inhabitants to wantonness, but
+obliging them to universal industry, have an implicit agrarian in the
+nature of them: and being not obnoxious to a growing nobility (which,
+as long as their former monarchies had spread the wing over them, could
+either not at all be hatched, or was soon broken) are of no example to
+us, whose experience in this point has been to the contrary. But what if
+even in these governments there be indeed an explicit agrarian? For when
+the law commands an equal or near equal distribution of a man’s estate
+in land among his children, as it is done in those countries, a nobility
+cannot grow; and so there needs no agrarian, or rather there is one.
+And for the growth of the nobility in Venice (if so it be, for Machiavel
+observes in that republic, as a cause of it, a great mediocrity of
+estates) it is not a point that she is to fear, but might study, seeing
+she consists of nothing else but nobility, by which, whatever their
+estates suck from the people, especially if it comes equally, is
+digested into the better blood of that commonwealth, which is all, or
+the greatest, benefit they can have by accumulation. For how unequal
+soever you will have them to be in their incomes, they have officers
+of the pomp, to bring them equal in expenses, or at least in the
+ostentation or show of them. And so unless the advantage of an estate
+consists more in the measure than in the use of it, the authority of
+Venice does but enforce our agrarian; nor shall a man evade or elude the
+prudence of it, by the authority of any other commonwealth.
+
+“For if a commonwealth has been introduced at once, as those of Israel
+and Lacedaemon, you are certain to find her underlaid with this as the
+main foundation; nor, if she is obliged more to fortune than prudence,
+has she raised her head without musing upon this matter, as appears by
+that of Athens, which through her defect in this point, says Aristotle,
+introduced her ostracism, as most of the democracies of Greece. But,
+not to restrain a fundamental of such latitude to any one kind of
+government, do we not yet see that if there be a sole landlord of a
+vast territory, he is the Turk? that if a few landlords overbalance a
+populous country, they have store of servants? that if a people be in an
+equal balance, they can have no lords? that no government can otherwise
+be erected, than upon some one of these foundations? that no one of
+these foundations (each being else apt to change into some other) can
+give any security to the government, unless it be fixed? that through
+the want of this fixation, potent monarchy and commonwealths have fallen
+upon the heads of the people, and accompanied their own sad ruins with
+vast effusions of innocent blood? Let the fame, as was the merit of
+the ancient nobility of this nation, be equal to or above what has been
+already said, or can be spoken, yet have we seen not only their glory
+but that of a throne, the most indulgent to and least invasive for so
+many ages upon the liberty of a people that the world has known, through
+the mere want of fixing her foot by a proportionable agrarian upon
+her proper foundation, to have fallen with such horror as has been a
+spectacle of astonishment to the whole earth. And were it well argued
+from one calamity, that we ought not to prevent another? Nor is
+Aristotle so good a commonwealths man for deriding the invention of
+Phaleas as in recollecting himself, where he says that democracies, when
+a less part of their citizens overtop the rest in wealth, degenerate
+into oligarchies and principalities; and, which comes nearer to the
+present purpose, that the greater part of the nobility of Tarentum
+coming accidentally to be ruined, the government of the few came by
+consequence to be changed into that of the many.
+
+“These things considered, I cannot see how an agrarian, as to the
+fixation or security of a government, can be less than necessary. And
+if a cure be necessary, it excuses not the patient, his disease being
+otherwise desperate, that it is dangerous; which was the case of Rome,
+not so stated by Machiavel, where he says, that the strife about the
+agrarian caused the destruction of that commonwealth. As if when a
+senator was not rich (as Crassus held) except he could pay an army, that
+commonwealth could expect nothing but ruin whether in strife about the
+agrarian, or without it. ‘Of late,’ says Livy, ‘riches have introduced
+avarice, and voluptuous pleasures abounding have through lust and
+luxury begot a desire of lasting and destroying all good orders.’ if the
+greatest security of a commonwealth consists in being provided with the
+proper antidote against this poison, her greatest danger, must be
+from the absence of an agrarian, which is the whole truth of the Roman
+example. For the Laconic, I shall reserve the further explication of it,
+as my lord also did, to another place; and first see whether an agrarian
+proportioned to a popular government be sufficient to keep out monarchy.
+My lord is for the negative, and fortified by the people of Israel
+electing a king. To which I say that the action of the people therein
+expressed is a full answer to the objection of that example; for the
+monarchy neither grew upon them, nor could; by reason of the agrarian,
+possibly have invaded them, if they had not pulled it upon themselves by
+the election of a king. Which being an accident, the like whereof is not
+to be found in any other people so planted, nor in this till, as it
+is manifest, they were given up by God to infatuation (for says he to
+Samuel, ‘They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I
+should not reign over them,), has something in it which is apparent, by
+what went before, to have been besides the course of nature, and by what
+followed.
+
+“For the King having no other foundation than the calamities of the
+people, so often beaten by their enemies, that despairing of themselves
+they were contented with any change, if he had peace as in the days of
+Solomon, left but a slippery throne to his successor, as appeared
+by Rehoboam. And the agrarian, notwithstanding the monarchy thus
+introduced, so faithfully preserved the root of that commonwealth, that
+it shot forth oftener and by intervals continued longer than any other
+government, as may be computed from the institution of the same by
+Joshua, 1,465 years before Christ, to the total dissolution of it,
+which happened in the reign of the emperor Adrian, 135 years after the
+incarnation. A people planted upon an equal agrarian, and holding to it,
+if they part with their liberty, must do it upon good-will, and make but
+a bad title of their bounty. As to instance yet further in that which is
+proposed by the present order to this nation, the standard whereof is
+at £2,000 a year; the whole territory of Oceana being divided by this
+proportion, amounts to 5,000 lots. So the lands of Oceana being thus
+distributed, and bound to this distribution, can never fall to fewer
+than 5,000 proprietors. But 5,000 proprietors so seized will not agree
+to break the agrarian, for that were to agree to rob one another; nor to
+bring in a king, because they must maintain him, and can have no benefit
+by him; nor to exclude the people, because they can have as little by
+that, and must spoil their militia. So the commonwealth continuing upon
+the balance proposed, though it should come into 5,000 hands, can never
+alter, and that it should ever come into 5,000 hands is as improbable as
+anything in the world that is not altogether impossible.
+
+“My lord’s other considerations are more private, as that, this order
+destroys families; which is as if one should lay the ruin of some
+ancient castle to the herbs which usually grow out of them, the
+destruction of those families being that indeed which naturally produced
+this order. For we do not now argue for that which we would have, but
+for that which we are already possessed of, as would appear if a note
+were but taken of all such as have at this day above £2,000 a year in
+Oceana. If my lord should grant (and I will put it with the most) that
+they who are proprietors in land, exceeding this proportion, exceed not
+300, with what brow can the interest of so few be balanced with that of
+the whole nation? or rather, what interest have they to put in such a
+balance? they would live as they had been accustomed to do; who hinders
+them? they would enjoy their estates; who touches them? they would
+dispose of what they have according to the interest of their families;
+it is that which we desire. A man has one son, let him be called; would
+he enjoy his father’s estate? it is his, his son’s, and his son’s son’s
+after him. A man has five sons, let them be called; would they enjoy
+their father’s estate? It is divided among them; for we have four votes
+for one in the same family, and therefore this must be the interest of
+the family, or the family knows not its own interest. If a man shall
+dispute otherwise, he must draw his arguments from custom and from
+greatness, which was the interest of the monarchy, not of the family;
+and we are now a commonwealth. If the monarchy could not bear with
+such divisions because they tendered to a commonwealth, neither can
+a commonwealth connive at such accumulations because they tend to a
+monarchy. If the monarchy might make bold with so many for the good of
+one, we may make bold with one for the good of so many, nay, for the
+good of all.
+
+“My lords, it comes into my mind, that which upon occasion of the
+variety of parties enumerated in our late civil wars, was said by a
+friend of mine coming home from his travels, about the latter end
+of these troubles; that he admired how it came to pass, that younger
+brothers, especially being so many more in number than their elder did
+not unite as one man against a tyranny, the like whereof has not been
+exercised in any other nation. And truly, when I consider that our
+countrymen are none of the worst-natured, I must confess I marvel
+much how it comes to pass that we should use our children as we do our
+puppies--take one, lay it in the lap, feed it with every good bit, and
+drown five; nay, yet worse, forasmuch as the puppies are once drowned,
+whereas the children are left perpetually drowning. Really, my lords,
+it is a flinty custom! and all this for his cruel ambition, that would
+raise himself a pillar a golden pillar for his monument, though he has
+children, his own reviving flesh, and a kind of immortality. And this is
+that interest of a family, for which we are to think ill of a government
+that will not endure it. But quiet ourselves; the land through which the
+river Nilus wanders in one stream, is barren; but where it parts into
+seven, it multiplies its fertile shores by distributing, yet keeping and
+improving, such a propriety and nutrition, as is a prudent agrarian to a
+well-ordered commonwealth.
+
+“Nor (to come to the fifth assertion) is a political body rendered any
+fitter for industry by having one gouty and another withered leg, than
+a natural. It tends not to the improvement of merchandise that there be
+some who have no need of their trading, and others that are not able to
+follow it. If confinement discourages industry, an estate in money is
+not confined, and lest industry should want whereupon to work, land is
+not engrossed or entailed upon any man, but remains at its devotion.
+I wonder whence the computation can arise, that this should discourage
+industry. Two thousand pounds a year a man may enjoy in Oceana, as
+much in Panopea, £500 in Marpesia; there be other plantations, and the
+commonwealth will have more. Who knows how far the arms of our agrarian
+may extend themselves? and whether he that might have left a pillar, may
+not leave a temple of many pillars to his more pious memory? Where there
+is some measure in riches, a man may be rich, but if you will have them
+to be infinite, there will be no end of starving himself, and wanting
+what he has: and what pains does such a one take to be poor Furthermore,
+if a man shall think that there may be an industry less greasy or more
+noble, and so cast his thoughts upon the commonwealth, he will have
+leisure for her and she riches and honors for him; his sweat shall smell
+like Alexander’s. My Lord Philautus is a young man who, enjoying his
+£10,000 a year, may keep a noble house in the old way, and have homely
+guests; and having but two, by the means proposed, may take the upper
+hand of his great ancestors; with reverence to whom, I may say, there
+has not been one of them would have disputed his place with a Roman
+consul.
+
+“My lord, do not break my heart; the nobility shall go to no other
+ploughs than those which we call our consuls. But, says he, it having
+been so with Lacedaemon, that neither the city nor the citizens were
+capable of increase, a blow was given by that agrarian, which ruined
+both. And what are we concerned with that agrarian, or that blow while
+our citizens and our city (and that by our agrarian) are both capable
+of increase? The Spartan, if he made a conquest, had no citizens to hold
+it; the Oceaner will have enow. The Spartan could have no trade; the
+Oceaner may have all. The agrarian in Laconia, that it might bind on
+knapsacks, forbidding all other arts but that of war, could not make
+an army of above 30,000 citizens. The agrarian in Oceana, without
+interruption of traffic, provides us in the fifth part of the youth
+an annual source or fresh spring of 100,000, besides our provincial
+auxiliaries, out of which to draw marching armies; and as many elders,
+not feeble, but men most of them in the flower of their age, and in arms
+for the defence of our territories. The agrarian in Laconia banished
+money, this multiplies it; that allowed a matter of twenty or thirty
+acres to a man, this 2,000 or 3,000; there is no comparison between
+them. And yet I differ so much from my lord, or his opinion that
+the agrarian was the ruin of Lacedaemon, that I hold it no less than
+demonstrable to have been her main support. For if, banishing all other
+diversions, it could not make an army of above 30,000, then, letting in
+all other diversions, it must have broken that army. Wherefore Lysander,
+bringing in the golden spoils of Athens, irrevocably ruined that
+commonwealth; and is a warning to us, that in giving encouragement to
+industry, we also remember that covetousness is the root of all evil.
+And our agrarian can never be the cause of those seditions threatened
+by my lord, but is the proper cure of them, as Lucan notes well in the
+state of Rome before the civil wars, which happened through the want of
+such an antidote.
+
+“Why then are we mistaken, as if we intended not equal advantages in our
+commonwealth to either sex, because we would not have women’s fortunes
+consist in that metal which exposes them to cutpurses? If a man cuts my
+purse I may have him by the heels or by the neck for it; whereas a man
+may cut a woman’s purse, and have her for his pains in fetters. How
+brutish, and much more than brutish, is that commonwealth which prefers
+the earth before the fruits of the womb? If the people be her treasure,
+the staff by which she is sustained and comforted, with what justice can
+she suffer them, by whom she is most enriched, to be for that cause the
+most impoverished? And yet we see the gifts of God, and the bounties of
+heaven in fruitful families, through this wretched custom of marrying
+for money, become their insupportable grief and poverty. Nor falls this
+so heavy upon the lower sort, being better able to shift for themselves,
+as upon the nobility or gentry. For what avails it in this case, from
+whence their veins have derived their blood; while they shall see the
+tallow of a chandler sooner converted into that beauty which is required
+in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the
+advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there
+would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may
+have but £1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his
+daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command?
+And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion
+than she has. Who is hurt in this case?--nay, who is not benefited? If
+the agrarian gives us the sweat of our brows without diminution; if it
+prepares our table; if it makes our cup to overflow, and above all this,
+in providing for our children, anoints our heads with that oil which
+takes away the greatest of worldly cares; what man, that is not besotted
+with a covetousness as vain as endless, can imagine such a constitution
+to be his poverty? Seeing where no woman can be considerable for her
+portion, no portion will be considerable with a woman; and so his
+children will not only find better preferments without his brokage, but
+more freedom of their own affections. “We are wonderful severe in laws,
+that they shall not marry without our consent, as if it were care and
+tenderness over them; but is it not lest we should not have the other
+£1,000 with this son, or the other £100 a year more in jointure for that
+daughter? These, when we are crossed in them, are the sins for which we
+water our couch with tears, but not of penitence. Seeing whereas it is
+a mischief beyond any that we can do to our enemies, we persist to make
+nothing of breaking the affection of our children. But there is in this
+agrarian a homage to pure and spotless love, the consequence whereof I
+will not give for all your romances. An alderman makes not his daughter
+a countess till he has given her £20,000, nor a romance a considerable
+mistress till she be a princess; these are characters of bastard love.
+But if our agrarian excludes ambition and covetousness, we shall at
+length have the care of our own breed, in which we have been curious as
+to our dogs and horses. The marriage-bed will be truly legitimate, and
+the race of the commonwealth not spurious. But (impar magnanimis
+ausis, imparque dolori) I am hurled from all my hopes by my lord’s last
+assertion of impossibility, that the root from whence we imagine these
+fruits should be planted or thrive in this soil. And why? Because of the
+mixture of estates and variety of tenures. Nevertheless, there is yet
+extant in the Exchequer an old survey of the whole nation; wherefore
+such a thing is not impossible. Now if a new survey were taken at the
+present rates, and the law made that no man should hold hereafter above
+so much land as is valued therein at £2,000 a year, it would amount to
+a good and sufficient agrarian. It is true that there would remain
+some difficulty in the different kind of rents, and that it is a matter
+requiring not only more leisure than we have, but an authority which
+may be better able to bow men to a more general consent than is to be
+wrought out of them by such as are in our capacity. Wherefore as to the
+manner, it is necessary that we refer it to the Parliament; but as to
+the matter, they cannot otherwise fix their government upon the right
+balance.
+
+“I shall conclude with a few words to some parts of the order, which
+my lord has omitted. As first to the consequences of the agrarian to be
+settled in Marpesia, which irreparably breaks the aristocracy of that
+nation; being of such a nature, as standing, it is not possible that you
+should govern. For while the people of that country are little better
+than the cattle of the nobility, you must not wonder if, according as
+these can make their markets with foreign princes, you find those to be
+driven upon your grounds. And if you be so tender, now you have it
+in your power, as not to hold a hand upon them that may prevent the
+slaughter which must otherwise ensue in like cases, the blood will lie
+at your door. But in holding such a hand upon them, you may settle the
+agrarian; and in settling the agrarian, you give that people not only
+liberty, but lands; which makes your protection necessary to their
+security; and their contribution due to your protection, as to their own
+safety.
+
+“For the agrarian of Panopea, it allowing such proportions of so good
+land, men that conceive themselves straitened by this in Oceana, will
+begin there to let themselves forth, where every citizen will in time
+have his villa. And there is no question, but the improvement of that
+country by this means must be far greater than it has been in the best
+of former times. I have no more to say, but that in those ancient and
+heroic ages (when men thought that to be necessary which was virtuous)
+the nobility of Athens, having the people so much engaged in their debt
+that there remained no other question among these than which of those
+should be king, no sooner heard Solon speak than they quitted their
+debts, and restored the commonwealth; which ever after held a solemn
+and annual feast called the Sisacthia, or Recision, in memory of that
+action. Nor is this example the phoenix; for at the institution by
+Lycurgus, the nobility having estates (as ours here) in the lands of
+Laconia, upon no other valuable consideration than the commonwealth
+proposed by him, threw them up to be parcelled by his agrarian. But
+now when no man is desired to throw up a farthing of his money, or a
+shovelful of his earth, and that all we can do is but to make a virtue
+of necessity, we are disputing whether we should have peace or war.
+For peace you cannot have without some government, nor any government
+without the proper balance. Wherefore if you will not fix this which you
+have, the rest is blood, for without blood you can bring in no other.”
+
+By these speeches made at the institution of the agrarian you may
+perceive what were the grounds of it. The next is--
+
+The fourteenth order, “Constituting the ballot of Venice, as it is
+fitted by several alterations, and appointed to every assembly, to
+be the constant and only way of giving suffrage in this commonwealth,
+according to the following scheme.”
+
+I shall endeavor by the following figure to demonstrate the manner of
+the Venetian ballot (a thing as difficult in discourse or writing, as
+facile in practice) according to the use of it in Oceana. The whole
+figure represents the Senate, containing, as to the house or form
+of sitting, a square and a half; the tribunal at the upper end being
+ascended by four steps. On the uppermost of these sit the magistrates
+that constitute the signory of the commonwealth, that is to say, A the
+strategus; B the orator; C the three commissioners of the great seal; D
+the three commissioners of the Treasury, whereof one, E, exercises for
+the present the office of a censor at the middle urn, F To the two upper
+steps of the tribunal answer G, G-G, G, the two long benches next the
+wall on each side of the house; the outwardmost of which are equal in
+height to the uppermost step, and the innermost equal in height to the
+next. Of these four benches consists the first seal; as the second seat
+consists in like manner of those four benches H, H-H, H, which being
+next the floor, are equal in height to the two nethermost steps of
+the throne. So the whole house is distributed into two seats, each
+consisting of four benches.
+
+This distribution causes not only the greater conveniency; as will be
+shown, to the senators in the exercise of their function at the ballot,
+but a greater grace to the aspect of the Senate. In the middle of the
+outward benches stand I, 12 the chairs of the censors, those being their
+ordinary places, though upon occasion of the ballot they descend, and
+sit where they are shown by K, K at each of the outward urns L, L. Those
+M, M that sit with their tables, and the bowls N, N before them, upon
+the halfspace or second step of the tribunal from the floor, are the
+clerks or secretaries of the house. Upon the short seats O, O on the
+floor (which should have been represented by woolsacks) sit: P, the two
+tribunes of the horse. Q, the two tribunes of the foot; and R, R-R, R
+the judges, all which magistrates are assistants, but have no suffrage.
+This posture of the Senate considered, the ballot is performed as
+follows:
+
+First, whereas the gold balls are of several suits, and accordingly
+marked with several letters of the alphabet, a secretary presents a
+little urn (wherein there is one ball of every suit or mark) to the
+strategus and the orator; and look what letter the strategus draws, the
+same and no other is to be used for that time in the middle urn F; the
+like for the letter drawn by the orator is to be observed for the side
+urns L, L, that is to say if the strategus drew a ball with an A, all
+the gold balls in the middle urn for that day are marked with the letter
+A; and if the orator drew a B, all the gold balls in the side urn for
+that day are marked with the letter B, which done immediately before
+the ballot, and so the letter unknown to the ballotants, they can use no
+fraud or juggling; otherwise a man might carry a gold ball in his hand,
+and seem to have drawn it out of an urn. He that draws a gold ball at
+any urn, delivers it to the censor or assessor of that urn, who views
+the character, and allows accordingly of his lot.
+
+The strategus and the orator having drawn for the letters, the urns are
+prepared accordingly by one of the commissioners and the two censors.
+The preparation of the urns is After this manner. If the Senate be to
+elect, for example, the list called the tropic of magistrates, which is
+this:
+
+1. The Lord Strategus;
+
+2. The Lord Orator;
+
+3. The Third Commissioner of the Great Seal;
+
+4. The Third Commissioner of the Treasury;
+
+5. The First Censor;
+
+6. The Second Censor;
+
+this list or schedule consists of six magistracies, and to every
+magistracy there are to be four competitors; that is, in all
+four-and-twenty competitors proposed to the house. They that are to
+propose the competitors are called electors, and no elector can propose
+above one competitor: wherefore for the proposing of four-and-twenty
+competitors you must have four-and-twenty electors; and whereas the
+ballot consists of a lot and of a suffrage, the lot is for no other use
+than for the designation of electors; and he that draws a gold ball
+at the middle urn is an elector. Now, as to have four-and-twenty
+competitors proposed, you must have four-and-twenty electors made, so to
+have four-and-twenty electors made by lot, you must have four-and-twenty
+gold balls in the middle urn; and these (because otherwise it would
+be no lot) mixed with a competent number of blanks, or silver balls.
+Wherefore to the four-and-twenty gold balls cast six-and-twenty silver
+ones, and those (reckoning the blanks with the prizes) make fifty balls
+in the middle urn. This done (because no man can come to the middle urn
+that has not first drawn a gold ball at one of the side urns) and to be
+sure that the prizes or gold balls in this urn be all drawn, there must
+come to it fifty persons; therefore there must be in each of the side
+urns five-and-twenty gold balls, which in both come to fifty; and to the
+end that every senator may have his lot, the gold balls in the side urns
+are to be made up with blanks equal to the number of the ballotants at
+either urn; for example, the house consisting of 300 senators, there
+must be in each of the side urns 125 blanks and twenty-five prizes,
+which come in both the side urns to 300 balls. This is the whole mystery
+of preparing the urns, which the censors having skill to do accordingly,
+the rest of the ballot, whether the parties balloting understand it or
+not must of necessary consequence come right; and they can neither be
+out, nor fall into any confusion in the exercise of this art.
+
+But the ballot, as I said, is of two parts, lot and suffrage, or
+the proposition and result. The lot determines who shall propose the
+competitors; and the result of the Senate, which of the competitors
+shall be the magistrates. The whole, to begin with the lot, proceeds in
+this manner:
+
+The first secretary with an audible voice reads first the list of the
+magistrates to be chosen for the day, then the oath for fair election,
+at which the senators hold up their hands; which done, another secretary
+presents a little urn to the strategus, in which are four balls, each
+of them having one of these four inscriptions: “First seat at the upper
+end,” “First seat at the lower end,” “Second seat at the upper end,”
+ “Second seat at the lower end.” And look which of them the strategus
+draws, the secretary pronouncing the inscription with a loud voice, the
+seat so called comes accordingly to the urns: this in the figure is the
+second seat at the upper end. The manner of their coming to the side
+urns is in double files, that being two holes in the cover of each side
+urn, by which means two may draw at once. The senators therefore S, S-S,
+S are coming from the upper end of their seats H, H-H, H to the side
+urns L, L. The senators T T-T are drawing. The senator V has drawn a
+gold ball at his side urn, and is going to the middle urn F, where
+the senator W, having done the like at the other side urn, is already
+drawing. But the senators X, X-X, X having drawn blanks at their side
+urns, and thrown them into the bowls Y Y standing at the feet of the
+urns, are marching by the lower end into their seats again; the senator
+a having done the like at the middle urn, is also throwing his blank
+into the bowl b and marching to his seat again: for a man by a prize at
+a side urn gains no more than right to come to the middle urn, where, if
+he draws a blank, his fortune at the side urn comes to nothing at all;
+wherefore he also returns to his place. But the senator C has had a
+prize at the middle urn, where the commissioner, having viewed his ball,
+and found the mark to be right, he marches up the steps to the seat
+of the electors, which is the form d set across the tribunal, where he
+places himself, according as he was drawn, with the other electors e, e,
+e drawn before him. These are not to look back, but sit with their faces
+toward the signory or state, till their number amount to that of the
+magistrates to be that day chosen, which for the present, as was shown,
+are six: wherefore six electors being made, they are reckoned according
+as they were drawn: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, in
+their order, and the first six that are chosen are the first order of
+electors.
+
+The first order of electors being made, are conducted by a secretary,
+with a copy of the list to be chosen, out of the Senate, and into a
+committee or council-chamber, being neither suffered by the way, nor in
+their room (till the ballot be ended), to have conference with any but
+themselves; wherefore the secretary, having given them their oath that
+they shall make election according to the law and their conscience,
+delivers them the list, and seats himself at the lower end of the table
+with his pen and paper, while another secretary keeps the door.
+
+By such time as the first order of electors are thus seated, the second
+order of electors is drawn, who, with a second copy of the same list,
+are conducted into another committee-chamber, by other secretaries
+performing the same office with the former.
+
+The like exactly is done by the third and by the fourth orders (or
+hands, as the Venetians call them) of electors, by which means you have
+the four-and-twenty electors divided according to the four copies of
+the same list, by six, into four hands or orders; and every one of these
+orders names one competitor to every magistracy in the list; that is to
+say, the first elector names to the first magistracy, the second elector
+to the second magistracy, and so forth. But though the electors, as has
+been shown, are chosen by mere lot, yet the competitors by them named
+are not chosen by any lot, but by the suffrage of the whole order for
+example, the first elector in the first order proposes a name to
+be strategus, which name is balloted by himself and the other five
+electors, and if the name so balloted attain not to above half the
+suffrages, it is laid aside, and the first elector names another to the
+same magistracy and so in case this also fails, another, till one he has
+named, whether it be himself, or some other, has attained to above half
+the suffrages in the affirmative; and the name so attaining to above
+half the suffrages in the affirmative is written to the first magistracy
+in the list by the secretary which being done, the second elector of the
+first order, names to ‘the second magistracy till one of his nomination
+be chosen to the same. The like is done by the rest of the electors of
+the first order, till one competitor be chosen, and written to every
+magistracy in their list. Now the second, third, and fourth orders of
+electors doing exactly after the same manner, it comes to pass that one
+competitor to every magistracy being chosen in each order, there be in
+all four competitors chosen to every magistracy.
+
+If any controversy arises in an order of electors, one of the censors
+(these being at this game the groom-porters) is advertised by the
+secretary who brings him in, and the electors disputing are bound to
+acquiesce in his sentence. For which cause it is that the censors do not
+ballot at the urns; the signory also abstains, lest it should deform the
+house: wherefore the blanks in the side urns are by so many the
+fewer. And so much for the lot, which is of the greater art but less
+consequence, because it concerns proposition only: but all (except the
+tribunes and the judges, which being but assistants have no suffrage)
+are to ballot at the result, to which I now come.
+
+The four orders of electors having perfected their lists, the face of
+the house is changed: for the urns are taken away, and every senator
+and magistrate is seated in his proper place, saving the electors, who,
+having given their suffrages already, may not stir out of their
+chambers till the house have given theirs, and the rest of the ballot be
+performed; which follows in this manner:
+
+The four lists being presented by the secretaries of each council of
+electors to the signory, are first read, according to their order, to
+the house, with an audible voice; and then the competitors are put to
+the ballot or suffrage of the whole Senate in this manner: A, A named
+to be strategus in the first order, whereupon eight ballotins, or pages,
+such as are expressed by the figures f, f, take eight of the boxes
+represented, though rudely, by the figures g, g, and go four on the one
+and four on the other side of the house, that is, one to every bench,
+signifying “A, A named to be the strategus in the first order..” and
+every magistrate or senator (beginning by the strategus and the orator
+first) holds up a little pellet of linen, as the box passes, between his
+finger and his thumb, that men may see he has but one, and then puts it
+into the same. The box consisting in the inner part of two boxes, being
+painted on the outside white and green, to distinguish the affirmative
+from the negative side, is so made that when your hand is in it, no man
+can see to which of the sides you put the suffrage, nor hear to which it
+falls, because the pellet being linen, makes no noise. The strategus and
+the orator having begun, all the rest do the like.
+
+The ballotins having thus gathered the suffrages, bring them before the
+signory, in whose presence the outward boxes being opened, they take
+out the inner boxes, whereof the affirmative is white, and the negative
+green, and pour the white in the bowl N on the right hand, which is
+white also, and the green into the bowl N on the left, which is also
+green. These bowls or basins (better represented at the lower end of the
+figure by h, i) being upon this occasion set before the tables of the
+secretaries at the upper end N, N, the white on the right hand, and the
+green on the left, the secretaries on each side number the balls, by
+which, if they find that the affirmatives amount not to above one-half,
+they write not the name that was balloted, but if they amount to above
+one-half, they write it, adding the number of above half the suffrages
+to which it attained. The first name being written, or laid aside, the
+next that is put is BB named to be strategus in the second order; the
+third CC, named to be strategus in the third order; the fourth DD, named
+to be strategus in the fourth order and he of these four competitors
+that has most above half in the affirmative, is the magistrate; or if
+none of them attain to above half, the nomination for that magistracy
+is to be repeated by such new electors as shall be chosen at the next
+ballot. And so, as is exemplified in the first magistracy, proceeds the
+ballot of the rest; first in the first, then in the second, and so in
+the third and fourth orders.
+
+Now whereas it may happen that AA, for example, being named strategus in
+the first order, may also be named to the same or some one or more
+other magistracies in one or more of the other orders; his name is
+first balloted where it is first written, that is to the more worthy
+magistracy, whereof if he misses, he is balloted as it comes in course
+for the next, and so for the rest, if he misses of that, as often as he
+is named.
+
+And because to be named twice, or oftener, whether to the same or some
+other magistracy, is the stronger recommendation, the note must not fail
+to be given upon the name, at the proposition in this manner: AA named
+to be strategus in the first, and in the second order, or AA named to be
+strategus in the first and the third, in the first and the fourth, etc.
+But if he be named to the same magistracy in the first, second, third,
+and fourth orders, he can have no competitor; wherefore attaining to
+above half the suffrages, he is the magistrate. Or thus: AA named to be
+strategus in the first, to be censor in the second, to be orator in the
+third, and to be commissioner of the seal in the fourth order, or the
+like in more or fewer orders, in which cases if he misses of the first
+magistracy, he is balloted to the second; if he misses of the second, to
+the third; and if he misses of the third, to the fourth.
+
+The ballot not finished before sunset, though the election of the
+magistrates already chosen be good, voids the election of such
+competitors as being chosen are not yet furnished with magistracies, as
+if they had never been named (for this is no juggling-box, but an art
+that must see the sun), and the ballot for the remaining magistracies
+is to be repeated the next day by new orders of electors, and such
+competitors as by them shall be elected. And so in the like manner, if
+of all the names proposed to the same magistracy, no one of them attains
+to above half the suffrages in the affirmative.
+
+The senatorian ballot of Oceana being thus described, those of the
+parish, of the hundred, and of the tribe, being so little different,
+that in this they are all contained, and by this may be easily
+understood, are yet fully described, and made plain enough before in the
+fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth orders.
+
+This, therefore, is the general order, whence those branches of the
+ballot, some whereof you have already seen, are derived; which, with
+those that follow, were all read and debated in this place at the
+institution. When my Lord Epimonus de Garrula, being one of the
+councillors, and having no further patience (though the rulers were
+composed by the agent of this commonwealth, residing for that purpose at
+Venice) than to hear the direction for the parishes, stood up and made
+way for himself in this manner:
+
+“MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS, MY LORD ARCHON:
+
+“Under correction of Mr. Peregrin, Spy, our very learned agent and
+intelligencer, I have seen the world a little, Venice, and (as gentlemen
+are permitted to do) the great Council balloting. And truly I must needs
+say, that it is for a dumb show the goodliest that I ever beheld with my
+eyes. You should have some would take it ill, as if the noble Venetians
+thought themselves too good to speak to strangers, but they observed
+them not so narrowly. The truth is, they have nothing to say to their
+acquaintance; or men that are in council sure would have tongues: for a
+council, and not a word spoken in it, is a contradiction. But there is
+such a pudder with their marching and countermarching, as, though never
+a one of them draw a sword, you would think they were training; which
+till I found that they did it only to entertain strangers, I came from
+among them as wise as I went thither But in the Parliament of Oceana you
+had no balls nor dancing, but sober conversation; a man might know and
+be known, show his parts, and improve them. And now if you take the
+advice of this same fellow, you will spoil all with his whimsies. Mr.
+Speaker--cry you mercy, my Lord Archon, I mean--set the wisest man of
+your house in the great Council of Venice, and you will not know him
+from a fool. Whereas nothing is more certain than that flat and dull
+fellows in the judgment of all such as used to keep company with them
+before, upon election into our house, have immediately chitted like
+barley in the vat, where it acquires a new spirit, and flowed forth into
+language, that I am as confident as I am here, if there were not such
+as delight to abuse us, is far better than Tully’s; or, let anybody but
+translate one of his orations, and speak it in the house, and see if
+everybody do not laugh at him.
+
+“This is a great matter, Mr. Speaker; they do not cant it with your
+book-learning, your orbs, your centres, your prime magnitudes, and your
+nebulones, things I profess that would make a sober man run stark mad to
+hear them; while we, who should be considering the honor of our country
+and that it goes now or never upon our hand, whether it shall be
+ridiculous to all the world, are going to nine-holes or trow madam for
+our business, like your dumb Venetian, whom this same Sir Politic your
+resident, that never saw him do anything but make faces, would insinuate
+to you, at this distance, to have the only knack of state. Whereas if
+you should take the pains, as I have done, to look a little nearer,
+you would find these same wonderful things to be nothing else but mere
+natural fopperies, or capriccios as they call them in Italian, even
+of the meanest, of that nation. For, put the case you be travelling in
+Italy, ask your contadino, that is, the next country-fellow you meet,
+some question, and presently he ballots you an answer with a nod, which
+is affirmative; or a shake with his head, which is the negative box; or
+a shrug with his shoulder, which is the bossolo di non sinceri. Good!
+You will admire Sandys for telling you, that grotta di cane is a
+miracle: and I shall be laughed at, for assuring you, that it is nothing
+else but such a damp (continued by the neighborhood of certain sulphur
+mines) as through accidental heat does sometimes happen in our coalpits.
+But ingratitude must not discourage an honest man from doing good.
+There is not, I say, such a tongue-tied generation under heaven as your
+Italian, that you should not wonder if he makes signs. But our people
+must have something in their diurnals; we must ever and anon be telling
+them our minds; or if we be at it when we raise taxes, like those
+gentlemen with the finger and the thumb, they will swear that we are
+cutpurses. Come, I know what I have heard them say, when some men had
+money that wrought hard enough for it; and do you conceive they will be
+better pleased when they shall be told that upon like occasions you are
+at mumchance or stool-ball?
+
+“I do not speak for myself; for though I shall always acknowledge that
+I got more by one year’s sitting in the house than by my three years’
+travels, it was not of that kind. But I hate that this same Spy, for
+pretending to have played at billiards with the most serene Commonwealth
+of Venice, should make such fools of us here, when I know that he must
+have had his intelligence from some corn-cutter upon the Rialto; for a
+noble Venetian would be hanged if he should keep such a fellow company.
+And yet if I do not think he has made you all dote, never trust me, my
+Lord Archon is sometimes in such strange raptures. Well, good my lord,
+let me be heard as well as your apple squire. Venice has fresh blood
+in her cheeks, I must confess, yet she is but an old lady. N or has he
+picked her cabinet; these he sends you are none of her receipts, I can
+assure you; he bought them for a Julio at St. Mark’s of a mountebank.
+She has no other wash, upon my knowledge, for that same envied
+complexion of hers but her marshes, being a little better scented,
+saving your presence, than a chamber-pot. My lords, I know what I say,
+but you will never have done with it, that neither the great Turk, nor
+any of those little Turks her neighbors, have been able to spoil her!
+Why you may as well wonder that weasels do not suck eggs in swans’
+nests. Do you think that it has lain in the devotion of her beads; which
+you that have puked so much at popery, are now at length resolved shall
+consecrate M. Parson, and be dropped by every one of his congregation,
+while those same whimsical intelligences your surveyors (you will break
+my heart) give the turn to your primum mobile! And so I think they will;
+(for you will find that money is the primum mobile) and they will turn
+you thus out of some £300,000 or £400,000: a pretty sum for urns
+and balls, for boxes and pills, which these same quacksalvers are to
+administer to the parishes; and for what disease I marvel! Or how does
+it work? Out comes a constable, an overseer, and a churchwarden! Mr.
+Speaker, I am amazed!”
+
+Never was there goose so stuck with lard as my Lord Epimonus’s speech
+with laughter, the Archon having much ado to recover himself in such a
+manner as might enable him to return these thanks:
+
+“In your whole lives, my lords, were you never entertained with so much
+ingenuity, my Lord Epimonus having at once mended all the faults of
+travellers. For, first, whereas they are abominable liars, he has not
+told you (except some malicious body has misinformed him concerning poor
+Spy) one syllable of falsehood. And, secondly, whereas they never fail
+to give the upper hand in all their discourses to foreign nations, still
+jostling their own into the kennel, he bears an honor to his country
+that will not dissolve in Cephalonia, nor be corrupted with figs and
+melons, which I can assure you is an ordinary obligation; and therefore
+hold it a matter of public concern that we be to no occasion of
+quenching my lord’s affections, nor is there any such great matter
+between us, but, in my opinion, might be easily reconciled, for though
+that which my lord gained by sitting in the house, I steadfastly
+believe, as he can affirm, was got fairly yet dare I not, nor do I
+think, that upon consideration he will promise for other gamesters,
+especially when they were at it so high, as he intimates not only to
+have been in use, but to be like enough to come about again. Wherefore
+say I, let them throw with boxes, for unless we will be below the
+politics of an ordinary, there is no such bar to cogging, it is known
+to his lordship that our game is most at a throw, and that every cast
+of our dice is in our suffrages, nor will he deny that partiality in a
+suffrage is downright cogging.
+
+“If the Venetian boxes be the most sovereign of all remedies against this
+same cogging, is it not a strange thing that they should be thrown first
+into the fire by a fair gamester? Men are naturally subject to all kinds
+of passions; some you have that are not able to withstand the brow of an
+enemy, and others that make nothing of this, are less proof against that
+of a friend. So that if your suffrage be barefaced, I dare say you shall
+not have one fair cast in twenty. But whatever a man’s fortune be at the
+box, he neither knows whom to thank, nor whom to challenge. Wherefore
+(that my lord may have a charitable opinion of the choice affection
+which I confess to have, above all other beauties, for that of
+incomparable Venice) there is in this way of suffrage no less than a
+demonstration that it is the most pure, and the purity of the suffrage
+in a popular government is the health, if not the life of it, seeing
+the soul is not otherwise breathed into the sovereign power than by the
+suffrage of the people. Wherefore no wonder if Postellus be of opinion
+that this use of the ball is the very same with that of the bean in
+Athens, or that others, by the text concerning Eldad and Medad, derive
+it from the Commonwealth of Israel. There is another thing, though not
+so material to us, that my lord will excuse me if I be not willing to
+yield, which is, that Venice subsists only by her situation. It is true
+that a man in time of war may be more secure from his enemies by being
+in a citadel, but not from his diseases; wherefore the first cause, if
+he lives long, is his good constitution, without which his citadel were
+to little purpose, and it is not otherwise with Venice.”
+
+With this speech of the Archon I conclude the proof of the agrarian and
+the ballot, being the fundamental laws of this commonwealth, and come
+now from the centre to the circumferences or orbs, whereof some have
+been already shown; as how the parishes annually pour themselves into
+the hundreds, the hundreds into the tribes, and the tribes into the
+galaxies; the annual galaxy of every tribe consisting of two knights and
+seven deputies, whereof the knights constitute the Senate; the deputies,
+the prerogative tribe, commonly called the people; and the Senate and
+people constitute the sovereign power or Parliament of Oceana. Whereof
+to show what the Parliament is, I must first open the Senate, and then
+the prerogative tribe.
+
+To begin with the Senate, of which (as a man is differently represented
+by a picture drawer and by an anatomist) I shall first discover the
+face or aspect, and then the parts, with the use of them. Every Monday
+morning in the summer at seven, and in the winter at eight, the great
+bell in the clock-house at the Pantheon begins, and continues ringing
+for the space of one hour; in which time the magistrates of the Senate,
+being attended according to their quality, with a respective number of
+the ballotins, doorkeepers, and messengers, and having the ensigns of
+their magistracies borne before them, as the sword before the
+strategus, the mace before the orator, a mace with the seal before
+the commissioners of the chancery, the like with the purse before the
+commissioners of the treasury, and a silver wand, like those in use with
+the universities, before each of the censors, being chancellors of the
+same. These, with the knights, in all 300, assemble in the house or hall
+of the Senate.
+
+The house or hall of the Senate being situated in the Pantheon or palace
+of justice, is a room consisting of a square and a half. In the middle
+of the lower end is the door, at the upper end hangs a rich state
+overshadowing the greater part of a large throne, or half-pace of two
+stages; the first ascended by two steps from the floor, and the second
+about the middle rising two steps higher. Upon this stand two chairs,
+in that on the right hand sits the strategus, in the other the orator
+adorned with scarlet robes, after the fashion that was used by the dukes
+in the aristocracy. At the right end of the upper stage stand three
+chairs, in which the three commissioners of the seal are placed; and at
+the other end sit the three commissioners of the treasury, every one
+in a robe or habit like that of the earls. Of these magistrates of
+this upper stage consists the signory. At either end of the lower stage
+stands a little table, to which the secretaries of the Senate are set
+with their tufted sleeves in the habit of civil lawyers. To the four
+steps, whereby the two stages of the throne are ascended, answer four
+long benches, which successively deriving from every one of the steps,
+continue their respective height, and extend themselves by the side
+walls toward the lower end of the house, every bench being divided by
+numeral characters into the thirty-seven parts or places. Upon the upper
+benches sit the censors in the robes of barons; the first in the middle
+of the right hand bench, and the second directly opposite to him on the
+other side. Upon the rest of the benches sit the knights, who, if they
+be called to the urns, distributing themselves by the figures, come in
+equal files, either by the first seat, which consists of the two upper
+benches on either side; or by the second seat, consisting of the two
+lower benches on either side, beginning also at the upper or at the
+lower ends of the same, according to the lot whereby they are called;
+for which end the benches are open, and ascended at either end with easy
+stairs and large passages.
+
+The rest of the ballot is conformable to that of the tribe; the censors
+of the house sitting at the side urn, and the youngest magistrate of
+the signory at the middle, the urns being placed before the throne, and
+prepared according to the number of the magistrates to be at that time
+chosen by the rules already given to the censors of the tribes. But
+before the benches of the knights on either side stands one being
+shorter, and at the upper end of this sit the two tribunes of the horse.
+At the upper end of the other the two tribunes of the foot in their
+arms, the rest of the benches being covered by the judges of the land in
+their robes. But these magistrates have no suffrage, nor the tribunes,
+though they derive their presence in the Senate from the Romans, nor
+the judges, though they derive theirs from the ancient Senate of Oceana.
+Every Monday this assembly sits of course; at other times, if there be
+occasion, any magistrate of the house, by giving order for the bell, or
+by his lictor or ensign-bearer, calls a senate. And every magistrate
+or knight during his session has the title, place, and honor of a duke,
+earl, baron, or knight respectively And every one that has borne the
+same magistracy by his third session, has his respective place and title
+during the term of his life, which is all the honor conferred by this
+commonwealth, except upon the master of the ceremonies, the master of
+the horse, and the king of the heralds, who are knights by their places.
+And thus you have the face of the Senate, in which there is scarce any
+feature that is not Roman or Venetian; nor do the horns of the crescent
+extend themselves much unlike those of the Sanhedrim, on either hand of
+the prince, and of the father of that Senate. But upon beauty, in which
+every man has his fancy, we will not otherwise philosophize than to
+remember that there is something more than decency in the robe of
+a judge, that would not be well spared from the bench; and that the
+gravest magistrate to whom you can commit the sword of justice, will
+find a quickness in the spurs of honor, which, if they be not laid to
+virtue, will lay themselves to that which may rout a commonwealth.
+
+To come from the face of the Senate to the constitution and use of the
+parts: it is contained in the peculiar orders. And the orders which are
+peculiar to the Senate, are either of election or instruction.
+
+Elections in the Senate are of three sorts: annual, biennial, and
+extraordinary.
+
+Annual elections are performed by the schedule called the tropic; and
+the tropic consists of two parts: the one containing the magistrates,
+and the other the councils to be yearly elected. The schedule or tropic
+of the magistrates is as follows in--
+
+The fifteenth order requiring, “That upon every Monday next ensuing the
+last of March, the knights of the annual galaxies taking their places in
+the Senate, be called the third region of the same; and that the house
+having dismissed the first region, and received the third, proceed to
+election of the magistrates contained in the first part of the tropic,
+by the ensuing schedule:
+
+     The lord strategus,
+     The lord orator,
+     the first censor,
+     The second censor,
+
+     Annual magistrates,
+
+     The third commissioner of the seal,
+     The third commissioner of the Treasury,
+
+     Triennal magistrates.
+
+“The annual magistrates (provided that no one man bears above one of
+those honors during the term of one session) may be elected out of any
+region. But the triennial magistrates may not be elected out of any
+other than the third region only, lest the term of their session expire
+before that of their honor; and (it being unlawful for a man to bear
+magistracy any longer than he is thereto qualified by the election of
+the people) cause a fraction in the rotation of this commonwealth.
+
+“The strategus is first president of the Senate, and general of the
+army, if it be commanded to march; in which case there shall be a second
+strategus elected to be first president of the Senate, and general
+of the second army, and if this also be commanded to march, a third
+strategus shill be chosen, and so on, as long as the commonwealth sends
+forth armies.
+
+“The lord orator is the second and more peculiar president of the Senate
+to whom it appertains to keep the house to orders.
+
+“The censors, whereof the first, by consequence of his election,
+is chancellor of the University of Clio, and the second of that of
+Calliope, are presidents of the Council for Religion and magistrates, to
+whom it belongs to keep the house to the order of the ballot. They are
+also inquisitors into the ways and means of acquiring magistracy, and
+have power to punish indirect proceedings in the same, by removing a
+knight or magistrate out of the house, under appeal to the Senate.
+
+“The commissioners of the seal being three, whereof the third is
+annually chosen out of the third region, are judges in chancery.
+
+“The commissioners of the Treasury being three, whereof the third is
+annually chosen out of the third region, are judges in the exchequer,
+and every magistrate of this schedule has right to propose to the
+Senate.
+
+“But the strategus with the six commissioners is the signory of this
+commonwealth, having right of session and suffrage in every council of
+the Senate, and power either jointly or severally to propose in all or
+any of them.”
+
+I have little in this order to observe and prove but that the strategus
+is the same honor both in name and thing that was borne, among others,
+by Philopemen and Aratus in the Commonwealth of the Achaeans; the like
+having been in use also with the AEtolians. The orator, called otherwise
+the speaker, is, with small alteration, the same that had been of former
+use in this nation. These two, if you will, may be compared to the
+consuls in Rome, or the suffetes in Carthage, for their magistracy is
+scarce different.
+
+The censors derive their power of removing a senator from those of
+Rome, the government of the ballot from those of Venice, and that of
+animadversion upon the ambitious, or canvass for magistracy, from both.
+
+The signory, with the whole right and use of that magistracy to be
+hereafter more fully explained, is almost purely Venetian.
+
+The second part of the tropic is directed by--
+
+The sixteenth order” Whereby the constitution of the councils being
+four; that is to say, the Council of State, the Council of War, the
+Council of Religion, and the Council of Trade, is rendered conformable
+in their revolutions to that of the Senate. As: First, by the annual
+election of five knights out of the first region of the Senate into the
+Council of State, consisting of fifteen knights, five in every region.
+Secondly, by the annual election of three knights out of the third
+region of the Council of State, to be proposed by the provosts, and
+elected by that council, into the Council of War, consisting of nine
+knights, three in every region, not excluded by this election from
+remaining members also of the Council of State. The four tribunes of
+the people have right of session and suffrage in the Council of War.
+Thirdly, by the annual election of four knights out of the third
+region of the Senate into the Council of Religion, consisting of
+twelve knights, four in every region; of this council the censors are
+presidents. Fourthly, by the annual election of four knights out of
+the third region of the Senate into the Council of Trade, consisting of
+twelve knights, four in every region. And each region, in every one of
+these councils thus constituted, shall weekly and interchangeably elect
+one provost whose magistracy shall continue for one week; nor shall he
+be re-elected into the same till every knight of that region in the same
+council has once borne the same magistracy. And the provosts being one
+in every region, three in every council, and twelve in all, beside their
+other capacities, shall assemble and be a council, or rather an Academy
+apart, to certain ends and purposes to be hereafter further explained
+with those of the rest of the councils.”
+
+This order is of no other use than the frame and turn of the councils,
+and yet of no small one; for in motion consists life, and the motion of
+a commonwealth will never be current unless it be circular. Men that,
+like my Lord Epimonus, not enduring the resemblance of this kind of
+government to orbs and spheres, fall on physicking and purging it, do no
+more than is necessary; for if it be not in rotation both as to persons
+and things, it will be very sick. The people of Rome, as to persons, if
+they had not been taken up by the wheel of magistracy, had overturned
+the chariot of the Senate. And those of Lacedaemon, as to things, had
+not been so quiet when the Senate trashed their business, by encroaching
+upon the result, if by the institution of the ephors they had not
+brought it about again. So that if you allow not a commonwealth her
+rotation, in which consists her equality, you reduce her to a party, and
+then it is necessary that you be physicians indeed, or rather farriers;
+for you will have strong patients, and such as must be haltered and
+cast, or yourselves may need bone-setters. Wherefore the councils of
+this commonwealth, both in regard of their elections, and, as will
+be shown, of their affairs, are uniform with the Senate in their
+revolutions; not as whirlpits to swallow, but to bite, and with the
+screws of their rotation to hold and turn a business (like the vice of a
+smith) to the hand of the workman. Without engines of which nature it
+is not possible for the Senate, much less for the people, to be perfect
+artificers in a political capacity. But I shall not hold you longer
+from--
+
+The seventeenth order, “Directing biennial elections, or the
+constitution of the orb of ambassador-in-ordinary, consisting of four
+residences, the revolution whereof is performed in eight years, and
+preserved through the election of one ambassador in two years by the
+ballot of the Senate to repair to the Court of France, and reside there
+for the term of two years; and the term of two years being expired,
+to remove from thence to the Court of Spain, there to continue for the
+space of two years, and thence to remove to the State of Venice, and
+after two years’ residence in that city to conclude with his residence
+at Constantinople for a like term of time, and so to return. A knight
+of the Senate, or a deputy of the prerogative, may not be elected
+ambassador-in-ordinary, because a knight or deputy so chosen must either
+lose his session, which would cause an unevenness in the motion of this
+commonwealth, or accumulate magistracy, which agrees not with equality
+of the same. Nor may any man be elected into this capacity that is above
+five-and-thirty years of age, lest the commonwealth lose the charge of
+his education, by being deprived at his return of the fruit of it, or
+else enjoy it not long through the defects of nature.”
+
+This order is the perspective of the commonwealth, whereby she foresees
+danger; or the traffic, whereby she receives every two years the return
+of a statesman enriched with eight years’ experience from the prime
+marts of negotiation in Europe. And so much for the elections in the
+Senate that are ordinary; such as are extraordinary follow in--
+
+The eighteenth order, “Appointing all elections upon emergent occasions,
+except that of the dictator, to be made by the scrutiny, or that kind
+of election whereby a council comes to be a fifth order of electors.
+For example, if there be occasion of an ambassador-extraordinary, the
+provosts of the Council of State, or any two of them, shall propose to
+the same, till one competitor be chosen by that council; and the council
+having chosen a competitor, shall bring his name into the Senate,
+which in the usual way shall choose four more competitors to the same
+magistracy; and put them, with the competitor of the council, to the
+ballot of the house, by which he of the five that is chosen is said to
+be elected by the scrutiny of the Council of State. A vice-admiral, a
+polemarch, or field officer, shall be elected after the same manner, by
+the scrutiny of the Council of War. A judge or sergeant-at-law, by the
+scrutiny of the commissioners of the seal. A baron, or considerable
+officer of the Exchequer, by the scrutiny of the commissioners of
+the Treasury: Men in magistracy, or out of it, are equally capable of
+election by the scrutiny; but a magistrate or officer elected by the
+scrutiny to a military employment, if he be neither a knight of the
+Senate nor a deputy of the prerogative, ought to have his office
+confirmed by the prerogative, because the militia in a commonwealth,
+where the people are sovereign, is not lawful to be touched injussu
+populi.
+
+The Romans were so curious that, though their consuls were elected in
+the centuriate assemblies, they might not touch the militia, except
+they were confirmed in the parochial assemblies; for a magistrate not
+receiving his power from the people, takes it from them, and to take
+away their power is to take away their liberty. As to the election by
+the scrutiny, it is easily perceived to be Venetian, there being no such
+way to take in the knowledge; which in all reason must be best in every
+council of such men as are most fit for their turns, and yet to keep
+them from the bias of particular affection or interest under that
+pretence; for the cause why the great Council in Venice scarce ever
+elects any other than the name that is brought in by the scrutiny, is
+very probable to be, that they may... This election is the last of those
+appertaining to the Senate. The councils being chosen by the orders
+already shown, it remains that we come to those whereby they are
+instructed and the orders of instruction to the councils are two: the
+first for the matter whereupon they are to proceed, and the second
+for the manner of their proceeding. The matter of the councils is
+distributed to them by--
+
+The nineteenth order “Distributing to every council such businesses
+as are properly to belong to their cognizance, whereof some they shall
+receive and determine, and others they shall receive, prepare, and
+introduce into the house: as, first,
+
+“The Council of State is to receive all addresses, intelligences, and
+letters of negotiation; to give audience to ambassadors sent to, and to
+draw up instructions for such as shall be sent by, this commonwealth;
+to receive propositions from, and hold intelligence with, the provincial
+councils; to consider upon all laws to be enacted, amended, or
+repealed, and upon all levies of men or money, war or peace, leagues
+or associations to be made by this commonwealth, so far forth as is
+conducible to the orderly preparation of the same to be introduced by
+them into the Senate; provided, that all such affairs, as otherwise
+appertaining to the Council of State, are, for the good of the
+commonwealth, to be carried with greater secrecy, be managed by the
+Council of War, with power to receive and send forth agents, spies,
+emissaries, intelligencers, frigots, and to manage affairs of that
+nature, if it be necessary without communication to the Senate, till
+such time as it may be had without detriment to the business. But they
+shall have no power to engage the commonwealth in a war without the
+consent of the Senate and the people. It appertains also to this
+council to take charge of the fleet as admiral, and of all storehouses,
+armories, arsenals, and magazines appertaining to this commonwealth.
+They shall keep a diligent record of the military expeditions from time
+to time reported by him that was strategus or general, or one of the
+polemarchs in that action; or at least so far as the experience of such
+commanders may tend to the improvement of the military discipline, which
+they shall digest and introduce into the Senate; and if the Senate shall
+thereupon frame any article, they shall see that it be observed, in the
+musters or education of the youth. And whereas the Council of War is the
+sentinel or scout of this commonwealth, if any person or persons shall
+go about to introduce debate into any popular assembly of the same, or
+otherwise to alter the present government, or strike at the root of it,
+they shall apprehend, or cause to be apprehended, seized, imprisoned,
+and examine, arraign, acquit, or condemn, and cause to be executed any
+such person or persons, by their proper power and authority and without
+appeal.
+
+“The Council of Religion, as the arbiter of this commonwealth in cases of
+conscience more peculiarly appertaining to religion, Christian charity,
+and a pious life, shall have the care of the national religion, and
+the protection of the liberty of conscience with the cognizance of
+all causes relating to either of them. And first as to the national
+religion: they shall cause all places or preferments of the best revenue
+in either of the universities to be conferred upon no other than such of
+the most learned and pious men as have dedicated themselves to the
+study of theology. They shall also take a special care that, by such
+augmentations as be or shall hereafter be appointed by the Senate, every
+benefice in this nation be improved at least to the value of £100 a
+year. And to the end that there be no interest at all, whereby the
+divines or teachers of the national religion may be corrupted, or
+corrupt religion, they shall be capable of no other kind of employment
+or preferment in this commonwealth. And whereas a directory for the
+administration of the national religion is to be prepared by this
+council, they shall in this and other debates of this nature proceed in
+manner following: a question arising in matter of religion shall be put
+and stated by the council in writing, which writing the censors shall
+send by their beadles (being proctors chosen to attend them) each to the
+university whereof he is chancellor, and the vice-chancellor of the same
+receiving the writing, shall call a convocation of all the divines of
+that university being above forty years of age. And the universities,
+upon a point so proposed, shall have no manner of intelligence or
+correspondence one with another, till their debates be ended, and they
+have made return of their answers to the Council of Religion by two
+or three of their own members, that they may clear their sense, if any
+doubt should arise, to the council, which done, they shall return, and
+the council, having received such information, shall proceed according
+to their own judgments, in the preparation of the whole matter for the
+Senate: that so the interest of the learned being removed, there may be
+a right application of reason to Scripture, which is the foundation of
+the national religion.
+
+“Secondly, this council, as to the protection of the liberty of
+conscience, shall suffer no coercive power in the matter of religion to
+be exercised in this nation; the teachers of the natural religion being
+no other than such as voluntarily undertake that calling, and their
+auditors or hearers no other than are also voluntary. Nor shall any
+gathered congregation be molested or interrupted in their way of worship
+(being neither Jewish nor idolatrous), but vigilantly and vigorously
+protected and defended in the enjoyment, practice, and profession of
+the same. And if there be officers or auditors appointed by any
+such congregation for the introduction of causes into the Council of
+Religion, all such causes so introduced shall be received, heard, and
+determined by the same, with recourse had, if need be, to the Senate.
+
+“Thirdly, every petition addressed to the Senate, except that of a
+tribe, shall be received, examined, and debated by this council; and
+such only as they, upon such examination and debate had, shall think
+fit, may be introduced into the Senate.
+
+“The Council of Trade being the vena porta of this nation, shall
+hereafter receive instructions more at large. For the present, their
+experience, attaining to a right understanding of those trades
+and mysteries that feed the veins of this commonwealth, and a true
+distinction of them from those that suck or exhaust the same, they shall
+acquaint the Senate with the conveniences and inconveniences, to the end
+that encouragement may be applied to the one, and remedy to the other.
+
+“The Academy of the provosts, being the affability of the commonwealth,
+shall assemble every day toward the evening in a fair room, having
+certain withdrawing-rooms thereto belonging; and all sorts of company
+that will repair thither for conversation or discourse, so it be upon
+matters of government, news, or intelligence, or to propose anything to
+the councils, shall be freely and affably received in the outer chamber,
+and heard in the way of civil conversation, which is to be managed
+without any other awe or ceremony than is thereto usually appertaining,
+to the end that every man may be free, and that what is proposed by
+one, may be argued or discoursed by the rest, except the matter be of
+secrecy; in which case the provosts, or some of them, shall take such as
+desire audience into one of the withdrawing-rooms. And the provosts
+are to give their minds that this academy be so governed, adorned, and
+preserved, as may be most attractive to men of parts and good affections
+to the commonwealth, for the excellency of the conversation.
+
+“Furthermore, if any man, not being able or willing to come in person,
+has any advice to give which he judges may be for the good of the
+commonwealth, he may write his mind to the Academy of the provosts, in
+a letter signed or not signed, which letter shall be left with the
+doorkeeper of the Academy. Nor shall any person delivering such a letter
+be seized, molested, or detained, though it should prove to be a libel.
+But the letters so delivered shall be presented to the provosts; and in
+case they be so many that they cannot well be perused by the provosts
+themselves, they shall distribute them as they please to be read by the
+gentlemen of the Academy, who, finding anything in them material,
+will find matter of discourse; or if they happen upon a business that
+requires privacy, return it with a note upon it to a provost. And the
+provosts by the secretaries attending shall cause such notes out of
+discourses or letters to be taken as they please, to the end that they
+may propose, as occasion serves, what any two of them shall think fit
+out of their notes so taken to their respective councils; to the end
+that not only the ear of the commonwealth be open to all, but that men
+of such education being in her eve, she may upon emergent elections or
+occasions be always provided of her choice of fit persons.
+
+“Every council being adorned with a state for the signory, shall
+be attended by two secretaries, two doorkeepers, and two
+messengers-in-ordinary, and have power to command more upon emergencies,
+as occasion requires. And the Academy shall be attended with two
+secretaries, two messengers, and two doorkeepers; this with the other
+councils being provided with their further conveniences at the charge of
+the State.
+
+“But whereas it is incident to commonwealths, upon emergencies requiring
+extraordinary speed or secrecy, either through their natural delays or
+unnatural haste, to incur equal danger, while holding to the slow pace
+of their orders, they come not in time to defend themselves from some
+sudden blow; or breaking them for the greater speed, they but haste to
+their own destruction; if the Senate shall at any time make election
+of nine knights-extraordinary, to be added to the Council of War, as a
+juncta for the term of three months, the Council of War with the juncta
+so added, is for the term of the same Dictator of Oceana, having power
+to levy men and money, to make war and peace, as also to enact laws,
+which shall be good for the space of one year (if they be not sooner
+repealed by the Senate and the people) and for no longer time,
+except they be confirmed by the Senate and the people. And the whole
+administration of the commonwealth for the term of the said three months
+shall be in the Dictator, provided that the Dictator shall have no power
+to do anything that tends not to his proper end and institution, but all
+to the preservation of the commonwealth as it is established, and for
+the sudden restitution of the same to the natural channel and common
+course of government. And all acts, orders, decrees, or laws of the
+Council of War with the junota being thus created, shall be signed,
+
+                                “DICTATOR OCEANAE.”
+
+This order of instructions to the councils being (as in a matter of that
+nature is requisite) very large, I have used my best skill to abbreviate
+it in such manner as might show no more of it than is necessary to the
+understanding of the whole, though as to the parts, or further duties
+of the councils, I have omitted many things of singular use in a
+commonwealth. But it was discoursed at the council by the Archon in this
+manner:
+
+“MY LORDS, THE LEGISLATORS:
+
+“Your councils, except the Dictator only, are proper and native springs
+and sources, you see, which (hanging a few sticks and straws, that, as
+less considerable, would otherwise be more troublesome, upon the banks
+of their peculiar channels) derive the full stream of business into the
+Senate, so pure, and so far from the possibility of being troubled
+or stained (as will Undeniably appear by the course contained in the
+ensuing order) with any kind of private interest or partiality, that
+it shall never be possible for any assembly hearkening to the advice or
+information of this or that worthy member (either instructed upon his
+pillow, or while he was making himself ready, or by the petition or
+ticket which he received at the door) to have half the security in
+his faith, or advantage by his wisdom; such a Senate or council being,
+through the uncertainty of the winds, like a wave of the sea. Nor
+shall it otherwise mend the matter by flowing up into dry ditches, or
+referring businesses to be better examined by committees, than to go
+further about with it to less purpose; if it does not ebb back again
+with the more mud in it. For in a case referred to an occasional
+committee, of which any member that is desirous may get himself named,
+and to which nobody will come but either for the sake of his friend or
+his own interest; it fares little better as to the information of the
+Senate, than if it had been referred to the parties. Wherefore the
+Athenians being distributed into four tribes, out of which by equal
+numbers they annually chose 400 men, called the Senate of the Bean,
+because the ballot at their election was performed by the use of beans,
+divided them by fifties into eight parts. And every fifty in their turn,
+for one-eighth part of the year, was a council apart called the Prytans.
+
+“The Prytans in their distinct council receiving all comers, and
+giving ear to every man that had anything to propose concerning the
+commonwealth, had power to debate and prepare all the businesses that
+were to be introduced into the Senate. The Achaeans had ten selected
+magistrates called the demiurgs, constituting a council apart called the
+synarchy, which, with the strategus, prepared all the business that was
+introduced into their Senate. But both the Senate of the Athenians, and
+that of the Achaeans, would have wondered if a man had told them that
+they were to receive all comers and discourses, to the end that they
+might refer them afterward to the Prytans or the synarchy, much less
+to an occasional committee, exposed to the catch that catch may of the
+parties interested. And yet Venice in this, as in most of her orders,
+excels them all by the constitution of her councils, that of the
+College, and the other of the Dieci, or Council of Ten. The course of
+the College is exactly described in the ensuing order: and for that
+of the Dieci, it so little differs from what it has bestowed upon Our
+Dictator, that I need not make any particular description of it. But to
+dictatorian power in general, and the use of it (because it must needs
+be of difficult digestion to such as, puking still at ancient prudence,
+show themselves to be in the nursery of mother-wit); it is no less than
+necessary to say something. And, first, in a commonwealth that is not
+wrought up, or perfected, this power will be of very frequent, if not
+continual, use; wherefore it is said more than once, upon defects of the
+government, in the book of Judges, ‘that in those days there was no king
+in Israel.’ Nor has the translator, though for ‘no king, he should have
+said ‘no judge,’ abused you so much; seeing that the Dictator (and such
+was the Judge of Israel) or the dictatorian power being in a single
+person, so little differs from monarchy, which followed in that, that
+from the same cause there has been no other effect in any commonwealth:
+as in Rome was manifest by Sylla and Caesar, who to make themselves
+absolute or sovereign, had no more to do than to prolong their
+magistracy, for the dictatorian power was reputed divine, and therefore
+irresistible.
+
+“Nevertheless, so it is, that without this power, which is so dangerous,
+and subject to introduce monarchy, a commonwealth cannot be safe from
+falling into the like dissolution; unless you have an expedient in
+this case of your own, and bound up by your providence from recoiling.
+Expedients in some cases you must not only have, but be beholden for
+them to such whom you must trust at a pinch, when you have not leisure
+to stand with them for security; which will be a thousand times more
+dangerous. And there can never be a commonwealth otherwise than by the
+order in debate wrought up to that perfection; but this necessity must
+sometimes happen in regard of her natural slowness and openness, and the
+suddenness of assaults that may be made upon her, as also the secrecy
+which in some cases may be of absolute necessity to her affairs. Whence
+Machiavel concludes it positively, that a commonwealth unprovided of
+such a refuge, must fall to ruin; for her course is either broken by the
+blow in one of those cases, or by herself, while it startles her out of
+her orders. And indeed a commonwealth is like a greyhound, which, having
+once coasted, will never after run fair, but grow slothful; and when it
+comes to make a common practice of taking nearer ways than its orders,
+it is dissolved: for the being of a commonwealth consists in its orders.
+Wherefore at this list you will be exposed to danger, if you have not
+provided beforehand for the safety of your resort in the like cases: nor
+is it sufficient that your resort be safe, unless it be as secret and
+quick; for if it be slow or open, your former inconveniences are not
+remedied.
+
+“Now for our imitation in this part, there is nothing in experience like
+that of the Council of Ten in Venice; the benefit whereof would be too
+long to be shown in the whole piece, and therefore I shall take but a
+pattern out of Janotti. In the war, says he, which the Venetians had
+with Florence in Casentin, the Florentines, finding a necessity in their
+affairs far from any other inclination in themselves to ask their peace,
+sent ambassadors about it to Venice, where they were no sooner heard,
+than the bargain was struck up by the Council of Ten: and everybody
+admiring (seeing this commonwealth stood upon the higher ground) what
+should be the reason of such haste, the council upon the return of the
+ambassadors imparted letters to the Senate, whereby it appeared that the
+Turks had newly launched a formidable fleet against their State, which,
+had it been understood by the Florentines, it was well enough known they
+would have made no peace. Wherefore the service of the Ten was highly
+applauded by the Senate, and celebrated by the Venetians. Whereby may
+appear not only in part what use there is of dictatorian power in that
+government, but that it is assumed at the discretion of that Council;
+whereas in this of Oceana it is not otherwise intrusted than when the
+Senate, in the election of nine knights-extraordinary, gives at once
+the commission, and takes security in a balance, added to the Council
+of War, though securer before by the tribunes of the people than that of
+Venice, which yet never incurred jealousy; for if the younger nobility
+have been often girding at it, that happened not so much through the
+apprehension of danger in it to the commonwealth, as through the awe of
+it upon themselves. Wherefore the graver have doubtlessly shown their
+prudence in the law whereby the magistracy of these councillors being to
+last till’ their successors be created, the council is established.”
+
+The instructions of the councils for their matter being shown, it
+remains that I show the instructions for the manner of their proceeding,
+as they follow in--
+
+The twentieth order, “Containing the method of debates to be observed
+by the magistrates and the councils successively in order to a decree of
+the Senate.
+
+“The magistrates of the signory, as councillors of this commonwealth,
+shall take into their consideration all matters of state or of
+government; and, having right to propose in any council, may, any one or
+more of them, propose what business he or they please in that council
+to which it most properly belongs. And, that the councils may be held to
+their duty, the said magistrates are superintendents and inspectors of
+the same, with right to propose to the Senate.
+
+“The censors have equal power with these magistrates, but in relation to
+the Council of Religion only.
+
+“Any two of the three provosts in every council may propose to, and are
+the more peculiar proposers of, the same council; to the end that there
+be not only an inspection and superintendency of business in general,
+but that every work be also committed to a peculiar hand.
+
+“Any one or more of the magistrates, or any two of the provosts
+respectively having proposed, the council shall debate the business so
+proposed, to which they of the third region that are willing shall speak
+first in their order; they of the second, next; and they of the first,
+last; and the opinions of those that proposed or spoke, as they shall
+be thought the most considerable by the council, shall be taken by the
+secretary of the same in writing, and each of them signed with the name
+of the author.
+
+“The opinions being thus prepared, any magistrate of the signory, the
+censors, or any two of the provosts of that council, upon this occasion
+may assemble the Senate.
+
+“The Senate being assembled, the opinions (for example, if they be four)
+shall be read in their order, that is, according to the order or dignity
+of the magistrates or councillors by which they were signed. And being
+read, if any of the council introducing them will speak, they, as best
+acquainted with the business, shall have precedence; and after them the
+senators shall speak according to their regions, beginning by the third
+first, and so continuing till every man that will has spoken; and when
+the opinions have been sufficiently debated, they shall be put all
+together to the ballot after this manner:
+
+“Four secretaries, carrying each of them one of the opinions in one
+hand, with a white box in the other, and each following the other,
+according to the order of the opinions, shall present his box, naming
+the author of his opinion to every senator; and one secretary or
+ballotin with a green box shall follow the four white ones; and one
+secretary or ballotin with a red box shall follow the green one; and
+every senator shall put one ball into some one of these six boxes. The
+suffrage being gathered and opened before the signory, if the red box or
+non-sincere had above half the suffrages, the opinions shall be all cast
+out, for the major part of the house is not clear in the business. If
+no one of the four opinions had above half the suffrages in the
+affirmative, that which had fewest shall be cast out, and the other
+three shall be balloted again. If no one of the three had above half,
+that which had fewest shall be cast out, and the other two shall ballot
+again. If neither of the two had above half, that which had fewest shall
+be cast out, and the remaining opinion shall be balloted again. And if
+the remaining opinion has not above half, it shall also be cast out.
+But the first of the opinions that arrives at most above half in the
+affirmative, is the decree of the Senate. The opinions being all of them
+cast out by the non-sincere, may be reviewed, if occasion permits, by
+the council, and brought in again. If they be cast out by the negative,
+the case being of advice only; the house approves not, and there is an
+end of it: the case being necessary, and admitting delay, the council is
+to think again upon the business, and to bring in new opinions; but the
+case being necessary, and not admitting delay, the Senate immediately
+electing the juncta shall create the Dictator. ‘And let the Dictator,’
+as the Roman saying is, ‘take care that the commonwealth receives no
+harm.’”
+
+This in case the debate concludes not in a decree. But if a decree be
+passed, it is either in matter of state or government according to law
+enacted already, and then it is good without going any further, or it
+is in matter of law to be enacted, repealed, or amended; and then the
+decree of the Senate, especially if it be for a war, or for a levy of
+men or money, is invalid, without the result of the commonwealth, which
+is in the prerogative tribe, or representative of the people.
+
+“The Senate having prepared a decree to be proposed to the people, shall
+appoint their proposers; and no other may propose for the Senate to
+the people but the magistrates of the house; that is to say, the
+three commissioners of the seal, or any two of them; the three of the
+Treasury, or any two of them; or the two censors.
+
+“The Senate having appointed their proposers, shall require of the
+tribunes a muster of the people at a set time and place: and the
+tribunes or any two of them having mustered the people accordingly, the
+proposers shall propose the sense or decree of the Senate by clauses to
+the people. And that which is proposed by the authority of the Senate,
+and resolved by the command of the people, is the law of Oceana.” To
+this order, implicitly containing the sum very near of the whole civil
+part of the commonwealth, my Lord Archon spoke thus in council:
+
+ “MY DEAR LORDS:
+
+“There is a saying, that a man must cut his coat according to his cloth.
+When I consider what God has allowed or furnished to our present work, I
+am amazed. You would have a popular government; he has weighed it to you
+in the present balance, as I may say, to a drachm; you have no more
+to do but to fix it. For the superstructures of such a government they
+require a good aristocracy: and you have, or have had a nobility or
+gentry the best studied, and the best writers, at least next that
+of Italy, in the whole world; nor have they been inferior, when so
+exercised, in the leading of armies. But the people are the main body
+of a commonwealth; show me from the treasuries of the snow (as it is in
+Job) to the burning zone a people whose shoulder so universally and so
+exactly fits the corselet. Nevertheless, it were convenient to be well
+provided with auxiliaries. There is Marpesia, through her fruitfulness,
+inexhaustible of men, and men through her barrenness not only enured to
+hardship, but in your arms. It may be said that Venice, excepting only
+that she takes not in the people, is the most incomparable situation
+of a commonwealth. You are Venice, taking in your people and your
+auxiliaries too. My lords, the children of Israel were makers of brick
+before they were builders of a commonwealth; but our brick is made,
+our mortar tempered, the cedars of Lebanon are hewed and squared to our
+hands. Has this been the work of man? Or is it in man to withstand this
+work? ‘Shall he that contends with the Almighty instruct him? He that
+reproves God, let him answer it.’ For our parts, everything is so laid
+that when we come to have use of it, it is the next at hand; and unless
+we can conceive that God and nature do anything in vain, there is no
+more for us to do but to despatch. The piece which we have reached to us
+in the foregoing orders, is the aristocracy. Athens, as has been shown,
+was plainly lost through the want of a good aristocracy.
+
+“But the sufficiency of an aristocracy goes demonstrably upon the hand
+of the nobility or gentry; for that the politics can be mastered
+without study, or that the people can have leisure to study, is a vain
+imagination; and what kind of aristocracy divines and lawyers would
+make, let their incurable running upon their own narrow bias and their
+perpetual invectives against Machiavel (though in some places justly
+reprovable, yet the only politician, and incomparable patron of the
+people) serve for instruction. I will stand no more to the judgment
+of lawyers and divines in this work, than to that of so many other
+tradesmen; but if this model chances to wander abroad, I recommend it
+to the Roman speculativi (the most complete gentlemen of this age)
+for their censure; or with my Lord Epimonus his leave, send 300 or 400
+copies to your agent at Venice to be presented to the magistrates there;
+and when they have considered them, to be proposed to the debate of the
+Senate, the most competent judges under heaven, who, though they have
+great affairs, will not refuse to return you the oracle of their ballot.
+The councillors of princes I will not trust; they are but journeymen.
+The wisdom of these later times in princes’ affairs (says Verulamius) is
+rather fine deliveries and shiftings of dangers when they be near, than
+solid and grounded courses to keep them off. Their councillors do not
+derive their proceedings from any sound root of government that may
+contain the demonstration, and assure the success of them, but are
+expedient-mongers, givers of themselves to help a lame dog over a stile;
+else how comes it to pass that the fame of Cardinal Richelieu has been
+like thunder, whereof we hear the noise, but can make no demonstration
+of the reason? But to return: if neither the people, nor divines and
+lawyers, can be the aristocracy of a nation, there remains only
+the nobility; in which style, to avoid further repetition, I shall
+understand the gentry also, as the French do by the word noblesse.
+
+“Now to treat of the nobility in such sort as may be less obnoxious to
+mistake, it will be convenient, and answerable to the present occasion,
+that I divide my discourse into four parts:
+
+“The first, treating of nobility, and the kinds of it;
+
+“The second, of their capacity of the Senate;
+
+“The third, of the divers kinds of senates;
+
+“The fourth, of the Senate, according to the foregoing orders.
+
+“Nobility may be defined divers ways; for it is either ancient riches,
+or ancient virtue, or a title conferred by a prince or a commonwealth.
+
+“Nobility of the first kind may be subdivided into two others, such as
+hold an overbalance in dominion or property to the whole people, or such
+as hold not an overbalance, in the former case, a nobility (such was
+the Gothic, of which sufficient has been spoken) is incompatible with
+popular government; for to popular government it is essential that power
+should be in the people, but the overbalance of a nobility in dominion
+draws the power to themselves. Wherefore in this sense it is that
+Machiavel is to be understood, where he says, that these are pernicious
+in a commonwealth; and of France, Spain, and Italy, that they are
+nations which for this cause are the corruption of the world: for
+otherwise nobility may, according to his definition (which is, ‘that
+they are such as live upon their own revenues in plenty, without
+engagement either to the tilling of their lands, or other work for their
+livelihood ‘), hold an underbalance to the people; in which case
+they are not only safe, but necessary to the natural mixture of a
+well-ordered commonwealth.
+
+“For how else can you have a commonwealth that is not altogether
+mechanic? or what comparison is there of such commonwealths as are, or
+come nearest to mechanic--for example, Athens, Switzerland, Holland,
+to Lacedaemon, Rome, and Venice, plumed with their aristocracies? Your
+mechanics, till they have first feathered their nests, like the fowls of
+the air whose whole employment is to seek their food, are so busied in
+their private concernments that they have neither leisure to study
+the public, nor are safely to be trusted with it, because a man is not
+faithfully embarked in this kind of ship, if he has no share in the
+freight. But if his share be such as gives him leisure by his private
+advantage to reflect upon that of the public, what other name is there
+for this sort of men, being a leur aise, but (as Machiavel you see calls
+them) nobility? Especially when their families come to be such as are
+noted for their services done to the commonwealth, and so take into
+their ancient riches ancient virtue, which is the second definition of
+nobility, but such a one as is scarce possible in nature without the
+former. ‘For as the baggage,’ says Verulamius, ‘is to an army, so are
+riches to virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, though they be
+impediments, such as not only hinder the march, but sometimes through
+the care of them lose or disturb the victory.’ Of this latter sort is
+the nobility of Oceana; the best of all others because they, having no
+stamp whence to derive their price, can have it no otherwise than by
+their intrinsic value. The third definition of nobility, is a title,
+honor, or distinction from the people, conferred or allowed by the
+prince or the commonwealth. And this may be two ways, either without
+any stamp or privilege, as in Oceana; or with such privileges as are
+inconsiderable, as in Athens after the battle of Plataea, whence the
+nobility had no right, as such, but to religious offices, or inspection
+of the public games, to which they were also to be elected by the
+people; or with privileges, and those considerable ones, as the nobility
+in Athens before the battle of Plataea, and the patricians in Rome
+each of which had right, or claimed it, to the Senate and all the
+magistracies; wherein for some time they only by their stamp were
+current.
+
+“But to begin higher, and to speak more at large of nobility in their
+several capacities of the Senate. The phylarchs, or princes of the
+tribes of Israel, were the most renowned, or, as the Latin, the most
+noble of the congregation, whereof by hereditary right they had the
+leading and judging. The patriarchs, or princes of families, according
+as they declared their pedigrees, had the like right as to their
+families; but neither in these nor the former was there any hereditary
+right to the Sanhedrim: though there be little question but the wise men
+and understanding, and known among their tribes, which the people took
+or elected into those or other magistracies, and whom Moses made rulers
+over them, must have been of these, seeing they could not choose but be
+the most known among the tribes, and were likeliest by the advantages of
+education to be the most wise and understanding.
+
+“Solon having found the Athenians neither locally nor genealogically,
+but by their different ways of life, divided into four tribes--that
+is, into the soldiery, the tradesmen, the husbandmen, and the
+goatherds--instituted a new distribution of them, according to the sense
+or valuation of their estates, into four classes: the first, second, and
+third consisting of such as were proprietors in land, distinguished by
+the rate of their freeholds, with that stamp upon them, which making
+them capable of adding honor to their riches, that is to say, of the
+Senate, and all the magistracies, excluded the fourth, being the body
+of the people, and far greater in number than the former three, from all
+other right, as to those capacities, except the election of these, who
+by this means became an hereditary aristocracy or senatorian order
+of nobility. This was that course which came afterward to be the
+destruction of Rome, and had now ruined Athens. The nobility, according
+to the inevitable nature of such a one, having laid the plot how to
+divest the people of the result, and so to draw the whole power of the
+commonwealth to themselves; which in all likelihood they had done, if
+the people, coming by mere chance to be victorious in the battle of
+Plataea, and famous for defending Greece against the Persians, had not
+returned with such courage as irresistibly broke the classes, to which
+of old they had borne a white tooth, brought the nobility to equal
+terms, and the Senate with the magistracies to be common to both; the
+magistracies by suffrage, and the Senate (which was the mischief of
+it, as I shall show anon in that constitution) by lot only.” The
+Lacedaemonians were in the manner, and for the same cause with the
+Venetians at this day, no other than a nobility even according to the
+definition given of nobility by Machiavel; for they neither exercised
+any trade, nor labored their lands or lots, which was done by their
+helots: wherefore some nobility may be far from pernicious in a
+commonwealth by Machiavel’s own testimony, who is an admirer of this,
+though the servants thereof were more in number than the citizens. To
+these servants I hold the answer of Lycurgus--when he bade him who asked
+why he did not admit the people to the government of his commonwealth,
+to go home and admit his servants to the government of his family-to
+relate: for neither were the Lacedaemonians servants, nor, further,
+capable of the government, unless, whereas the congregation had the
+result, he should have given them the debate also; every one of
+these that attained to sixty years of age, and the major vote of the
+congregation, being equally capable of the Senate.
+
+“The nobility of Rome, and their capacity of the Senate, I have already
+described by that of Athens before the battle of Plataea, saving
+only that the Athenian was never eligible into the Senate without the
+suffrage of the people till the introduction of the lot, but the Roman
+nobility ever: for the patricians were elected into the Senate by the
+kings; by the consuls, or the censors, or if a plebeian happened to
+be conscribed, he and his posterity became patricians. Nor, though
+the people had many disputes with the nobility, did this ever come in
+controversy, which, if there had been nothing else, might in my judgment
+have been enough to overturn that commonwealth.
+
+“The Venetian nobility, but that they are richer, and not military,
+resemble at all other points the Lacedaemonian, as I have already shown.
+These Machiavel excepts from his rule, by saying that their estates are
+rather personal than real, or of any great revenue in land, which comes
+to our account, and shows that a nobility or party of the nobility, not
+overbalancing in dominion, is not dangerous, but of necessary use in
+every commonwealth, provided it be rightly ordered; for if it be so
+ordered as was that of Rome, though they do not overbalance at the
+beginning, as they did not there, it will not be long ere they do, as
+is clear both in reason and experience toward the latter end. That the
+nobility only be capable of the Senate is there only not dangerous,
+where there be no other citizens, as in this government and that of
+Lacedaemon.
+
+“The nobility of Holland and Switzerland, though but few, have
+privileges not only distinct from the people, but so great that in some
+sovereignties they have a negative voice; an example which I am far from
+commending, being such as (if those governments were not cantonized,
+divided, and subdivided into many petty sovereignties that balance one
+another, and in which the nobility, except they had a prince at the head
+of them, can never join to make work) would be the most dangerous
+that ever was, but the Gothic, of which it favors. For in ancient
+commonwealths you shall never find a nobility to have had a negative
+but by the poll, which, the people being far more in number, came to
+nothing; whereas these have it, be they never so few by their stamp or
+order.
+
+“Ours of Oceana have nothing else but their education and their leisure
+for the public, furnished by their ease and competent riches: and their
+intrinsic value, which, according as it comes to hold weight in the
+judgment or suffrage of the people, is their only way to honor and
+preferment. Wherefore I would have your lordships to look upon your
+children as such, who, if they come to shake off some part of their
+baggage, shall make the more quick and glorious march; for it was
+nothing else but the baggage, sordidly plundered by the nobility of
+Rome, that lost the victory of the whole world in the midst of her
+triumph.
+
+“Having followed the nobility thus close, they bring us, according to
+their natural course and divers kinds, to the divers constitutions of
+the Senate.
+
+“That of Israel (as was shown by my right noble Lord Phosphorus de Auge,
+in the opening of the commonwealth) consisted of seventy elders, elected
+at first by the people. But whereas they were for life, they ever after
+(though without any divine precept for it) substituted their successors
+by ordination, which ceremony was most usually performed by imposition
+of hands; and by this means a commonwealth of as popular institution
+as can be found became, as it is accounted by Josephus, aristocratical.
+From this ordination derives that which was introduced by the Apostles
+into the Christian Church; for which cause I think it is that
+the Presbyterians would have the government of the Church to be
+aristocratical, though the Apostles, to the end, as I conceive, that
+they might give no occasion to such a mistake, but show that they
+intended the government of the Church to be popular, ordained elders,
+as has been shown, by the holding up of hands (or free suffrage of the
+people) in every congregation or ecclesia: for that is the word in the
+original, being borrowed from the civil congregations of the people in
+Athens and Lacedaemon, which were so called; and the word for holding up
+of hands in the text is also the very same, which signified the suffrage
+of the people in Athens, chirotonante; for the suffrage of the
+Athenians was given per chirotonian, says Emmius.
+
+“The Council of the Bean (as was shown by my Lord Navarchus de Paralo in
+his full discourse), being the proposing Senate of Athens (for that
+of the Areopagites was a judicatory), consisted of 400, some say 500
+senators, elected annually, all at once, and by a mere lot without
+suffrage. Wherefore though the Senate, to correct the temerity of the
+lot, had power to cast out such as they should judge unworthy of that
+honor, this related to manners only, and was not sufficient to repair
+the commonwealth, which by such means became impotent; and forasmuch
+as her Senate consisted not of the natural aristocracy, which in a
+commonwealth is the only spur and rein of the people, it was cast
+headlong by the rashness of her demagogues or grandees into ruin; while
+her Senate, like the Roman tribunes (who almost always, instead of
+governing, were rather governed by the multitude), proposed not to the
+result only, but to the debate also of the people, who were therefore
+called to the pulpits, where some vomited, and others drank, poison.
+
+“The Senate of Lacedaemon, most truly discovered by my Lord Laco de
+Scytale, consisted but of thirty for life, whereof the two kings, having
+but single votes, were hereditary, the rest elected by the free suffrage
+of the people, but out of such as were sixty years of age. These had
+the whole debate of the commonwealth in themselves, and proposed to the
+result only of the people. And now the riddle which I have heretofore
+found troublesome to unfold, is out; that is to say, why Athens and
+Lacedaemon, consisting each of the Senate and the people, the one
+should be held a democracy, and the other an aristocracy, or laudable
+oligarchy, as it is termed by Isocrates; for that word is not, wherever
+you meet it, to be branded, Seeing it is used also by Aristotle,
+Plutarch, and others, sometimes in a good sense. The main difference was
+that the people in this had the result only, and in that the debate and
+result, too. But for my part, where the people have the election of
+the Senate, not bound to a distinct order, and the result, which is the
+sovereign power, I hold them to have that share in the government (the
+Senate being not for life) whereof, with the safety of the commonwealth,
+they are capable in nature, and such a government, for that cause, to
+be democracy; though I do not deny but in Lacedaemon, the paucity of
+the senators considered, it might be called oligarchy, in comparison of
+Athens; or, if we look on their continuance for life, though they had
+been more, aristocracy.
+
+“The Senate of Rome (whose fame has been heard to thunder in the
+eloquence of my Lord Dolabella d’Enyo) consisting of 300, was, in regard
+of the number, less oligarchical than that of Lacedaemon; but more in
+regard of the patricians, who, having an hereditary capacity of
+the same, were not elected to that honor by the people; but, being
+conscribed by the censors, enjoyed it for life. Wherefore these, if they
+had their wills, would have resolved as well as debated; which set the
+people at such variance with them as dissolved the commonwealth; whereas
+if the people had enjoyed the result, that about the agrarian, as well
+as all other strife, must of necessity have ceased.
+
+“The Senates of Switzerland and Holland (as I have learnt of my Lords
+Alpester and Glaucus), being bound up (like the sheaf of arrows which
+the latter gives) by leagues, lie like those in their quivers; but
+arrows, when they come to be drawn, fly from this way and from that; and
+I am contented that these concerned us not.
+
+“That of Venice (by the faithful testimony of my most excellent Lord
+Linceus de Stella) has obliged a world, sufficiently punished by its
+own blindness and ingratitude, to repent and be wiser: for whereas
+a commonwealth in which there is no senate, or where the senate is
+corrupt, cannot stand, the great Council of Venice, like the statue of
+Nilus, leans upon an urn or waterpot, which pours forth the Senate in
+so pure and perpetual a stream, as being unable to stagnate, is forever
+incapable of corruption. The fuller description of this Senate is
+contained in that of Oceana; and that of Oceana in the foregoing orders.
+To every one of which, because something has been already said, I shall
+not speak in particular. But in general, your Senate, and the other
+assembly, or the prerogative, as I shall show in due place, are
+perpetual, not as lakes or puddles, but as the rivers of Eden; and are
+beds made, as you have seen, to receive the whole people, by a due and
+faithful vicissitude, into their current. They are not, as in the late
+way, alternate. Alternate life in government is the alternate death of
+it.
+
+“This was the Gothic work, whereby the former government (which was not
+only a ship, but a gust, too) could never open her sails, but in danger
+to overset herself, neither could make any voyage nor lie safe in her
+own harbor. The wars of later ages, says Verulamius, seem to be made in
+the dark, in respect of the glory and honor which reflected on men from
+the wars in ancient times. Their shipping of this sort Was for voyages;
+ours dare not launch, nor lies it safe at home. Your Gothic politicians
+seem to me rather to have invented some new ammunition or gunpowder, in
+their King and Parliament, than government. For what is become of the
+princes (a kind of people) in Germany?--blown up. Where are the estates,
+or the power of the people in France?--blown up. Where is that of the
+people in Arragon, and the rest of the Spanish kingdoms?--blown up. On
+the other side, where is the King of Spain’s power in Holland?--blown
+up. Where is that of the Austrian princes in Switzerland?--blown up.
+This perpetual peevishness and jealousy, under the alternate empire of
+the prince and of the people, are obnoxious to every spark. Nor shall
+any man show a reason that will be holding in prudence, why the people
+of Oceana have blown up their King, but that their kings did not
+first blow up them. The rest is discourse for ladies. Wherefore your
+parliaments are not henceforth to come out of the bag of AEolus, but by
+your galaxies, to be the perpetual food of the fire of Vesta.
+
+“Your galaxies, which divide the house into so many regions, are three;
+one of which constituting the third region is annually chosen, but
+for the term of three years; which causes the house (having at once
+blossoms, fruit half ripe, and others dropping off in full maturity)
+to resemble an orange tree, such as is at the same time an education or
+spring, and a harvest, too; for the people have made a very ill-choice
+in the man, who is not easily capable of the perfect knowledge in one
+year of the senatorian orders; which knowledge, allowing him for the
+first to have been a novice, brings him the second year to practise, and
+time enough. For at this rate you must always have 200 knowing men
+in the government. And thus the vicissitude of your senators is not
+perceivable in the steadiness and perpetuity of your Senate; which, like
+that of Venice, being always changing, is forever the same. And though
+other politicians have not so well imitated their patter, there is
+nothing more obvious in nature, seeing a man who wears the same flesh
+but a short time, is nevertheless the same man, and of the same genius;
+and whence is this but from the constancy of nature, in holding a man
+to her orders? Wherefore keep also to your orders. But this is a mean
+request; your orders will be worth little if they do not hold you to
+them, wherefore embark. They are like a ship, if you be once aboard,
+you do not carry them, but they you; and see how Venice stands to her
+tackling: you will no more forsake them than you will leap into the sea.
+
+“But they are very many and difficult. O my Lords, what seaman casts
+away his card because it has four-and-twenty points of the compass? and
+yet those are very near as many and as difficult as the orders in the
+whole circumference of your commonwealth. Consider, how have we been
+tossed with every wind of doctrine, lost by the glib tongues of your
+demagogues and grandees in our own havens? A company of fiddlers that
+have disturbed your rest for your groat; £2,000 to one, £3,000 a year to
+another, has been nothing. And for what? Is there one of them that
+yet knows what a commonwealth is? And are you yet afraid of such a
+government in which these shall not dare to scrape for fear of the
+statute? Themistocles could not fiddle, but could make of a small city
+a great commonwealth: these have fiddled, and for your money, till they
+have brought a great commonwealth to a small city.
+
+“It grieves me, while I consider how, and from what causes, imaginary
+difficulties will be aggravated, that the foregoing orders are not
+capable of any greater clearness in discourse or writing; but if a man
+should make a book, describing every trick and passage, it would fare no
+otherwise with a game at cards; and this is no more, if a man plays upon
+the square. ‘There is a great difference,’ says Verulamius, ‘between a
+cunning man and a wise man (between a demagogue and a legislator), not
+only in point of honesty, but in point of ability as there be that can
+pack the cards, and yet cannot play well; so there be some that are good
+in canvasses and fractions, that are otherwise weak men.’ Allow me but
+these orders, and let them come with their cards in their sleeves,
+or pack if they can. ‘Again,’ says he, ‘it is one thing to understand
+persons, and another to understand matters; for many are perfect in
+men’s humors that are not greatly capable of the real part of business,
+which is the constitution of one that has studied men more than books.
+But there is nothing more hurtful in a State than that cunning men
+should pass for wise.’ His words are an oracle. As Dionysius, when he
+could no longer exercise his tyranny among men, turned schoolmaster,
+that he might exercise it among boys. Allow me but these orders, and
+your grandees, so well skilled in the baits and palates of men, shall
+turn rat-catchers.
+
+“And whereas ‘councils (as is discreetly observed by the same author
+in his time) are at this day, in most places, but familiar meetings
+(somewhat like the Academy of our provosts), where matters are rather
+talked on than debated, and run too swift to order an act of council,’
+give me my orders, and see if I have not puzzled your demagogues.
+
+“It is not so much my desire to return upon haunts, as theirs that
+will not be satisfied; wherefore if, notwithstanding what was said of
+dividing and choosing in our preliminary discourses, men will yet
+be returning to the question, Why the Senate must be a council apart
+(though even in Athens, where it was of no other constitution than the
+popular assembly, the distinction of it from the other was never held
+less than necessary) this may be added to the former reasons, that if
+the aristocracy be not for the debate, it is for nothing; but if it be
+for debate, it must have convenience for it; and what convenience
+is there for debate in a crowd, where there is nothing but jostling,
+treading upon one another, and stirring of blood, than which in this
+case there is nothing more dangerous? Truly, it was not ill said of my
+Lord Epimonus, that Venice plays her game, as it were, at billiards or
+nine-holes; and so may your lordships, unless your ribs be so strong
+that you think better of football: for such sport is debate in a popular
+assembly as, notwithstanding the distinction of the Senate, was the
+destruction of Athens.”
+
+This speech concluded the debate which happened at the institution
+of the Senate. The next assembly is that of the people or prerogative
+tribe.
+
+The face, or mien, of the prerogative tribe for the arms, the horses,
+and the discipline, but more especially for the select men, is that of
+a very noble regiment, or rather of two; the one of horse, divided
+into three troops (besides that of the provinces, which will be shown
+hereafter), with their captains, cornets, and two tribunes of the horse
+at the head of them; the other of foot in three companies (beside that
+of the provinces), with their captains, ensigns, and two tribunes of
+the foot at the head of them. The first troop is called the Phoenix,
+the second the Pelican, and the third the Swallow. The first company the
+Cypress, the second the Myrtle, and the third the Spray. Of these again
+(not without a near resemblance of the Roman division of a tribe) the
+Phoenix and the Cypress constitute the first class, the Pelican and the
+Myrtle the second, and the Swallow with the Spray the third, renewed
+every spring by--
+
+The one-and-twentieth order, “Directing, that upon every Monday next
+ensuing the last of March, the deputies of the annual galaxy arriving at
+the pavilion in the halo, and electing one captain and one cornet of the
+Swallow (triennial officers) by and out of the cavalry at the horse urn,
+according to the rules contained in the ballot of the hundred; and one
+captain with one ensign of the Spray (triennial officers) by and out
+of the infantry at the foot urn, after the same way of balloting,
+constitute and become the third classes of the prerogative tribe.”
+
+Seven deputies are annually returned by every tribe, whereof three are
+horse and four are foot; and there be fifty tribes: so the Swallow must
+consist of 150 horse, the Spray of 200 foot. And the rest of the classes
+being two, each of them in number equal, the whole prerogative (beside
+the provinces, that is, the knights and deputies of Marpesia and
+Panopea) must consist of 1,050 deputies. And these troops and companies
+may as well be called centuries as those of the Romans; for the Romans
+related not, in so naming theirs, to the number. And whereas they were
+distributed according to the valuation of their estates, so are these;
+which, by virtue of the last order, are now accommodated with their
+triennial officers. But there be others appertaining to this tribe whose
+election, being of far greater importance, is annual, as follows in
+
+The twenty-second order, “Whereby the first class having elected their
+triennial officers, and made oath to the old tribunes, that they
+will neither introduce, cause, nor to their power suffer debate to be
+introduced into any popular assembly of this government, but to their
+utmost be aiding and assisting to seize and deliver any person or
+persons in that way offending, and striking at the root of this
+commonwealth, to the Council of War, are to proceed with the other two
+classes of the prerogative tribe to election of the new tribunes,
+being four annual magistrates, whereof two are to be elected out of the
+cavalry at the horse urn, and two out of the infantry at the foot
+urn, according to the common ballot of the tribes. And they may be
+promiscuously chosen out of any classes, provided that the same person
+shall not be capable of bearing the tribunitian honor twice in the term
+of one galaxy. The tribunes thus chosen shall receive the tribe (in
+reference to the power of mustering and disciplining the same) as
+commanders-in-chief, and for the rest as magistrates, whose proper
+function is prescribed by the next order. The tribunes may give leave
+to any number of the prerogative, not exceeding 100 at a time, to be
+absent, so they be not magistrates nor officers, and return within three
+months. If a magistrate or officer has a necessary occasion, he may also
+be absent for the space of one month, provided that there be not above
+three cornets or ensigns, two captains, or one tribune so absent at one
+time.”
+
+To this the Archon spoke at the institution after this manner:
+
+“MY LORDS:
+
+“It is affirmed by Cicero, in his oration for Flaccus, that the
+commonwealths of Greece were all shaken or ruined by the intemperance of
+their Comitia, or assemblies of the people. The truth is, if good heed
+in this point be not taken, a commonwealth will have bad legs. But all
+the world knows he should have excepted Lacedaemon, where the people, as
+has been shown by the oracle, had no power at all of debate, nor (till
+after Lysander, whose avarice opened a gulf that was not long ere it
+swallowed up his country) came it ever to be exercised by them. Whence
+that commonwealth stood longest and firmest of any other but this,
+in our days, of Venice; which, having underlaid herself with the like
+institution, owes a great, if not the greater, part of her steadiness to
+the same principle; the great Council, which is with her the people, by
+the authority of my Lord Epimonus, never speaking a word. Nor shall any
+commonwealth, where the people in their political capacity is talkative,
+ever see half the days of one of these, but, being carried away by
+vainglorious men (that, as Overbury says, void more than they drink),
+swim down the stream, as did Athens, the most prating of these dames,
+when that same ranting fellow Alcibiades fell a-demagoguing for the
+Silician War.
+
+“But whereas debate, by the authority and experience of Lacedaemon
+and Venice, is not to be committed to the people in a well-ordered
+government, it may be said that the order specified is but a slight
+bar in a matter of like danger; for so much as an oath, if there be no
+recourse upon the breach of it, is a weak tie for such hands as have
+the sword in them, wherefore what should hinder the people of Oceana,
+if they happen not to regard an oath from assuming debate, and making
+themselves as much an anarchy as those of Athens? To which I answer,
+Take the common sort in a private capacity, and, except they be injured,
+you shall find them to have a bashfulness in the presence of the better
+sort, or wiser men, acknowledging their abilities by attention, and
+accounting it no mean honor to receive respect from them; but if they be
+injured by them, they hate them, and the more for being wise or great,
+because that makes it the greater injury. Nor refrain they in this
+case from any kind of intemperance of speech, if of action. It is no
+otherwise with a people in their political capacity; you shall never
+find that they have assumed debate for itself, but for something else.
+Wherefore in Lacedaemon where there was, and in Venice where there is,
+nothing else for which they should assume it, they have never shown so
+much as an inclination to it.
+
+“Nor was there any appearance of such a desire in the people of Rome
+(who from the time of Romulus had been very well contented with the
+power of result either in the parochial assemblies, as it was settled
+upon them by him, or in the meetings of the hundreds, as it was altered
+in their regard for the worse by Servius Tullius) till news was brought,
+some fifteen years after the exile of Tarquin, their late King (during
+which time the Senate had governed pretty well), that he was dead at the
+Court of Aristodemus the tyrant of Cumae. Whereupon the patricians,
+or nobility, began to let out the hitherto dissembled venom which is
+inherent in the root of oligarchy and fell immediately upon injuring
+the people beyond all moderation. For whereas the people had served both
+gallantly and contentedly in arms upon their own charges, and, though
+joint purchasers by their swords of the conquered lands, had not
+participated in the same to above two acres a man (the rest being
+secretly usurped by the patricians), they, through the meanness of their
+support and the greatness of their expense, being generally indebted, no
+sooner returned home with victory to lay down their arms, than they were
+snatched up by their creditors, the nobility, to cram jails. Whereupon,
+but with the greatest modesty that was ever known in the like case,
+they first fell upon debate, affirming ‘That they were oppressed and
+captivated at home, while abroad they fought for liberty and empire,
+and that the freedom of the common people was safer in time of war than
+peace, among their enemies than their fellow-citizens.’ It is true that
+when they could not get the Senate, through fear, as was pretended
+by the patricians, to assemble and take their grievances into
+consideration, they grew so much the warmer, that it was glad to meet;
+where Appius Claudius, a fierce spirit, was of opinion that recourse
+should be had to consular power, whereby some of the brands of sedition
+being taken off, the flame might be extinguished. Servilius, being of
+another temper, thought it better and safer to try if the people might
+be bowed than broken.
+
+“But this debate was interrupted by tumultuous news of the near approach
+of the Volsci, a case in which the Senate had no recourse but to the
+people, who, contrary to their former custom upon the like occasions,
+would not stir a foot, but fell a-laughing, and saying, ‘Let them fight
+that have something to fight for.’ The Senate that had purses, and could
+not sing so well before the thief, being in a great perplexity, found
+no possible way out of it but to beseech Servilius, one of a genius well
+known to be popular, that he would accept of the consulship, and make
+some such use of it as might be helpful to the patrician interest.
+Servilius, accepting of the offer, and making use of his interest with
+the people, persuaded them to hope well of the good intention of the
+fathers, whom it would little beseem to be forced to those things which
+would lose their grace, and that in view of the enemy, if they came not
+freely; and withal published an edict, that no man should withhold a
+citizen of Rome by imprisonment from giving his name (for that was
+the way, as I shall have opportunity hereafter to show more at large,
+whereby they drew out their armies), nor to seize or sell any man’s
+goods or children that were in the camp. Whereupon the people with a
+mighty concourse immediately took arms, marched forth, and (which to
+them was as easy as to be put into the humor, and that, as appears in
+this place, was not hard) totally defeated the Volsci first, then the
+Sabines (for the neighboring nations, hoping to have had a good bargain
+of the discord in Rome, were up in arms on all sides), and after the
+Sabines the Aurunci. Whence returning, victorious in three battles they
+expected no less than that the Senate would have made good their words,
+when Appius Claudius, the other Consul, of his innate pride, and that
+he might frustrate the faith of his colleague, caused the soldiers (who
+being set at liberty, had behaved themselves with such valor) to be
+restored at their return to their creditors and their jails.
+
+“Great resort upon this was made by the people to Servilius, showing him
+their wounds, calling him to witness how they had behaved themselves,
+and minding him of his promise. Poor Servilius was sorry, but so
+overawed with the headiness of his colleague, and the obstinacy of the
+whole faction of the nobility, that, not daring to do anything either
+way, he lost both parties, the fathers conceiving that he was ambitious,
+and the people that he was false; while the Consul Claudius, continuing
+to countenance such as daily seized and imprisoned some of the indebted
+people, had still new and dangerous controversies with them, insomuch
+that the commonwealth was torn with horrid division, and the people
+(because they found it not so safe or so effectual in public) minded
+nothing but laying their heads together in private conventicles. For
+this Aulus Virginius and Titus Vetusius, the new Consuls, were reproved
+by the Senate as slothful, and upbraided with the virtue of Appius
+Claudius. Whereupon the Consuls having desired the Senate that they
+might know their pleasure, showed afterward their readiness to obey
+it, by summoning the people according to command, and requiring names
+whereby to draw forth an army for diversion, but no man would answer.
+Report hereof being made to the Senate, the younger sort of the fathers
+grew so hot with the Consuls that they desired them to abdicate the
+magistracy, which they had not the courage to defend.
+
+“The Consuls, though they conceived themselves to be roughly handled,
+made this soft answer. ‘Fathers conscript, that you may please to take
+notice it was foretold some horrid sedition is at hand, we shall only
+desire that they whose valor in this place is so great, may stand by us
+to see how we behave ourselves, and then be as resolute in your
+commands as you will; your fatherhoods may know if we be wanting in the
+performance.’
+
+“At this some of the hot young noblemen returned with the Consuls to
+the tribunal, before which the people were yet standing; and the
+Consuls having generally required names in vain, to put it to something,
+required the name of one that was in their eye particularly; on whom,
+when he moved not, they commanded a lictor to lay hands, but the people,
+thronging about the party summoned, forbade the lictor, who durst not
+touch him; at which the hotspurs that came with the consuls, enraged by
+the affront, descended from the throne to the aid of the lictor;
+from whom in so doing they turned the indignation of the people upon
+themselves with such heat that the Consuls interposing, thought fit, by
+remitting the assembly, to appease the tumult; in which, nevertheless,
+there had been nothing but noise. Nor was there less in the Senate,
+being suddenly rallied upon this occasion, where they that received the
+repulse, with others whose heads were as addled as their own, fell
+upon the business as if it had been to be determined by clamor till
+the Consuls, upbraiding the Senate that it differed not from the
+market-place, reduced the house to orders.
+
+“And the fathers, having been consulted accordingly, there were three
+opinions: Publius Virginius conceived that the consideration to be
+had upon the matter in question, or aid of the indebted and imprisoned
+people, was not to be further extended than to such as had engaged upon
+the promise made by Servilius; Titus Largius, that it was no time to
+think it enough, if men’s merits were acknowledged, while the whole
+people, sunk under the weight of their debts, could not emerge without
+some common aid, which to restrain, by putting some into a better
+condition than others, would rather more inflame the discord than
+extinguish it; Appius Claudius (still upon the old haunt) would have it
+that the people were rather wanton than fierce; it was not oppression
+that necessitated, but their power that invited them to these freaks;
+the empire of the Consuls since the appeal to the people (whereby a
+plebeian might ask his fellows if he were a thief) being but a mere
+scarecrow. ‘Go to,’ says he, ‘let us create the dictator, from whom
+there is no appeal, and then let me see more of this work, or him that
+shall forbid my lictor.’
+
+“The advice of Appius was abhorred by many; and to introduce a general
+recision of debts with Largius, was to violate all faith; that of
+Virginius, as the most moderate, would have passed best, but that
+there were private interests, that constant bane of the public, which
+withstood it. So they concluded with Appius, who also had been dictator,
+if the Consuls and some of the graver sort had not thought it altogether
+unseasonable, at a time when the Volsci and the Sabines were up again,
+to venture so far upon alienation of the people: for which cause
+Valerius, being descended from the Publicolas, the most popular family,
+as also in his own person of a mild nature, was rather trusted with so
+rigid a magistracy. Whence it happened that the people, though they knew
+well enough against whom the Dictator was created, feared nothing from
+Valerius; but upon a new promise made to the same effect with that of
+Servilius, hoped better another time, and throwing away all disputes,
+gave their names roundly, went out, and, to be brief, came home again
+as victorious as in the former action, the Dictator entering the city in
+triumph. Nevertheless, when he came to press the Senate to make good his
+promise, and do something for the ease of the people, they regarded him
+no more as to that point than they had done Servilius. Whereupon the
+Dictator, in disdain to be made a stale, abdicated his magistracy, and
+went home. Here, then, was a victorious army without a captain, and a
+Senate pulling it by the beard in their gowns. What is it (if you have
+read the story, for there is not such another) that must follow? Can
+any man imagine that such only should be the opportunity upon which this
+people could run away?
+
+“Alas, poor men, the AEqui and the Volsci and the Sabines were nothing,
+but the fathers invincible! There they sat, some 300 of them armed all
+in robes, and thundering with their tongues, without any hopes in
+the earth to reduce them to any tolerable conditions. Wherefore, not
+thinking it convenient to abide long so near them, away marches the
+army, and encamps in the fields. This retreat of the people is called
+the secession of Mount Aventin, where they lodged, very sad at their
+condition, but not letting fall so much as a word of murmur against the
+fathers. The Senate by this time were great lords, had the whole city to
+themselves; but certain neighbors were upon the way that might come to
+speak with them, not asking leave of the porter. Wherefore their minds
+became troubled, and an orator was posted to the people to make as good
+conditions with them as he could; but, whatever the terms were, to bring
+them home, and with all speed. And here it was covenanted between the
+Senate and the people, that these should have magistrates of their own
+election, called the tribunes, upon which they returned.
+
+“To hold you no longer, the Senate having done this upon necessity, made
+frequent attempts to retract it again, while the tribunes, on the other
+side, to defend what they had got, instituted their Tributa Comitia,
+or council of the people; where they came in time, and, as disputes
+increased, to make laws without the authority of the Senate, called
+plebiscita. Now to conclude in the point at which I drive: such were the
+steps whereby the people of Rome came to assume debate, nor is it in art
+or nature to debar a people of the like effect, where there is the like
+cause. For Romulus, having in the election of his Senate squared out a
+nobility for the support of a throne, by making that of the patricians
+a distinct and hereditary order, planted the commonwealth upon two
+contrary interests or roots, which, shooting forth, in time produced two
+commonwealths, the one oligarchical in the nobility, the other a mere
+anarchy of the people, and ever after caused a perpetual feud and enmity
+between the Senate and the people, even to death.
+
+“There is not a more noble or useful question in the politics than that
+which is started by Machiavel, whether means were to be found whereby
+the enmity that was between the Senate and the people of Rome could
+have been removed? Nor is there any other in which we, on the present
+occasion, are so much concerned, particularly in relation to this
+author; forasmuch as his judgment in the determination of the question
+standing, our commonwealth falls. And he that will erect a commonwealth
+against the judgment of Machiavel, is obliged to give such reasons
+for his enterprise as must not go a-begging. Wherefore to repeat the
+politician very honestly, but somewhat more briefly, he disputes thus:
+
+“‘There be two sorts of commonwealths, the one for preservation, as
+Lacedaemon and Venice; the other for increase, as Rome.
+
+“‘Lacedaemon, being governed by a King and a small Senate, could
+maintain itself a long time in that condition, because the inhabitants,
+being few, having put a bar upon the reception of strangers, and living
+in a strict observation of the laws of Lycurgus, which now had got
+reputation, and taken away all occasion of tumults, might well continue
+long in tranquillity. For the laws of Lycurgus introduced a greater
+equality in estates, and a less equality in honors, whence there was
+equal poverty; and the plebeians were less ambitious, because the honors
+or magistracies of the city could extend but to a few and were not
+communicable to the people, nor did the nobility by using them ill ever
+give them a desire to participate of the same. This proceeded from the
+kings, whose principality, being placed in the midst of the nobility,
+had no greater means whereby to support itself than to shield the people
+from all injury; whence the people, not fearing empire, desired it not;
+and so all occasion of enmity between the Senate and the people was
+taken away. But this union happened especially from two causes: the one
+that the inhabitants of Lacedaemon being few, could be governed by the
+few; the other, that, not receiving strangers into their commonwealth,
+they did not corrupt it, nor increase it to such a proportion as was not
+governable by the few.
+
+“‘Venice has not divided with her plebeians, but all are called
+gentlemen that be in administration of the government; for which
+government she is more beholden to chance than the wisdom of her
+law-makers; for many retiring to those islands, where that city is now
+built, from the inundations of barbarians that overwhelmed the Roman
+Empire, when they were increased to such a number that to live together
+it was necessary to have laws, they ordained a form of government,
+whereby assembling often in council upon affairs, and finding their
+number sufficient for government, they put a bar upon all such as
+repairing afterward to their city should become inhabitants, excluding
+them from participation of power. Whence they that were included in the
+administration had right, and they that were excluded, coming afterward,
+and being received upon no other conditions to be inhabitants, had no
+wrong, and therefore had no occasion, nor (being never trusted with
+arms) any means to be tumultuous. Wherefore this commonwealth might very
+well maintain itself in tranquillity.
+
+“‘These things considered, it is plain that the Roman legislators, to
+have introduced a quiet state, must have done one of these two things:
+either shut out strangers, as the Lacedemonians; or, as the Venetians,
+not allowed the people to bear arms. But they did neither. By which
+means the people, having power and increase, were in perpetual tumult.
+Nor is this to be helped in a commonwealth for increase, seeing if Rome
+had cut off the occasion of her tumults, she must have cut off the means
+of her increase, and by consequence of her greatness.
+
+“‘Wherefore let a legislator consider with himself whether he would make
+his commonwealth for preservation, in which case she may be free from
+tumults; or for increase, in which case she must be infested with them.
+
+“‘If he makes her for preservation, she may be quiet at home, but will
+be in danger abroad. First, because her foundation must be narrow,
+and therefore weak, as that of Lacedaemon, which lay but upon 30,000
+citizens; or that of Venice, which lies but upon 3,000. Secondly, such
+a commonwealth must either be in peace, or war; if she be in peace,
+the few are soonest effeminated and corrupted and so obnoxious also to
+faction. If in war, succeeding ill, she is an easy prey; or succeeding
+well, ruined by increase: a weight which her foundation is not able to
+bear. For Lacedaemon, when she had made herself mistress upon the matter
+of all Greece, through a slight accident, the rebellion of Thebes,
+occasioned by the conspiracy of Pelopidas discovering this infirmity of
+her nature, the rest of her conquered cities immediately fell off, and
+in the turn as it were of a hand reduced her from the fullest tide to
+the lowest ebb of her fortune. And Venice having possessed herself of a
+great part of Italy by her purse, was no sooner in defence of it put to
+the trial of arms than she lost all in one battle.
+
+“‘Whence I conclude that in the ordination of a commonwealth a
+legislator is to think upon that which is most honorable, and, laying
+aside models for preservation, to follow the example of Rome conniving
+at, and temporizing with, the enmity between the Senate and the people,
+as a necessary step to the Roman greatness. For that any man should
+find out a balance that may take in the conveniences and shut out the
+inconveniences of both, I do not think it possible.’ These are the words
+of the author, though the method be somewhat altered, to the end that I
+may the better turn them to my purpose.
+
+“My lords, I do not know how you hearken to this sound; but to hear
+the greatest artist in the modern world giving sentence against our
+commonwealth is that with which I am nearly concerned. Wherefore, with
+all honor due to the prince of politicians, let us examine his reasoning
+with the same liberty which he has asserted to be the right of a free
+people. But we shall never come up to him, except by taking the business
+a little lower, we descend from effects to their causes. The causes of
+commotion in a commonwealth are either external or internal. External
+are from enemies, from subjects, or from servants. To dispute then what
+was the cause why Rome was infested by the Italian, or by the servile
+wars; why the slaves took the capitol; why the Lacedaemonians were near
+as frequently troubled with their helots as Rome with all those; or why
+Venice, whose situation is not trusted to the faith of men, has as good
+or better quarter with them whom she governs, than Rome had with the
+Latins; were to dispute upon external causes. The question put by
+Machiavel is of internal causes; whether the enmity that Was between the
+Senate and the people of Rome might have been removed. And to determine
+otherwise of this question than he does, I must lay down other
+principles than he has done. To which end I affirm that a commonwealth,
+internally considered, is either equal or unequal. A commonwealth that
+is internally equal, has no internal cause of commotion, and therefore
+can have no such effect but from without. A commonwealth internally
+unequal has no internal cause of quiet, and therefore can have no such
+effect but by diversion.
+
+“To prove my assertions, I shall at this time make use of no other
+than his examples. Lacedaemon was externally unquiet, because she was
+externally unequal, that is as to her helots; and she was internally at
+rest, because she was equal in herself, both in root and branch; in the
+root by her agrarian, and in branch by the Senate, inasmuch as no man
+was thereto qualified but by election of the people. Which institution
+of Lycurgus is mentioned by Aristotle, where he says that rendering his
+citizens emulous (not careless) of that honor, he assigned to the people
+the election of the Senate. Wherefore Machiavel in this, as in other
+places, having his eye upon the division of patrician and plebeian
+families as they were in Rome, has quite mistaken the orders of this
+commonwealth, where there was no such thing. Nor did the quiet of it
+derive from the power of the kings, who were so far from shielding the
+people from the injury of the nobility, of which there was none in
+his sense but the Senate, that one declared end of the Senate at the
+institution was to shield the people from the kings, who from that time
+had but single votes. Neither did it proceed from the straitness of the
+Senate, or their keeping the people excluded from the government, that
+they were quiet, but from the equality of their administration, seeing
+the Senate (as is plain by the oracle, their fundamental law) had no
+more than the debate, and the result of the commonwealth belonged to the
+people.
+
+“Wherefore when Theopompus and Polydorus, Kings of Lacedaemon, would
+have kept the people excluded from the government by adding to the
+ancient law this clause, ‘If the determination of the people be faulty,
+it shall be lawful for the Senate to resume the debate,’ the people
+immediately became unquiet, and resumed that debate, which ended not
+till they had set up their ephors, and caused that magistracy to be
+confirmed by their kings.” For when Theopompus first ordained that
+the ephori or overseers should be created at Lacedaemon, to be such a
+restraint upon the kings there as the tribunes were upon the consuls at
+Rome, the Queen complained to him, that by this means he transmitted
+the royal authority greatly diminished to his children: “I leave indeed
+less,” answered he, “but more lasting.” And this was excellently said;
+for that power only is safe which is limited from doing hurt. Theopompus
+therefore, by confining the kingly power within the bounds of the laws,
+did recommend it by so much to the people’s affection as he removed it
+from being arbitrary.’ By which it may appear that a commonwealth for
+preservation, if she comes to be unequal, is as obnoxious to enmity
+between the Senate and the people as a commonwealth for increase; and
+that the tranquillity of Lacedaemon was derived from no other cause than
+her equality.
+
+“For Venice, to say that she is quiet because she disarms her subjects,
+is to forget that Lacedaemon disarmed her helots, and yet could not in
+their regard be quiet; wherefore if Venice be defended from external
+causes of commotion, it is first through her situation, in which respect
+her subjects have no hope (and this indeed may be attributed to her
+fortune); and, secondly, through her exquisite justice, whence they have
+no will to invade her. But this can be attributed to no other cause than
+her prudence, which will appear to be greater, as we look nearer; for
+the effects that proceed from fortune, if there be any such thing, are
+like their cause, inconstant. But there never happened to any other
+commonwealth so undisturbed and constant a tranquillity and peace in
+herself as are in that of Venice; wherefore this must proceed from some
+other cause than chance. And we see that as she is of all others the
+most quiet, so the most equal commonwealth. Her body consists of one
+order, and her Senate is like a rolling stone, as was said, which never
+did, nor, while it continues upon that rotation, never shall gather the
+moss of a divided or ambitious interest, much less such a one as that
+which grasped the people of Rome in the talons of their own eagles. And
+if Machiavel, averse from doing this commonwealth right, had considered
+her orders, as his reader shall easily perceive he never did, he must
+have been so far from attributing the prudence of them to chance, that
+he would have touched up his admirable work to that perfection which,
+as to the civil part, has no pattern in the universal world but this of
+Venice.
+
+“Rome, secure by her potent and victorious arms from all external causes
+of commotion, was either beholden for her peace at home to her enemies
+abroad, or could never rest her head. My lords, you that are parents
+of a commonwealth, and so freer agents than such as are merely natural,
+have a care. For, as no man shall show me a commonwealth born straight
+that ever became crooked, so no man shall show me a commonwealth born
+crooked that ever became straight. Rome was crooked in her birth, or
+rather prodigious. Her twins, the patrician and plebeian orders, came,
+as was shown by the foregoing story, into the world, one body but two
+heads, or rather two bellies; for, notwithstanding the fable out of
+AEsop, whereby Menenius Agrippa, the orator that was sent from the
+Senate to the people at Mount Aventin, showed the fathers to be the
+belly, and the people to be the arms and the legs (which except that,
+how slothful soever it might seem, they were nourished, not these only,
+but the whole body must languish and be dissolved), it is plain that the
+fathers were a distinct belly, such a one as took the meat indeed out of
+the people’s mouths, but abhorring the agrarian, returned it not in
+the due and necessary nutrition of a commonwealth. Nevertheless, as the
+people that live about the cataracts of Nilus are said not to hear the
+noise, so neither the Roman writers, nor Machiavel the most conversant
+with them, seem among so many of the tribunitian storms to hear their
+natural voice; for though they could not miss of it so far as to
+attribute them to the strife of the people for participation in
+magistracy, or, in which Machiavel more particularly joins, to that
+about the agrarian, this was to take the business short, and the remedy
+for the disease.
+
+“A people, when they are reduced to misery and despair, become their
+own politicians, as certain beasts, when they are sick, become their own
+physicians, and are carried by a natural instinct to the desire of such
+herbs as are their proper cure; but the people, for the greater part,
+are beneath the beasts in the use of them. Thus the people of Rome,
+though in their misery they had recourse by instinct, as it were, to the
+two main fundamentals of a commonwealth, participation of magistracy and
+the agrarian, did but taste and spit at them, not (which is necessary in
+physic) drink down the potion, and in that their healths. For when they
+had obtained participation of magistracy it was but lamely, not to a
+full and equal rotation in all elections; nor did they greatly regard it
+in what they had got. And when they had attained to the agrarian, they
+neglected it so far as to suffer the law to grow obsolete; but if you do
+not take the due dose of your medicines (as there be slight tastes which
+a man may have of philosophy that incline to atheism) it may chance to
+be poison, there being a like taste of the politics that inclines to
+confusion, as appears in the institution of the Roman tribunes, by which
+magistracy and no more the people were so far from attaining to peace,
+that they in getting but so much, got but heads for an eternal feud;
+whereas if they had attained in perfection either to the agrarian, they
+had introduced the equality and calm of Lacedaemon, or to rotation, and
+they had introduced that of Venice: and so there could have been no more
+enmity between the Senate and the people of Rome than there was between
+those orders in Lacedaemon, or is now in Venice. Wherefore Machiavel
+seems to me, in attributing the peace of Venice more to her luck than
+her prudence, of the whole stable to have saddled the wrong horse;
+for though Rome in her military part could beat it better, beyond
+all comparison, upon the sounding hoof, Venice for the civil part has
+plainly had the wings of Pegasus.
+
+“The whole question then will come upon this point, whether the people
+of Rome could have obtained these orders? And first, to say that they
+could not have obtained them without altering the commonwealth, is no
+argument; seeing neither could they, without altering the commonwealth,
+have obtained their tribunes, which nevertheless were obtained. And if
+a man considers the posture that the people were in when they obtained
+their tribunes, they might as well, and with as great ease (forasmuch
+as the reason why the nobility yielded to the tribunes was no other
+than that there was no remedy) have obtained anything else. And for
+experience, it was in the like case that the Lacedaemonians did set up
+their ephors, and the Athenians, after the battle of Plataea, bowed the
+Senate (so hard a thing it is for a commonwealth that was born crooked
+to become straight) as much the other way. Nor, if it be objected
+that this must have ruined the nobility (and in that deprived the
+commonwealth of the greatness which she acquired by them), is this
+opinion holding, but confuted by the sequel of the story, showing
+plainly that the nobility, through the defect of such orders (that is
+to say, of rotation and the agrarian), came to eat up the people; and
+battening themselves in luxury, to be, as Sallust speaks of them, ‘a
+most sluggish and lazy nobility, in whom, besides the name, there was no
+more than in a statue;’ and to bring so mighty a commonwealth, and of so
+huge a glory, to so deplorable an end. Wherefore means might have been
+found to remove the enmity that was between the Senate and the people of
+Rome.
+
+“My lords, if I have argued well, I have given you the comfort and
+assurance that, notwithstanding the judgment of Machiavel, your
+commonwealth is both safe and sound; but if I have not argued well, then
+take the comfort and assurance which he gives you while he is firm, that
+a legislator is to lay aside all other examples, and follow that of Rome
+only, conniving and temporizing with the enmity between the Senate and
+the people as a necessary step to the Roman greatness. Whence it follows
+that your commonwealth, at the worst, is that which he has given you his
+word is the best.
+
+“I have held your lordships long, but upon an account of no small
+importance, which I can now sum up in these few words: where there is a
+liquorishness in a popular assembly to debate, it proceeds not from
+the constitution of the people, but of the commonwealth. Now that your
+commonwealth is of such a constitution as is naturally free from this
+kind of intemperance, is that which, to make good, I must divide the
+remainder of my discourse into two parts:
+
+“The first, showing the several constitutions of the assemblies of the
+people in other commonwealths;
+
+“The second, comparing our assembly of the people with theirs; and
+showing how it excludes the inconveniences and embraces the conveniences
+of them all.
+
+“In the beginning of the first part I must take notice, that among
+the popular errors of our days it is no small one that men imagine the
+ancient governments of this kind to have consisted for the most part
+of one city that is, of one town; whereas by what we have learned of my
+‘lords that owned them, it appears that there was not any considerable
+one of such a Constitution but Carthage, till this in our days of
+Venice.
+
+“For to begin with Israel, it consisted of the twelve tribes, locally
+spread or quartered throughout the whole territory, and these being
+called together by trumpets, constituted the Church or assembly of
+the people. The vastness of this weight, as also the slowness thence
+unavoidable, became a great cause (as has been shown at large by my Lord
+Phosphorus) of the breaking that commonwealth; notwithstanding that
+the Temple, and those religious ceremonies for which the people were at
+least annually obliged to repair thither, were no small ligament of the
+tribes, otherwise but slightly tacked together.
+
+“Athens consisted of four tribes, taking in the whole people, both of
+the city and of the territory; not so gathered by Theseus into one
+town, as to exclude the country, but to the end that there might be some
+capital of the commonwealth: though true it be, that the congregation,
+consisting of the inhabitants within the walls, was sufficient to all
+intents and purposes, without those of the country. These also being
+exceeding numerous, became burdensome to themselves and dangerous to
+the commonwealth; the more for their ill-education, as is observed by
+Xenophon and Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are
+perpetually disputing and swaggering one with another, and never lay
+their hands to the common tackling or safety till they be all endangered
+by some storm. Which caused Thucydides, when he saw this people through
+the purchase of their misery become so much wiser as to reduce their
+Comitia or assemblies to 5,000, to say in his eighth book: ‘And now, at
+least in my time, the Athenians seem to have ordered their State aright,
+consisting of a moderate tempor both of the few (by which he means the
+Senate of the Bean) and of the many,’ or the 5,000. And he does not only
+give you his judgment, but the best proof of it; for ‘this,’ says he,
+‘was the first thing that, after so many misfortunes past, made the city
+again to raise her head.’ The place I would desire your lordships to
+note, as the first example that I find, or think is to be found, of a
+popular assembly by way of representative.
+
+“Lacedaemon consisted of 30,000 citizens dispersed throughout Laconia,
+one of the greatest provinces in all Greece, and divided, as by some
+authors is probable, into six tribes. Of the whole body of these,
+being gathered, consisted the great Church or assembly, which had the
+legislative power; the little church, gathered sometimes for matters of
+concern within the city, consisted of the Spartans only. These happened,
+like that of Venice, to be good constitutions of a congregation, but
+from an ill-cause the infirmity of a commonwealth, which through her
+paucity was oligarchical.
+
+“Wherefore, go which way you will, it should seem that without a
+representative of the people, your commonwealth, consisting of a whole
+nation, can never avoid falling either into oligarchy or confusion.
+
+“This was seen by the Romans, whose rustic tribes, extending themselves
+from the river Arno to the Vulturnus, that is, from Fesulae or Florence
+to Capua, invented a way of representative by lots: the tribe upon which
+the first fell being the prerogative, and some two or three more
+that had the rest, the jure vocatoe. These gave the suffrage of the
+commonwealth in two meetings; the prerogative at the first assembly, and
+the jure vocatoe at a second.
+
+“Now to make the parallel: all the inconveniences that you have observed
+in these assemblies are shut out, and all the conveniences taken into
+your prerogative. For first, it is that for which Athens, shaking
+off the blame of Xenophon and Polybius, came to deserve the praise of
+Thucydides, a representative. And, secondly, not, as I suspect in
+that of Athens, and is past suspicion in this of Rome, by lot, but by
+suffrage, as was also the late House of Commons, by which means in your
+prerogatives all the tribes of Oceana are jure vocatoe; and if a man
+shall except against the paucity of the standing number, it is a wheel,
+which in the revolution of a few years turns every hand that is fit,
+or fits every hand that it turns to the public work. Moreover, I am
+deceived if, upon due consideration, it does not fetch your tribes, with
+greater equality and ease to themselves and to the government, from the
+frontiers of Marpesia, than Rome ever brought any one of hers out of her
+pomoeria, or the nearest parts of her adjoining territories. To this you
+may add, that whereas a commonwealth, which in regard of the people is
+not of facility in execution, were sure enough in this nation to be
+cast off through impatience; your musters and galaxies are given to the
+people, as milk to babes, whereby when they are brought up through four
+days’ election in a whole year (one at the parish, one at the hundred,
+and two at the tribe) to their strongest meat, it is of no harder
+digestion than to give their negative or affirmative as they see cause.
+There be gallant men among us that laugh at such an appeal or umpire;
+but I refer it whether you be more inclining to pardon them or me, who I
+confess have been this day laughing at a sober man, but without meaning
+him any harm, and that is Petrus Cunaeus, where speaking of the nature
+of the people, he says, ‘that taking them apart, they are very simple,
+but yet in their assemblies they see and know something, and so runs
+away without troubling himself with what that something is. Whereas the
+people, taken apart, are but so many private interests; but if you take
+them together, they are the public interest.
+
+“The public interest of a commonwealth, as has been shown, is nearest
+that of mankind, and that of mankind is right reason; but with
+aristocracy (whose reason or interest, when they are all together,
+as appeared by the patricians, is but that of a party) it is quite
+contrary: for as, taken apart, they are far wiser than the people
+considered in that manner, so, being put together, they are such fools,
+who by deposing the people, as did those of Rome, will saw off the
+branch whereupon they sit, or rather destroy the root of their own
+greatness. Wherefore Machiavel, following Aristotle, and yet going
+before him, may well assert, ‘that the people are wiser and more
+constant in their resolutions than a prince:’ which is the prerogative
+of popular government for wisdom. And hence it is that the prerogative
+of your commonwealth, as for wisdom so for power, is in the people,
+which (though I am not ignorant that the Roman prerogative was so
+called a proerogando, because their suffrage was first asked) gives the
+denomination to your prerogative tribe.”
+
+The elections, whether annual or triennial, being shown by the
+twenty-second, that which comes in the next place to be considered is--
+
+The twenty-third order, “Showing the power, function, and manner of
+proceeding of the prerogative tribe.
+
+“The power or function of the prerogative is of two parts: the one of
+result, in which it is the legislative, power, the other of judicature,
+in which regard it is the highest court, and the last appeal in this
+commonwealth.
+
+“For the former part (the people by this constitution being not obliged
+by any law that is not of their own making or confirmation, by the
+result of the prerogative, their equal representative) it shall not be
+lawful for the Senate to require obedience from the people, nor for the
+people to give obedience to the Senate in or by any law that has not
+been promulgated, or printed and published for the space of six weeks,
+and afterward proposed by the authority of the Senate to the prerogative
+tribe, and resolved by the major vote of the same in the affirmative.
+Nor shall the Senate have any power to levy war, men, or money,
+otherwise than by the consent of the people so given, or by a law so
+enacted, except in cases of exigence, in which it is agreed that the
+power, both of the Senate and the people, shall be in the dictator
+so qualified, and for such a term of time, as is according to that
+constitution already prescribed. While a law is in promulgation, the
+censors shall animadvert upon the Senate, and the tribunes upon the
+people, that there be no laying of heads together, no conventicles or
+canvassing to carry on or oppose anything; but that all may be done in a
+free and open way.
+
+“For the latter part of the power of the prerogative, or that whereby
+they are the supreme judicatory of this nation, and of the provinces of
+the same, the cognizances of crimes against the majesty of the people,
+such as high treason, as also of peculation, that is, robbery of the
+treasury, or defraudation of the commonwealth, appertains to this tribe.
+And if any person or persons, provincials or citizens, shall appeal to
+the people, it belongs to the prerogative to judge and determine the
+case; provided that if the appeal be from any court of justice in this
+nation or the provinces, the appellant shall first deposit £100 in the
+court from which he appeals, to be forfeited to the same if he be cast
+in his suit by the people. But the power of the Council of War being the
+expedition of this commonwealth, and the martial law of the strategus
+in the field, are those only from which there shall lie no appeal to the
+people.
+
+“The proceeding of the prerogative in case of a proposition is to be
+thus ordered: The magistrates, proposing by authority of the Senate,
+shall rehearse the whole matter, and expound it to the people; which
+done, they shall put the whole together to the suffrage, with three
+boxes, the negative, the affirmative, and the non-sincere; and the
+suffrage being returned to the tribunes, and numbered in the presence
+of the proposers. If the major vote be in the non-sincere, the proposer
+shall desist, and the Senate shall resume the debate. If the major vote
+be in the negative, the proposers shall desist, and the Senate, too. But
+if the major vote be in the affirmative, then the tribe is clear and the
+proposers shall begin and put the whole matter, with the negative
+and the affirmative (leaving out the non-sincere) by clauses; and the
+suffrages being taken and numbered by the tribunes in the presence of
+the proposers, shall be written and reported by the tribunes of the
+Senate. And that which is proposed by the authority of the Senate, and
+confirmed by the command of the people, is the law of Oceana.
+
+“The proceeding of the prerogative in a case of judicature is to be thus
+ordered: The tribunes being auditors of all causes appertaining to
+the cognizance of the people, shall have notice of the suit or trial,
+whether of appeal or otherwise, that is to be commenced; and if any one
+of them shall accept of the same, it appertains to him to introduce it.
+A cause being introduced, and the people mustered or assembled for the
+decision of the same, the tribunes are presidents of the court, having
+power to keep it to orders, and shall be seated upon a scaffold erected
+in the middle of the tribe. Upon the right hand shall stand a seat or
+large pulpit assigned to the plaintiff or the accuser; and, upon the
+left, another for the defendant, each if they please with his counsel.
+And the tribunes (being attended upon such occasions with so many
+ballotins, secretaries, doorkeepers, and messengers of the Senate as
+shall be requisite) one of them shall turn up a glass of the nature
+of an hour-glass, but such a one as is to be of an hour and a half’s
+running; which being turned up, the party or counsel on the right hand
+may begin to speak to the people. If there be papers to be read, or
+witnesses to be examined, the officer shall lay the glass sideways
+till the papers be read and the witnesses examined, and then turn it up
+again; and so long as the glass is running, the party on the right hand
+has liberty to speak, and no longer. The party on the right hand having
+had his time, the like shall be done in every respect for the party on
+the left. And the cause being thus heard, the tribunes shall put
+the question to the tribe with a white, a black, and a red box (or
+non-sincere), whether guilty or not guilty. And if the suffrage being
+taken, the major vote be in the non-sincere, the cause shall be reheard
+upon the next juridicial day following, and put to the question in the
+same manner. If the major vote comes the second time in the non-sincere,
+the cause shall be heard again upon the third day; but at the third
+hearing the question shall be put without the non-sincere. Upon the
+first of the three days in which the major vote comes in the white box,
+the party accused is absolved; and upon the first of them in which
+it comes in the black box, the party accused is condemned. The party
+accused being condemned, the tribunes (if the case be criminal) shall
+put with the white and the black box these questions, or such of them
+as, regard had to the case, they shall conceive most proper:
+
+ 1. Whether he shall have a writ of ease;
+ 2. Whether he shall be fined so much or so much;
+ 3. Whether he shall be confiscated;
+ 4. Whether he shall be rendered incapable of magistracy;
+ 5. Whether he shall be banished;
+ 6. Whether he shall be put to death.
+
+“These, or any three of these questions, whether simple or such as shall
+be thought fitly mixed, being put by the tribunes, that which has most
+above half the votes in the black box is the sentence of the people,
+which the troop of the third class is to see executed accordingly.
+
+“But whereas by the constitution of this commonwealth it may appear that
+neither the propositions of the Senate nor the judicature of the people
+will be so frequent as to hold the prerogative in continual employment,
+the Senate, a main part of whose office it is to teach and instruct
+the people, shall duly (if they have no greater affairs to divert
+them) cause an oration to be made to the prerogative by some knight or
+magistrate of the Senate, to be chosen out of the ablest men, and from
+time to time appointed by the orator of the house, in the great hall of
+the Pantheon, while the Parliament resides in the town, or in some grove
+or sweet place in the field, while the Parliament for the heat of
+the year shall reside in the country, upon every Tuesday, morning or
+afternoon.
+
+“And the orator appointed for the time to this office shall first repeat
+the orders of the commonwealth with all possible brevity; and then,
+making choice of one or some part of it, discourse thereof to the
+people. An oration or discourse of this nature, being afterward
+perused by the Council of State, may as they see cause be printed and
+published.”
+
+The Archon’s comment upon the order I find to have been of this sense:
+
+“MY LORDS:
+
+“To crave pardon for a word or two in further explanation of what
+was read, I shall briefly show how the constitution of this tribe or
+assembly answers to their function; and how their function, which is of
+two parts, the former in the result or legislative power, the latter
+in the supreme judicature of the commonwealth, answers to their
+constitution. Machiavel has a discourse, where he puts the question,
+‘Whether the guard of liberty may with more security be committed to the
+nobility or to the people?’ Which doubt of his arises through the want
+of explaining his terms; for the guard of liberty can signify nothing
+else but the result of the commonwealth; so that to say that the guard
+of liberty may be committed to the nobility, is to say that the result
+may be committed to the Senate, in which case the people signify
+nothing.
+
+“Now to show it was a mistake to affirm it to have been thus in
+Lacedaemon, sufficient has been spoken; and whereas he will have it
+to be so in Venice also: ‘They,’ says Contarini, ‘in whom resides the
+supreme power of the whole commonwealth, and of the laws, and upon whose
+orders depends the authority as well of the Senate as of all the other
+magistrates, is the Great Council.’ It is institutively in the Great
+Council, by the judgment of all that know that commonwealth; though, for
+the reasons shown, it be sometimes exercised by the Senate. Nor need
+I run over the commonwealths in this place for the proof of a thing so
+doubtless, and such as has been already made so apparent, as that the
+result of each was in the popular part of it. The popular part of yours,
+or the prerogative tribe, consists of seven deputies (whereof three are
+of the horse) annually elected out of every tribe of Oceana; which being
+fifty, amounts to 150 horse and 200 foot. And the prerogative consisting
+of three of these lists, consists of 450 horse and 600 foot, besides
+those of the provinces to be hereafter mentioned; by which means the
+overbalance in the suffrage remaining to the foot by 150 votes, you have
+to the support of a true and natural aristocracy the deepest root of a
+democracy that has been ever planted.
+
+“Wherefore there is nothing in art or nature better qualified for the
+result than this assembly it is noted out of Cicero by Machiavel, ‘That
+the people, though they are not so prone to find out truth of themselves
+as to follow custom or run into error yet if they be shown truth, they
+not only acknowledge and embrace it very suddenly, but are the most
+constant and faithful guardians and conservators of it.’ it is your
+duty and office, whereto you are also qualified by the orders of this
+commonwealth, to have the people as you have your hawks and greyhounds,
+in leashes and slips, to range the fields and beat the bushes for them,
+for they are of a nature that is never good at this sport, but when you
+spring or start their proper quarry. Think not that they will stand to
+ask you what it is, or less know it than your hawks and greyhounds do
+theirs; but presently make such a flight or course, that a huntsman may
+as well undertake to run with his dogs, or a falconer to fly with his
+hawk, as an aristocracy at this game to compare with the people. The
+people of Rome were possessed of no less a prey than the empire of the
+world, when the nobility turned tails, and perched among daws upon the
+tower of monarchy. For though they did not all of them intend the thing,
+they would none of them endure the remedy, which was the agrarian.
+
+“But the prerogative tribe has not only the result, but is the supreme
+judicature, and the ultimate appeal in this commonwealth. For the
+popular government that makes account to be of any standing, must make
+sure in the first place of the appeal to the people. As an estate in
+trust becomes a man’s own if he be not answerable for it, so the
+power of a magistracy not accountable to the people, from whom it was
+received, becoming of private use, the commonwealth loses her liberty
+Wherefore the right of supreme judicature in the people (Without which
+there can be no such thing as popular government) is confirmed by the
+constant practice of all commonwealths; as that of Israel in the cases
+of Achan, and of the tribe of Benjamin, adjudged by the congregation.
+
+“The dicasterian, or court called the heliaia in Athens, which (the
+comitia of that commonwealth consisting of the whole people, and so
+being too numerous to be a judicatory) was constituted sometimes of
+500, at others of 1,000, or, according to the greatness of the cause, of
+1,500, elected by the lot out of the whole body of the people, had, with
+the nine Archons that were presidents, the cognizance of such causes as
+were of highest importance in that State. The five ephors in Lacedaemon,
+which were popular magistrates, might question their kings, as appears
+by the cases of Pausanias, and of Agis, who being upon his trial in this
+court, was cried to by his mother to appeal to the people, as Plutarch
+has it in his life. The tribunes of the people of Rome (like, in the
+nature of their magistracy, and for some time in number, to the ephors,
+as being, according to Halicarnassus and Plutarch, instituted in
+imitation of them) had power to summon any man, his magistracy at least
+being expired (for from the Dictator there lay no appeal) to answer for
+himself to the people. As in the case of Coriolanus, who was going
+about to force the people, by withholding corn from them in a famine,
+to relinquish the magistracy of the tribunes, in that of Spurius Cassius
+for affecting tyranny, of Marcus Sergius for running away at Veii, of
+Caius Lucretius for spoiling his province, of Junius Silanus for making
+war without a command from the people against the Cimbri, with divers
+others. And the crimes of this nature were called loesoe majestatis,
+or high treason. Examples of such as were arraigned or tried for
+peculation, or defraudation of the commonwealth, were Marcus Curius
+for intercepting the money of the Samnites, Salinator for the unequal
+division of spoils to his soldiers, Marcus Posthumius for cheating the
+commonwealth by a feigned shipwreck. Causes of these two kinds were of
+a more public nature; but the like power upon appeals was also exercised
+by the people in private matters, even during the time of the kings, as
+in the case of Horatius. Nor is it otherwise with Venice, where the
+Doge Loredano was sentenced by the great Council, and Antonio Grimani,
+afterward doge, questioned, for that he, being admiral, had suffered the
+Turk to take Lepanto in view of his fleet.
+
+“Nevertheless, there lay no appeal from the Roman dictator to the
+people; which, if there had, might have cost the commonwealth dear,
+when Spurius Melius, affecting empire, circumvented and debauched the
+tribunes: whereupon Titus Quintus Cincinnatus was created Dictator, who
+having chosen Servilius Ahala to be his lieutenant, or magister equitum,
+sent him to apprehend Melius, whom, while he disputed the commands of
+the Dictator and implored the aid of the people, Ahala cut off upon
+the place. By which example you may see in what cases the dictator may
+prevent the blow which is ready sometimes to fall ere the people be
+aware of the danger. Wherefore there lies no appeal from the Dieci,
+or the Council of Ten, in Venice, to the Great Council, nor from our
+Council of War to the people. For the way of proceeding of this tribe,
+or the ballot, it is, as was once said for all, Venetian.
+
+“This discourse of judicatories whereupon we are fallen, brings us
+rather naturally than of design from the two general orders of every
+commonwealth, that is to say, from the debating part, or the Senate, and
+the resolving part, or the people, to the third, which is the executive
+part or the magistracy, whereupon I shall have no need to dwell, for the
+executive magistrates of this commonwealth are the strategus in arms;
+the signory in their several courts, as the chancery, the exchequer; as
+also the councils in divers cases within their instructions; the censors
+as well in their proper magistracy, as in the Council of Religion; the
+tribunes in the government of the prerogative, and that judicatory; and
+the judges with their courts; of all which so much is already said or
+known as may suffice.
+
+“The Tuesday lectures or orations to the people will be of great benefit
+to the Senate, the prerogative, and the whole nation. To the Senate,
+because they will not only teach your Senators elocution, but keep the
+system of the government in their memories. Elocution is of great use to
+your Senators, for if they do not understand rhetoric (giving it at this
+time for granted that the art were not otherwise good) and come to treat
+with, or vindicate the cause of the commonwealth against some other
+nation that is good at it, the advantage will be subject to remain upon
+the merit of the art, and not upon the merit of the cause. Furthermore,
+the genius or soul of this government being in the whole and in
+every part, they will never be of ability in determination upon any
+particular, unless at the same time they have an idea of the whole.
+That this therefore must be, in that regard, of equal benefit to the
+prerogative, is plain; though these have a greater concernment in it.
+For this commonwealth is the estate of the people; and a man, you know,
+though he be virtuous, yet if he does not understand his estate, may run
+out or be cheated of it. Last of all, the treasures of the politics will
+by this means be so opened, rifled, and dispersed, that this nation
+will as soon dote, like the Indians, upon glass beads, as disturb your
+government with whimsies and freaks of mother-wit, or suffer themselves
+to be stuttered out of their liberties. There is not any reason why
+your grandees, your wise men of this age, that laugh out and openly at
+a commonwealth as the most ridiculous thing, do not appear to be, as in
+this regard they are, mere idiots, but that the people have not eyes.”
+
+There remains no more relating to the Senate and the people than--
+
+The twenty-fourth order, “Whereby it is lawful for the province of
+Marpesia to have thirty knights of their own election continually
+present in the Senate of Oceana, together with sixty deputies of horse,
+and 120 of foot in the prerogative tribe, endued with equal power
+(respect had to their quality and number) in the debate and result of
+this commonwealth, provided that they observe the course or rotation
+of the same by the annual return of ten knights, twenty deputies of the
+horse, and forty of the foot. The like in all respects is lawful for
+Panopea; and the horse of both the provinces amounting to one troop, and
+the foot to one company, one captain and one cornet of the horse shall
+be annually chosen by Marpesia, and one captain and one ensign of the
+foot shall be annually chosen by Panopea.”
+
+The orb of the prerogative being thus complete, is not unnaturally
+compared to that of the moon, either in consideration of the light
+borrowed from the Senate, as from the sun; or of the ebbs and floods
+of the people, which are marked by the negative or affirmative of this
+tribe. And the constitution of the Senate and the people being shown,
+you have that of the Parliament of Oceana, consisting of the Senate
+proposing, and of the people resolving, which amounts to an act of
+Parliament. So the Parliament is the heart, which, consisting of two
+ventricles, the one greater and replenished with a grosser matter, the
+other less and full of a purer, sucks in and spouts forth the vital
+blood of Oceana by a perpetual circulation. Wherefore the life of
+this government is no more unnatural or obnoxious upon this score to
+dissolution than that of a man; nor to giddiness than the world; seeing
+the earth, whether it be itself or the heavens that are in rotation, is
+so far from being giddy, that it could not subsist without motion. But
+why should not this government be much rather capable of duration
+and steadiness by motion? Than which God has ordained no other to the
+universal commonwealth of mankind: seeing one generation comes and
+another goes, but the earth remains firm forever, that is, in her proper
+situation or place, whether she be moved or not moved upon her proper
+centre. The Senate, the people, and the magistracy, or the Parliament so
+constituted, as you have seen, is the guardian of this commonwealth, and
+the husband of such a wife as is elegantly described by Solomon: “She is
+like the merchant’s ships; she brings her food from far. She considers
+a field, and buys it: with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
+She perceives that her merchandise is good. She stretches forth her
+hands to the poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for
+all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes herself coverings
+of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known (by
+his robes) in the gates, when he sits among the senators of the land.”
+ The gates, or inferior courts, were branches, as it were, of the
+Sanhedrim, or Senate, of Israel. Nor is our commonwealth a worse
+housewife, nor has she less regard to her magistrates; as may pear by--
+
+The twenty-fifth order, “That, whereas the public revenue is through the
+late civil wars dilapidated, the excise, being improved or improvable to
+the revenue of £1,000,000, be applied, for the space of eleven years to
+come, to the reparation of the same, and for the present maintenance of
+the magistrates, knights, deputies, and other officers, who, according
+to their several dignities and functions, shall annually receive toward
+the support of the same, as follows:
+
+“The lord strategus marching, is, upon another account, to have
+field-pay as general.
+
+                                          Per Annum
+     The lord strategus sitting......            £2,000
+     The lord orator......                        2,000
+     The three commissioners of the seal...       4,500
+     The three commissioners of the treasury...   4,500
+     The two censors....                          3,000
+     The 290 knights, at £500 a man.....        145,000
+     The four ambassadors-in-ordinary....        12,000
+     The Council of War for intelligence....      3,000
+     The master of the ceremonies.....              500
+     The master of the horse......                  500
+     His substitute.....                            150
+     The twelve ballotins for their winter liveries 240
+
+     For summer liveries...                     120
+
+     For their board-wages......                480
+     For the keeping of three coaches of state,
+
+     twenty-four coach-horses, with coachmen
+
+     and postilions..........                1,500
+     For the grooms, and keeping of sixteen
+
+     great horses for the master of the
+
+     horse, and for the ballotins whom he
+
+     is to govern and instruct in the art
+
+     of riding..........                        480
+     The twenty secretaries of the Parliament...  2,000
+     The twenty doorkeepers, who are to attend
+
+     with pole-axes,
+
+     For their coats.......                     200
+
+     For their board-wages....                1,000
+     The twenty messengers, which are trumpeters,
+
+     For their coats....                        200
+
+     For their board-wages.....               1,000
+     For ornament of the masters of the youth...  5,000
+
+         Sum                               £189,370
+
+“Out of the personal estates of every man, who at his death bequeaths
+not above forty shillings to the muster of that hundred wherein it lies,
+shall be levied one per cent. till the solid revenue of the muster of
+the hundred amounts to £50 per annum for the prizes of the youth.
+
+“The twelve ballotins are to be divided into three regions, according to
+the course of the Senate; the four of the first region to be elected at
+the tropic out of such children as the knights of the same shall offer,
+not being under eleven years of age, nor above thirteen. And their
+election shall be made by the lot at an urn set by the sergeant of the
+house for that purpose in the hall of the Pantheon. The livery of the
+commonwealth for the fashion or the color may be changed at the election
+of the strategus according to his fancy. But every knight during his
+session shall be bound to give to his footman, or some one of his
+footmen, the livery of the commonwealth.
+
+“The prerogative tribe shall receive as follows:
+
+                                            By the week
+     The two tribunes of the horse.....              £14  0
+     The two tribunes of the foot.....                12  0
+     The three captains of the horse.....             15  0
+     The three cornets.....                            9  0
+     The three captains of the foot....               12  0
+     The three ensigns........                         7  0
+     The 442 horse, at £2 a man.....                 884  0
+     The 592 foot, at £1 10s a man....               888  0
+     The six trumpeters.....                           7 10
+     The three drummers...........                     2  5
+
+     Sum by the week................          £1,850 15
+
+     Sum by the year.............            £96,239  0
+
+     The total of the Senate, the people,
+
+     and the magistracy....................  £287,459 15
+
+“The dignity of the commonwealth, and aids of the several magistracies
+and offices thereto belonging, bring provided for as aforesaid, the
+overplus of the excise, with the product of the sum rising, shall be
+carefully managed by the Senate and the people through the diligence of
+the officers of the Exchequer, till it amount to £8,000,000, or to the
+purchase of about £400,000 solid revenue. At which time, the term of
+eleven years being expired, the excise, except it be otherwise ordered
+by the Senate and the people, shall be totally remitted and abolished
+forever.”
+
+At this institution the taxes, as will better appear in the Corollary,
+were abated about one-half, which made the order, when it came to be
+tasted, to be of good relish with the people in the very beginning;
+though the advantages then were no ways comparable to the consequences
+to be hereafter shown. Nevertheless, my Lord Epimonus, who with much ado
+had been held till now, found it midsummer moon, and broke out of bedlam
+in this manner.
+
+“MY LORD ARCHON:
+
+“I have a singing in my head like that of a cart-wheel, my brains are
+upon a rotation; and some are so merry, that a man cannot speak his
+griefs, but if your high-shod prerogative, and those same slouching
+fellows your tribunes, do not take my lord strategus’s and my lord
+orator’s heads, and jolt them together under the canopy, then let me be
+ridiculous to all posterity. For here is a commonwealth, to which if a
+man should take that of the ‘prentices in their ancient administration
+of justice at Shrovetide, it were an aristocracy. You have set the very
+rabble with truncheons in their hands, and the gentry of this nation,
+like cocks with scarlet gills, and the golden combs of their salaries to
+boot, lest they should not be thrown at.
+
+“Not a night can I sleep for some horrid apparition or other; one while
+these myrmidons are measuring silks by their quarterstaves, another
+stuffing their greasy pouches with my lord high treasurer’s jacobuses.
+For they are above 1,000 in arms to 300, which, their gowns being pulled
+over their ears, are but in their doublets and hose. But what do I speak
+of 1,000? There be 2,000 in every tribe, that is, 100,000 in the whole
+nation, not only in the posture of an army, but in a civil capacity
+sufficient to give us what laws they please. Now everybody knows that
+the lower sort of people regard nothing but money; and you say it is
+the duty of a legislator to presume all men to be wicked: wherefore they
+must fall upon the richer, as they are an army; or, lest their minds
+should misgive them in such a villany, you have given them encouragement
+that they have a nearer way, seeing it may be done every whit as well as
+by the overbalancing power which they have in elections. There is a fair
+which is annually kept in the centre of these territories at Kiberton,
+a town famous for ale, and frequented by good fellows; where there is a
+solemnity of the pipers and fiddlers of this nation (I know not whether
+Lacedaemon, where the Senate kept account of the stops of the flutes and
+of the fiddle-strings of that commonwealth, bad any such custom) called
+the bull-running, and he that catches and holds the bull, is the annual
+and supreme magistrate of that comitia or congregation, called king
+piper, without whose license it is not lawful for any of those citizens
+to enjoy the liberty of his calling; nor is he otherwise legitimately
+qualified (or civitate donatus) to lead apes or bears in any
+perambulation of the same. Mine host of the Bear, in Kiberton, the
+father of ale, and patron of good football and cudgel players, has any
+time since I can remember been grand-chancellor of this order.
+
+“Now, say I, seeing great things arise from small beginnings, what
+should hinder the people, prone to their own advantage and loving money,
+from having intelligence conveyed to them by this same king piper and
+his chancellor, with their loyal subjects the minstrels and bear-wards,
+masters of ceremonies, to which there is great recourse in their
+respective perambulations, and which they will commission and instruct,
+with directions to all the tribes, willing and commanding them, that
+as they wish their own good, they choose no other into the next primum
+mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as
+soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of
+necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and
+so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows’
+ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is
+hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being
+strategus, and king piper lord orator. Well, my lords, it might have
+been otherwise expressed, but this is well enough a-conscience. In your
+way, the wit of man shall not prevent this or the like inconvenience;
+but if this (for I have conferred with artists) be a mathematical
+demonstration, I could kneel to you, that ere it be too late we might
+return to some kind of sobriety. If we empty our purses with these
+pomps, salaries, coaches, lackeys, and pages, what can the people say
+less than that we have dressed a Senate and a prerogative for nothing
+but to go to the park with the ladies?”
+
+My Lord Archon, whose meekness resembled that of Moses, vouchsafed this
+answer:
+
+“My LORDS:
+
+“For all this, I can see my Lord Epimonus every night in the park, and
+with ladies; nor do I blame this in a young man, or the respect which is
+and ought to be given to a sex that is one-half of the commonwealth of
+mankind, and without which the other would be none: but our magistrates,
+I doubt, may be somewhat of the oldest to perform this part with much
+acceptation; and, as the Italian proverb says, ‘Servire e non gradire
+e cosa da far morire.’ Wherefore we will lay no certain obligation upon
+them in this point, but leave them, if it please you, to their own fate
+or discretion. But this (for I know my Lord Epimonus loves me, though
+I can never get his esteem) I will say, if he had a mistress should use
+him so, he would find it a sad life; or I appeal to your lordships, how
+I can resent it from such a friend, that he puts king piper’s politics
+in the balance with mine. King piper, I deny not, may teach his bears to
+dance, but they have the worst ear of all creatures. Now how he
+should make them keep time in fifty several tribes, and that two years
+together, for else it will be to no purpose, may be a small matter with
+my lord to promise; but it seems to me of impossible performance. First,
+through the nature of the bean; and, secondly, through that of the
+ballot; or how what he has hitherto thought so hard, is now come to be
+easy; but he may think that for expedition they will eat up these balls
+like apples.
+
+“However, there is so much more in their way by the constitution of
+this, than is to be found in that of any other commonwealth, that I am
+reconciled, it now appearing plainly that the points of my lord’s
+arrows are directed at no other white than to show the excellency of our
+government above others; which, as he proceeds further, is yet plainer;
+while he makes it appear that there can be no other elected by the
+people but smiths:
+
+“‘Brontesque Steropesque et nudus membra Pyracmon:’
+
+“Othoniel, Aod, Gideon, Jephtha, Samson, as in Israel; Miltiades,
+Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, as in Athens; Papyrius,
+Cincinnatus, Camillus, Fabius Scipio, as in Rome: smiths of the fortune
+of the commonwealth; not such as forged hob-nails, but thunderbolts.
+Popular elections are of that kind, that all of the rest of the world
+is not able, either in number or glory, to equal those of these three
+commonwealths. These indeed were the ablest cudgel and football players;
+bright arms were their cudgels, and the world was the ball that lay
+at their feet. Wherefore we are not so to understand the maxim of
+legislators, which holds all men to be wicked, as if it related to
+mankind or a commonwealth, the interests whereof are the only straight
+lines they have whereby to reform the crooked; but as it relates to
+every man or party, under what color soever he or they pretend to be
+trusted apart, with or by the whole. Hence then it is derived, which is
+made good in all experience, that the aristocracy is ravenous, and not
+the people. Your highwaymen are not such as have trades, or have been
+brought up to industry; but such commonly whose education has pretended
+to that of gentlemen. My lord is so honest, he does not know the maxims
+that are of absolute necessity to the arts of wickedness; for it is
+most certain, if there be not more purses than thieves, that the thieves
+themselves must be forced to turn honest, because they cannot thrive
+by their trade; but now if the people should turn thieves, who sees not
+that there would be more thieves than purses? wherefore that a whole
+people should turn robbers or levellers, is as impossible in the end as
+in the means.
+
+“But that I do not think your artist which you mentioned, whether
+astronomer or arithmetician, can tell me how many barley-corns would
+reach to the sun, I could be content he were called to the account, with
+which I shall conclude this point: when by the way I have chid my lords
+the legislators, who, as if they doubted my tackling could not hold,
+would leave me to flag in a perpetual calm, but for my Lord Epimonus,
+who breathes now and then into my sails and stirs the waters. A ship
+makes not her way so briskly as when she is handsomely brushed by the
+waves, and tumbles over those that seem to tumble against her; in which
+case I have perceived in the dark that light has been struck even out of
+the sea, as in this place, where my Lord Epimonus feigning to give us
+a demonstration of one thing, has given it of another, and of a better.
+For the people of this nation, if they amount in each tribe to 2,000
+elders and 2,000 youths upon the annual roll, holding a fifth to
+the whole tribe, then the whole of a tribe, not accounting women and
+children, must amount to 20,000; and so the whole of all the tribes,
+being fifty, to 1,000,000.
+
+“Now you have 10,000 parishes, and reckoning these one with another,
+each at £1,000 a year dry-rent, the rent or revenue of the nation, as it
+is or might be let to farm, amounts to £10,000,000; and £10,000,000 in
+revenue divided equally to 1,000,000 of men, comes but to £10 a year to
+each wherewith to maintain himself, his wife and children. But he that
+has a cow upon the common, and earns his shilling by the day at his
+labor, has twice as much already as this would come to for his share;
+because if the land were thus divided, there would be nobody to set him
+on work. So my Lord Epimonus’s footman, who costs him thrice as much as
+one of these could thus get, would certainly lose by his bargain. What
+should we speak of those innumerable trades whereupon men live, not only
+better than others upon good shares of lands, but become also purchasers
+of greater estates? Is not this the demonstration which my lord meant,
+that the revenue of industry in a nation, at least in this, is three
+or four-fold greater than that of the mere rent? If the people then
+obstruct industry, they obstruct their own livelihood; but if they
+make a war, they obstruct industry. Take the bread out of the people’s
+mouths, as did the Roman patricians, and you are sure enough of a war,
+in which case they may be levellers; but our agrarian causes their
+industry to flow with milk and honey. It will be owned that this is
+true, if the people were given to understand their own happiness; but
+where is it they do that? Let me reply with the like question, where
+do they not? They do not know their happiness it should seem in France,
+Spain, and Italy; but teach them what it is, and try whose sense is the
+truer.
+
+“As to the late wars in Germany, it has been affirmed to me there, that
+the princes could never make the people to take arms while they had
+bread, and have therefore suffered countries now and then to be wasted
+that they might get soldiers. This you will find to be the certain pulse
+and temper of the people; and if they have been already proved to be the
+most wise and constant order of a government, why should we think
+(when no man can produce one example of the common soldiery in an army
+mutinying because they had not captains’ pay) that the prerogative
+should jolt the heads of the Senate together because these have the
+better salaries, when it must be as evident to the people in a nation,
+as to the soldiery in an army, that it is no more possible their
+emoluments of this kind should be afforded by any commonwealth in the
+world to be made equal with those of the Senate, than that the common
+soldiers should be equal with the captains? It is enough for the common
+soldier that his virtue may bring him to be a captain, and more to the
+prerogative, that each of them is nearer to be a senator.
+
+“If my lord thinks our salaries too great, and that the commonwealth is
+not housewife enough, whether is it better housewifery that she should
+keep her family from the snow, or suffer them to burn her house that
+they may warm themselves? for one of these must be. Do you think that
+she came off at a cheaper rate when men had their rewards by £1,000 or
+£2,000 a year in land if inheritance? if you say that they will be
+more godly than they have been, it may be ill taken; and if you cannot
+promise that, it is time we find out some way of stinting at least, if
+not curing them of that same sacra fames. On the other side, if a poor
+man (as such a one may save a city) gives his sweat to the public, with
+what conscience can you suffer his family in the meantime to starve?
+but he that lays his hand to this plough shall not lose by taking it
+off from his own, and a commonwealth that will mend this shall be
+penny-wise. The Sanhedrim of Israel, being the supreme, and a constant
+court of judicature, could not choose but be exceeding gainful. The
+Senate of the Bean in Athens, because it was but annual, was moderately
+salaried; but that of the Areopagites, being for life, bountifully; and
+what advantages the senators of Lacedaemon had, where there was little
+money or use of it, were in honors for life. The patricians having no
+profit, took all. Venice being a situation where a man goes but to the
+door for his employment, the honor is great and the reward very little;
+but in Holland a councillor of state has £1,500 Flemish a year,
+besides other accommodations. The States-General have more. And that
+commonwealth looks nearer her penny than ours needs to do.
+
+“For the revenue of this nation, besides that of her industry,
+it--amounts, as has been shown, to £10,000,000; and the salaries in
+the whole come not to £300,000 a year. The beauty they will add to the
+commonwealth will be exceeding great, and the people will delight in
+this beauty of their commonwealth; the encouragement they will give to
+the study of the public being very progitable, the accommodation they
+will afford to your magistrates very honorable and easy. And the sum,
+when it or twice as much was spent in bunting and housekeeping, was
+never any grievance to the people. I am ashamed to stand huckling upon
+this point; it is sordid. Your magistrates are rather to be provided
+with further accommodations. For what if there should be sickness?
+whither will you have them to remove? And this city in the soundest
+times, for the heat of the year, is no wholesome abode: have a care of
+their healths to whom you commit your own. I would have the Senate and
+the people, except they see cause to the contrary, every first of June
+to remove into the country air for the space of three months. You are
+better fitted with summer-houses for them than if you had built them to
+that purpose.
+
+“There is some twelve miles distant the convallium upon the river
+Halcionia, for the tribunes and the prerogative, a palace capable of
+1,000 men; and twenty miles distant you have Mount Celia, reverend as
+well for the antiquity as state of a castle completely capable of
+the Senate, the proposers having lodgings in the convallium, and the
+tribunes in Celia, it holds the correspondency between the Senate and
+the people exactly And it is a small matter for the proposers,
+being attended with the coaches and officers of state, besides other
+conveniences of their own, to go a matter of five or ten miles (those
+seats are not much farther distant) to meet the people upon any heath or
+field that shall be appointed: where, having despatched their business,
+they may hunt their own venison (for I would have the great walled
+park upon the Halcionia to belong to the signory, and those about the
+convallium to the tribunes) and so go to supper. Pray, my lords, see
+that they do not pull down these houses to sell the lead of them; for
+when--you have considered on it, they cannot be spared. The founders of
+the school in Hiera provided that the boys should have a summer seat.
+You should have as much care of these magistrates. But there is such a
+selling, such a Jewish humor in our republicans, that I cannot tell
+what to say to it; only this, any man that knows what belongs to a
+commonwealth, or how diligent every nation in that case has been to
+preserve her ornaments, and shall see the waste lately made (the woods
+adjoining to this city, which served for the delight and health of it,
+being cut down to be sold for threepence), will you tell that they who
+did such things would never have made a commonwealth. The like may be
+said of the ruin or damage done upon our cathedrals, ornaments in which
+this nation excels all others. Nor shall this ever be excused upon the
+score of religion; for though it be true that God dwells not in houses
+made with hands, yet you cannot hold your assemblies but in such houses,
+and these are of the best that have been made with hands. Nor is it well
+argued that they are pompous, and therefore profane, or less proper for
+divine service, seeing the Christians in the primitive Church chose
+to meet with one accord in the Temple, so far were they from any
+inclination to pull it down.”
+
+The orders of this commonwealth, so far, or near so far as they concern
+the elders, together with the several speeches at the institution, which
+may serve for the better understanding of them as so many commentaries,
+being shown, I should now come from the elders to the youth, or from the
+civil constitution of this government to the military, but that I judge
+this the fittest place whereinto, by the way, to insert the government
+of the city though for the present but perfunctorily.
+
+“‘The metropolis or capital city of Oceana is commonly called Emporium,
+though it consists of two cities distinct, as well in name as in
+government, whereof the other is called Hiera, for which cause I shall
+treat of each apart, beginning with Emporium.
+
+“Emporium, with the liberties, is under a twofold division, the one
+regarding the national, and the other the urban or city government. It
+is divided, in regard of the national government, into three tribes, and
+in respect of the urban into twenty six, which for distinction’s sake
+are called wards, being contained under three tribes but unequally;
+wherefore the first tribe containing ten wards is called scazon, the
+second containing eight metoche, and the third containing as many
+telicouta, the bearing of which names in mind concerns the better
+understanding of the government.
+
+“Every ward has her wardmote, court, or inquest, consisting of all that
+are of the clothing or liveries of companies residing within the same.
+
+“Such are of the livery or clothing as have attained to the dignity to
+wear gowns and parti-colored hoods or tippets, according to the rules
+and ancient customs of their respective companies.
+
+“A company is a brotherhood of tradesmen professing the same art,
+governed according to their charter by a master and wardens. Of these
+there be about sixty, whereof twelve are of greater dignity than the
+rest, that is to say, the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers,
+goldsmiths, skinners, merchant-tailors, haberdashers, salters,
+ironmongers, vintners, clothworkers, which, with most of the rest, have
+common halls, divers of them being of ancient and magnificent structure,
+wherein they have frequent meetings, at the summons of their master or
+wardens, for the managing and regulation of their respective trades and
+mysteries. These companies, as I shall show, are the roots of the whole
+government of the city. For the liveries that reside in the same ward,
+meeting at the wardmote inquest (to which it belongs to take cognizance
+of all sorts of nuisances and violations of the customs and orders of
+the city, and to present them to the court of aldermen), have also power
+to make election of two sorts of magistrates or officers; the first
+of elders or aldermen of the ward, the second of deputies of the same,
+otherwise called common councilmen.
+
+“The wards in these elections, because they do not elect all at once,
+but some one year and some another, observe the distinction of the three
+tribes; for example, the scazon, consisting of ten wards, makes election
+the first year of ten aldermen, one in each ward, and of 150 deputies,
+fifteen in each ward, all which are triennial magistrates or officers,
+that is to say, are to bear their dignity for the space of three years.
+
+“The second year the metoche, consisting of eight wards, elects eight
+aldermen, one in each ward, and 120 deputies, fifteen in each ward,
+being also triennial magistrates.
+
+“The third year telicouta, consisting of a like number of wards, elects
+an equal number of like magistrates for a like term. So that the whole
+number of the aldermen, according to that of the wards, amounts to
+twenty-six; and the whole number of the deputies, to 390.
+
+“The aldermen thus elected have divers capacities; for, first, they
+are justices of the peace for the term, and in consequence of their
+election. Secondly, they are presidents of the wardmote and governors
+each of that ward whereby he was elected. And last of all, these
+magistrates being assembled together, constitute the Senate of the city,
+otherwise called the court of aldermen; but no man is capable of this
+election that is not worth £10,000. This court upon every new election
+makes choice of nine censors out of their own number.
+
+“The deputies in like manner being assembled together, constitute the
+prerogative tribe of the city, otherwise called the common council, by
+which means the Senate and the people of the city were comprehended, as
+it were, by the motion of the national government, into the same wheel
+of annual, triennial, and perpetual revolution.
+
+“But the liveries, over and above the right of these elections by their
+divisions mentioned, being assembled all together at the guild of the
+city, constitute another assembly called the common hall.
+
+“The common hall has the right of two other elections; the one of the
+lord mayor, and the other of the two sheriffs, being annual magistrates.
+The lord mayor can be elected out of no other than one of the twelve
+companies of the first ranks; and the common hall agrees by the
+plurality of suffrages upon two names, which, being presented to the
+lord mayor for the time being, and the court of the aldermen, they elect
+one by their scrutiny. For so they call it, though it differs from
+that of the commonwealth. The orator or assistant to the lord mayor
+in holding of his courts, is some able lawyer elected by the court of
+aldermen, and called the recorder of Emporium.
+
+“The lord mayor being thus elected, has two capacities: one regarding
+the nation, and the other the city. In that which regards the city,
+he is president of the court of aldermen, having power to assemble the
+same, or any other council of the city, as the common council or common
+hall, at his will and pleasure; and in that which regards the nation, he
+is commander-in-chief of the three tribes whereinto the city is divided;
+one of which he is to bring up in person at the national muster to the
+ballot, as his vice-comites, or high sheriffs, are to do by the other
+two, each at their distinct pavilion, where the nine aldermen, elected
+censors, are to officiate by three in each tribe, according to the rules
+and orders already given to the censors of the rustic tribes. And the
+tribes of the city have no other than one common phylarch, which is the
+court of aldermen and the common council, for which cause they elect not
+at their muster the first list called the prime magnitude.
+
+“The conveniences of this alteration of the city government, besides the
+bent of it to a conformity with that of the nation, were many, whereof
+I shall mention but a few: as first, whereas men under the former
+administration, when the burden of some of these magistracies lay
+for life, were oftentimes chosen not for their fitness, but rather
+unfitness, or at least unwillingness to undergo such a weight, whereby
+they were put at great rates to fine for their ease; a man might now
+take his share in magistracy with that equity which is due to the
+public, and without any inconvenience to his private affairs. Secondly,
+whereas the city (inasmuch as the acts of the aristocracy, or court of
+aldermen, in their former way of proceeding, were rather impositions
+than propositions) was frequently disquieted with the inevitable
+consequence of disorder in the power of debate exercised by the
+popular part, or common council; the right of debate being henceforth
+established in the court of aldermen, and that of result in the common
+council, killed the branches of division in the root. Which for the
+present may suffice to have been said of the city of Emporium.
+
+“That of Hiera consists as to the national government of two tribes, the
+first called agoroea, the second propola; but as to the peculiar policy
+of twelve manipuls, or wards divided into three cohorts, each cohort
+containing four wards, whereof the wards of the first cohort elect for
+the first year four burgesses, one in each ward, the wards of the second
+cohort for the second year four burgesses, one in each ward, and the
+wards of the third cohort for the third year four burgesses, one in each
+ward, all triennial magistrates; by which the twelve burgesses,
+making one court for the government of this city according to their
+instructions by act of Parliament, fall likewise into an annual,
+triennial, and perpetual revolution.
+
+“This court being thus constituted, makes election of divers
+magistrates; as first, of a high steward, who is commonly some person of
+quality, and this magistracy is elected in the Senate by the scrutiny of
+this court; with him they choose some able lawyer to be his deputy, and
+to hold the court; and last of all they elect out of their own number
+six censors.
+
+“The high steward is commander-in-chief of the two tribes, whereof he in
+person brings up the one at the national muster to the ballot, and his
+deputy the other at a distinct pavilion; the six censors chosen by the
+court officiating by three in each tribe at the urns; and these tribes
+have no other phylarch but this court.
+
+“As for the manner of elections and suffrage, both in Emporium and
+Hiera, it may be said, once for all, that they are performed by ballot,
+and according to the respective rules already given.
+
+“There be other cities and corporations throughout the territory, whose
+policy being much of this kind, would be tedious and not worth the labor
+to insert, nor dare I stay. Juvenum manus emicat ardens.”
+
+I return, according to the method of the commonwealth, to the remaining
+parts of her orbs, which are military and provincial; the military,
+except the strategus, and the polemarchs or field-officers, consisting
+of the youth only, and the provincial consisting of a mixture both of
+elders and of the youth.
+
+To begin with the youth, or the military orbs, they are circles to
+which the commonwealth must have a care to keep close. A man is a spirit
+raised by the magic of nature; if she does not stand safe, and so that
+she may set him to some good and useful work, he spits fire, and blows
+up castles; for where there is life, there must be motion or work; and
+the work of idleness is mischief, but the work of industry is health.
+To set men to this, the commonwealth must begin betimes with them, or
+it will be too late; and the means whereby she sets them to it is
+education, the plastic art of government. But it is as frequent as sad
+in experience (whether through negligence, or, which in the consequence
+is all one or worse, over-fondness in the domestic performance of this
+duty) that innumerable children come to owe their utter perdition to
+their own parents, in each of which the commonwealth loses a citizen.
+
+Wherefore the laws of a government, how wholesome soever in themselves,
+are such as, if men by a congruity in their education be not bred to
+find a relish in them, they will be sure to loathe and detest. The
+education therefore of a man’s own children is not wholly to be
+committed or trusted to himself. You find in Livy the children of
+Brutus, having been bred under monarchy, and used to a court life,
+making faces at the Commonwealth of Rome: “A king (say they) is a man
+with whom you may prevail when you have need there should be law, or
+when you have need there should be no law; he has favors in the right,
+and he frowns not in the wrong place; he knows his friends from
+his enemies. But laws are deaf, inexorable things, such as make no
+difference between a gentleman and an ordinary fellow; a man can never
+be merry for them, for to trust altogether to his own innocence is a sad
+life.” Unhappy wantons! Scipio, on the other side, when he was but a boy
+(about two or three and twenty), being informed that certain patricians
+of Roman gentlemen, through a qualm upon the defeat which Hannibal had
+given them at Cannae, were laying their heads together and contriving
+their flight with the transportation of their goods out of Rome, drew
+his sword, and setting himself at the door of the chamber where they
+were at council, protested “that who did not immediately swear not to
+desert the commonwealth, he would make his soul to desert his body.” Let
+men argue as they please for monarchy, or against a commonwealth, the
+world shall never see any man so sottish or wicked as in cool blood to
+prefer the education of the sons of Brutus before that of Scipio; and
+of this mould, except a Melius or a Manlius, was the whole youth of that
+commonwealth, though not ordinarily so well cast.
+
+Now the health of a government and the education of the youth being
+of the same pulse, no wonder if it has been the constant practice of
+well-ordered commonwealths to commit the care and feeling of it to
+public magistrates. A duty that was performed in such a manner by the
+Areopagites, as is elegantly praised by Isocrates, “the Athenians (says
+he) write not their laws upon dead walls, nor content themselves with
+having ordained punishments for crimes, but provide in such a way, by
+the education of their youth, that there be no crimes for punishment.”
+ He speaks of those laws which regarded manners, not of those orders
+which concerned the administration of the commonwealth, lest you should
+think he contradicts Xenophon and Polybius. The children of Lacedaemon,
+at the seventh year of their age, were delivered to the poedonomi, or
+schoolmasters, not mercenary, but magistrates of the commonwealth, to
+which they were accountable for their charge; and by these at the age of
+fourteen they were presented to other magistrates called the beidioei,
+having the inspection of the games and exercises, among which that of
+the platanista was famous, a kind of fight in squadrons, but somewhat
+too fierce. When they came to be of military age they were listed of
+the mora, and so continued in readiness for public service under the
+discipline of the polemarchs. But the Roman education and discipline by
+the centuries and classes is that to which the Commonwealth of Oceana
+has had a more particular regard in her three essays, being certain
+degrees by which the youth commence as it were in arms for magistracy,
+as appears by--
+
+The twenty-sixth order, instituting, “That if a parent has but one son,
+the education of that one son shall be wholly at the disposition of that
+parent. But whereas there be free schools erected and endowed, or to
+be erected and endowed in every tribe of this nation, to a sufficient
+proportion for the education of the children of the same (which schools,
+to the end there be no detriment or hindrance to the scholars upon case
+of removing from one to another, are every of them to be governed by
+the strict inspection of the censors of the tribes, both upon the
+schoolmaster’s manner of life and teaching, and the proficiency of the
+children, after the rules and method of that in Hiera) if a parent has
+more sons than one, the censors of the tribes shall animadvert upon and
+punish him that sends not his sons within the ninth year of their age to
+some one of the schools of a tribe, there to be kept and taught, if he
+be able, at his own charges; and if he be not able, gratis, till they
+arrive at the age of fifteen years. And a parent may expect of his sons
+at the fifteenth year of their age, according to his choice or ability,
+whether it be to service in the way of apprentices to some trade or
+otherwise, or to further study, as by sending them to the inns of court,
+of chancery, or to one of the universities of this nation. But he
+that takes not upon him one of the professions proper to some of those
+places, shall not continue longer in any of them than till he has
+attained to the age of eighteen years; and every man having not at
+the age of eighteen years taken upon him, or addicted himself to the
+profession of the law, theology, or physic, and being no servant, shall
+be capable of the essays of the youth, and no other person whatsoever,
+except a man, having taken upon him such a profession, happens to lay
+it by ere he arrives at three or four and twenty years of age, and be
+admitted to this capacity by the respective. Phylarchs being satisfied
+that he kept not out so long with any design to evade the service of the
+commonwealth; but, that being no sooner at his own disposal, it was no
+sooner in his choice to come in. And if any youth or other person of
+this nation have a desire to travel into foreign countries upon occasion
+of business, delight, or further improvement of his education, the
+same shall be lawful for him upon a pass obtained from the censors in
+Parliament, putting a convenient limit to the time, and recommending him
+to the ambassadors by whom he shall be assisted, and to whom he shall
+yield honor and obedience in their respective residences. Every youth at
+his return from his travel is to present the censors with a paper of his
+own writing, containing the interest of state or form of government of
+the countries, or some one of the countries, where he has been; and
+if it be good, the censors shall cause it to be printed and published,
+prefixing a line in commendation of the author.
+
+“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of December, the whole youth of
+every parish, that is to say, every man (not excepted by the foregoing
+part of the order), being from eighteen years of age to thirty, shall
+repair at the sound of the bell to their respective church, and being
+there assembled in presence of the overseers, who are to govern the
+ballot, and the constable who is to officiate at the urn, shall, after
+the manner of the elders, elect every fifth man of their whole number
+(provided that they choose not above one of two brothers at one
+election, nor above half if they be four or upward) to be a stratiot
+or deputy of the youth; and the list of the stratiots so elected
+being taken by the overseers, shall be entered in the parish book, and
+diligently preserved as a record, called the first essay. They whose
+estates by the law are able, or whose friends are willing, to mount
+them, shall be of the horse, the rest are of the foot. And he who has
+been one year of this list, is not capable of being re-elected till
+after another year’s interval.
+
+“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of January, the stratiots being
+mustered at the rendezvous of their respective hundreds, shall, in the
+presence of the jurymen, who are overseers of that ballot, and of the
+high constable who is to officiate at the urn, elect out of the horse
+of their troop or company one captain, and one ensign or cornet, to
+the command of the same. And the jurymen having entered the list of the
+hundred into a record to be diligently kept at the rendezvous of the
+same, the first public game of this commonwealth shall begin and be
+performed in this manner. Whereas there is to be at every rendezvous of
+a hundred, one cannon, culverin, or saker, the prize arms being forged
+by sworn armorers of this commonwealth, and for their proof, besides
+their beauty, viewed and tried at the tower of Emporium, shall be
+exposed by the justice of peace appertaining to that hundred (the said
+justice with the jurymen being judges of the game), and the judges shall
+deliver to the horseman that gains the prize at the career, one suit
+of arms being of the value £20, to the pikeman that gains the prize
+at throwing the bullet, one suit of arms of the value of £10, to the
+musketeer that gains the prize at the mark with his musket, one suit of
+arms of the value of £10, and to the cannoneer that gains the prize at
+the mark with the cannon, culverin, or saker, a chain of silver being
+the value of £10, provided that no one man at the same muster plays
+above one of the prizes. Whosoever gains a prize is bound to wear it
+(if it be his lot) upon service; and no man shall sell or give away any
+armor thus won, except he has lawfully attained to two or more of them
+at the games.
+
+“The games being ended, and the muster dismissed, the captain of the
+troop or company shall repair with a copy of the list to the lord
+lieutenant of the tribe, and the high constable with a duplicate of
+the same to the custos rotulorum, or muster-master general, to be also
+communicated to the censors; in each of which the jurymen, giving a
+note upon every name of an only son, shall certify the list is without
+subterfuge or evasion; or, if it be not, an account of those upon whom
+the evasion or subterfuge lies, to the end that the phylarch or the
+censors may animadvert accordingly.
+
+“And every Wednesday next ensuing the last of February, the lord
+lieutenant, custos rotulorum, the censors, and the conductor, shall
+receive the whole muster of the youth of that tribe at the rendezvous of
+the same, distributing the horse and foot with their officers, according
+to the directions given in the like case for the distribution of the
+elders; and the whole squadron being put by that means in battalia,
+the second game of this commonwealth shall begin by the exercise of the
+youth in all the parts of their military discipline according to the
+orders of Parliament, or direction of the Council of War in that case.
+And the £100 allowed by the Parliament for the ornament of the muster
+in every tribe, shall be expended by the phylarch upon such artificial
+castles, citadels, or the like devices, as may make the best and most
+profitable sport for the youth and their spectators.
+
+“Which being ended, the censors having prepared the urns by putting
+into the horse-urn 220 gold balls, whereof ten are to be marked with
+the letter M and other ten with the letter P; into the foot-urn 700 gold
+balls, whereof fifty are to be marked, with the letter M and fifty with
+the letter P; and after they have made the gold balls in each urn, by
+the addition of silver balls to the same, in number equal with the horse
+and foot of the stratiots, the lord lieutenant shall call the stratiots
+to the urns, where they that draw the silver balls shall return to
+their places, and they that draw the gold balls shall fall off to the
+pavilion, where, for the space of one hour, they may chop and change
+their balls according as one can agree with another, whose lot he likes
+better.
+
+“But the hour being out, the conductor separating them whose gold balls
+have no letter from those whose balls are marked, shall cause the crier
+to call the alphabet, as first A; whereupon all they whose gold balls
+are not marked, and whose surnames begin with the letter A, shall repair
+to a clerk appertaining to the custos rotulorum, who shall first take
+the names of that letter; then those of B, and so on, till all the names
+be alphabetically enrolled. And the youth of this list being 600 foot
+in a tribe, that is, 30,000 foot in all the tribes; and 200 horse in a
+tribe, that is, 10,000 horse in all the tribes, are the second essay of
+the stratiots, and the standing army of this commonwealth to be always
+ready upon command to march. They whose balls are marked with M,
+amounting, by twenty horse and fifty foot in a tribe, to 2,500 foot and
+500 horse in all the tribes, and they whose balls are marked with P, in
+every point correspondent, are parts of the third essay; they in M being
+straight to march for Marpesia, and they of P for Panopea, to the ends
+and according to the further directions following in the order for the
+provincial orbs.
+
+“If the polemarchs or field officers be elected by the scrutiny of the
+Council of War, and the strategus commanded by the Parliament or the
+Dictator to march, the lord lieutenants (who have power to muster and
+discipline the youth so often as they receive orders for the same from
+the Council of War) are to deliver the second essay, or so many of them
+as shall be commanded, to the conductors, who shall present them to the
+lord strategus at the time and place appointed by his Excellency to be
+the general rendezvous of Oceana, where the Council of War shall have
+the accommodation of horses and arms for his men in readiness; and the
+lord strategus having armed, mounted, and distributed them, whether
+according to the recommendation of their prize arms, or otherwise,
+shall lead them away to his shipping, being also ready and provided with
+victuals, ammunition, artillery, and all other necessaries; commanding
+them, and disposing of the whole conduct of the war by his sole power
+and authority. And this is the third essay of the stratiots, which being
+shipped, or marched out of their tribes, the lord lieutenants shall
+re-elect the second essay out of the remaining part of the first, and
+the Senate another strategus.
+
+“If any veteran or veterans of this nation, the term of whose youth or
+militia is expired, having a desire to be entertained in the further
+service of the commonwealth, shall present him or themselves at the
+rendezvous of Oceana to the strategus, it is in his power to take on
+such and so many of them as shall be agreed by the polemarchs, and to
+send back an equal number of the stratiots.
+
+“And for the better managing of the proper forces of this nation, the
+lord strategus, by appointment of the Council of War, and out of such
+levies as they shall have made in either or both of the provinces to
+that end, shall receive auxiliaries by sea or elsewhere at some certain
+place, not exceeding his proper arms in number.
+
+“And whosoever shall refuse any one of his three essays, except upon
+cause shown, he be dispensed withal by the phylarch, or, if the phylarch
+be not assembled, by the censors of his tribe, shall be deemed a helot
+or public servant, shall pay a fifth part of his yearly revenue,
+besides all other taxes, to the commonwealth for his protection, and be
+incapable of bearing any magistracy except such as is proper to the law.
+Nevertheless if a man has but two sons, the lord lieutenant shall not
+suffer above one of them to come to the Urn at one election of the
+second essay, and though he has above two sons, there shall not come
+above half the brothers at one election; and if a man has but one son,
+he shall not come to the urn at all without the consent of his parents,
+or his guardians, nor shall it be any reproach to him or impediment to
+his bearing of magistracy.”
+
+This order, with relation to foreign expeditions, will be proved and
+explained together with--
+
+The twenty-seventh order, “Providing, in case of invasion apprehended,
+that the lords high sheriffs of the tribes, upon commands received from
+the Parliament or the Dictator, distribute the bands of the elders into
+divisions, after the nature of the essays of the youth; and that the
+second division or essay of the elders, being made and consisting of
+30,000 foot and 10,000 horse, be ready to march with the second essay of
+the youth, and be brought also by the conductors to the strategus.
+
+“The second essay of the elders and youth being marched out of their
+tribes, the lords high sheriffs and lieutenants shall have the remaining
+part of the annual bands both of elders and youth in readiness, which,
+if the beacons be fired, shall march to the rendezvous to be in that
+case appointed by the Parliament or the Dictator: And the beacons being
+fired, the curiata comitia, or parochial congregations, shall elect a
+fourth both of elders and youth to be immediately upon the guard of the
+tribes, and dividing themselves as aforesaid, to march also in their
+divisions according to orders, which method in case of extremity shall
+proceed to the election of a third, or the levy of a second, or of the
+last man in the nation, by the power of the lords high sheriffs, to the
+end that the commonwealth in her utmost pressure may show her trust that
+God in his justice will remember mercy, by humbling herself, and yet
+preserving her courage, discipline, and constancy, even to the last drop
+of her blood and the utmost farthing.
+
+“The services performed by the youth, or by the elders, in case of
+invasion, and according to this order, shall be at their proper cost and
+charges that are any ways able to endure it; but if there be such as are
+known in their parishes to be so indigent that they cannot march out of
+their tribes, nor undergo the burden in this case incumbent, then the
+congregations of their parishes shall furnish them with sufficient sums
+of money to be repaid upon the certificate of the same by the Parliament
+when the action shall be over. And of that which is respectively
+enjoined by this order, any tribe, parish, magistrate, or person that
+shall fail, is to answer for it, at the Council of War, as a deserter of
+his country.”
+
+The Archon, being the greatest captain of his own, if not of any age,
+added much to the glory of this commonwealth, by interweaving the
+militia with more art and lustre than any legislator from or before the
+time of Servius Tullius, who constituted the Roman militia. But as the
+bones or skeleton of a man, though the greatest part of his beauty be
+contained in their proportion or symmetry, yet shown without flesh are a
+spectacle that is rather horrid than entertaining, so without discourses
+are the orders of a commonwealth; which, if she goes forth in that
+manner, may complain of her friends that they stand mute and staring
+upon her. Wherefore this order was thus fleshed by the Lord Archon:
+
+“MY LORDS:
+
+“Diogenes seeing a young fellow drunk, told him that his father was
+drunk when he begot him. For this, in natural generation, I must confess
+I see no reason; but in the political it is right. The vices of the
+people are from their governors; those of their governors from
+their laws or orders; and those of their laws or orders from their
+legislators. Whatever was in the womb imperfect, as to her proper work,
+comes very rarely or never at all to perfection afterward; and the
+formation of a citizen in the womb of the commonwealth is his education.
+
+“Education by the first of the foregoing orders is of six kinds: at the
+school, in the mechanics, at the universities, at the inns of court or
+chancery, in travels, and in military discipline, some of which I shall
+but touch, and some I shall handle more at large.
+
+“That which is proposed for the erecting and endowing of schools
+throughout the tribes, capable of all the children of the same, and able
+to give to the poor the education of theirs gratis, is only matter of
+direction in case of very great charity, as easing the needy of the
+charge of their children from the ninth to the fifteenth year of their
+age, during which time their work cannot be profitable; and restoring
+them when they may be of use, furnished with tools whereof there are
+advantages to be made in every work, seeing he that can read and use his
+pen has some convenience by it in the meanest vocation. And it cannot
+be conceived but that which comes, though in small parcels, to the
+advantage of every man in his vocation, must amount to the advantage of
+every vocation, and so to that of the whole commonwealth. Wherefore this
+is commended to the charity of every wise-hearted and well-minded man,
+to be done in time, and as God shall stir him up or enable him; there
+being such provision already in the case as may give us leave to proceed
+without obstruction.
+
+“Parents, under animadversion of the censors, are to dispose of their
+children at the fifteenth year of their age to something; but what, is
+left, according to their abilities or inclination, at their own choice.
+This, with the multitude, must be to the mechanics, that is to say to
+agriculture or husbandry, to manufactures, or to merchandise.
+
+“Agriculture is the bread of the nation; we are hung upon it by the
+teeth; it is a mighty nursery of strength, the best army, and the most
+assured knapsack; it is managed with the least turbulent or ambitious,
+and the most innocent hands of all other arts. Wherefore I am of
+Aristotle’s opinion, that a commonwealth of husbandmen--and such is
+ours--must be the best of all others. Certainly my lords, you have no
+measure of what ought to be, but what can be, done for the encouragement
+of this profession. I could wish I were husband good enough to direct
+something to this end; but racking of rents is a vile thing in the
+richer sort, an uncharitable one to the poorer, a perfect mark of
+slavery, and nips your commonwealth in the fairest blossom. On the other
+side, if there should be too much ease given in this kind, it would
+occasion sloth, and so destroy industry, the principal nerve of a
+commonwealth. But if aught might be done to hold the balance even
+between these two, it would be a work in this nation equal to that for
+which Fabius was surnamed Maximus by the Romans.
+
+“In manufactures and merchandise the Hollander has gotten the start of
+us; but at the long run it will be found that a people working upon a
+foreign commodity does but farm the manufacture, and that it is really
+entailed upon them only where the growth of it is native; as also that
+it is one thing to have the carriage of other men’s goods, and another
+for a man to bring his own to the best market. Wherefore (nature having
+provided encouragement for these arts in this nation above all others,
+where, the people growing, they of necessity must also increase) it
+cannot but establish them upon a far more sure and effectual foundation
+than that of the Hollanders. But these educations are in order to
+the first things or necessities of nature; as husbandry to the food,
+manufacture to the clothing, and merchandise to the purse of the
+commonwealth.
+
+“There be other things in nature, which being second as to their order,
+for their dignity and value are first; and such to which the other
+are but accommodations; of this sort are especially these: religion,
+justice, courage, and wisdom.
+
+“The education that answers to religion in our government is that of the
+universities. Moses, the divine legislator, was not only skilful in
+all the learning of the Egyptians, but took also into the fabric of his
+commonwealth the learning of the Midianites in the advice of Jethro; and
+his foundation of a university laid in the tabernacle, and finished in
+the Temple, became that pinnacle from whence (according to many Jewish
+and Christian authors) all the learning in the world has taken wing; as
+the philosophy of the Stoics from the Pharisees; that of the Epicureans
+from the Sadducees; and from the learning of the Jews, so often quoted
+by our Saviour, and fulfilled in him, the Christian religion. Athens
+was the most famous university in her days; and her senators, that is to
+say, the Areopagites, were all philosophers. Lacedaemon, to speak truth,
+though she could write and read, was not very bookish. But he that
+disputes hence against universities, disputes by the same argument
+against agriculture, manufacture, and merchandise; every one of these
+having been equally forbid by Lycurgus, not for itself (for if he had
+not been learned in all the learning of Crete, and well travelled in the
+knowledge of other governments, he had never made his commonwealth),
+but for the diversion which they must have given his citizens from their
+arms, who, being but few, if they had minded anything else, must have
+deserted the commonwealth. For Rome, she had ingenium par ingenio, was
+as learned as great, and held our College of Augurs in much reverence.
+Venice has taken her religion upon trust. Holland cannot attend it to
+be very studious. Nor does Switzerland mind it much; yet are they all
+addicted to their universities. We cut down trees to build houses; but
+I would have somebody show me, by what reason or experience the cutting
+down of a university should tend to the setting up of a commonwealth.
+Of this I am sure, that the perfection of a commonwealth is not to be
+attained without the knowledge of ancient prudence, nor the knowledge of
+ancient prudence without learning, nor learning without schools of good
+literature, and these are such as we call universities.
+
+“Now though mere university learning of itself be that which (to speak
+the words of Verulamius) ‘crafty men contemn, and simple men only
+admire, yet is it such as wise men have use of; for studies do not
+teach their own use, but that is a wisdom without and above them, won by
+observation. Expert men may execute, and perhaps judge, of particulars
+one by one; but the general councils and the plots, and the marshalling
+of affairs, come best from those that are learned.’ Wherefore if you
+would have your children to be statesmen, let them drink by all means of
+these fountains, where perhaps there were never any. But what though the
+water a man drinks be not nourishment, it is the vehicle without which
+he cannot be nourished.
+
+“Nor is religion less concerned in this point than government: for
+take away your universities, and in a few years you lose it. “The holy
+Scriptures are written in Hebrew and Greek; they that have neither of
+these languages may think light of both; but find me a man that has one
+in perfection, the study of whose whole life it has not been. Again,
+this is apparent to us in daily conversation, that if four or five
+persons that have lived together be talking, another speaking the same
+language may come in, and yet understand very little of their discourse,
+in that it relates to circumstances, persons, things, times and places
+which he knows not. It is no otherwise with a man, having no insight
+of the times in which they were written, and the circumstances to which
+they relate, in the reading of ancient books, whether they be divine or
+human. For example, when we fall upon the discourse about baptism and
+regeneration that was between our Saviour and Nicodemus, where Christ
+reproaches him with his ignorance in this matter. ‘Art thou a doctor in
+Israel, and understandest not these things?’ What shall we think of it?
+or wherefore should a doctor in Israel have understood these things more
+than another, but that both baptism and regeneration, as was showed at
+large by my Lord Phosphorus, were doctrines held in Israel? I instance
+in one place of a hundred, which he, that has not mastered the
+circumstances to which they relate, cannot understand. Wherefore to
+the understanding of the Scripture, it is necessary to have ancient
+languages, and the knowledge of ancient times, or the aid of them who
+have such knowledge; and to have such as may be always able and ready to
+give such aid (unless you would borrow it of another nation, which would
+not only be base, but deceitful) it is necessary to a commonwealth that
+she have schools of good literature, or universities of her own.
+
+“We are commanded, as has been said more than once, to search the
+Scriptures; and which of them search the Scriptures, they that take
+this pains in ancient languages and learning, or they that will not,
+but trust to translations only, and to words as they sound to present
+circumstances? than which nothing is more fallible, or certain to lose
+the true sense of Scriptures, pretended to be above human understanding,
+for no other cause than that they are below it. But in searching
+the Scriptures by the proper use of our universities, we have been
+heretofore blest with greater victories and trophies against the purple
+hosts and golden standards of the Romish hierarchy than any nation; and
+therefore why we should relinquish this upon the presumption of some,
+that because there is a greater light which they have, I do not know.
+There is a greater light than the sun, but it does not extinguish the
+sun, nor does any light of God’s giving extinguish that of nature,
+but increase and sanctify it. Wherefore, neither the honor bore by the
+Israelitish, Roman, or any other commonwealth that I have shown,
+to their ecclesiastics, consisted in being governed by them, but in
+consulting them in matters of religion, upon whose responses or oracles
+they did afterward as they thought fit.
+
+“Nor would I be here mistaken, as if, by affirming the universities to
+be, in order both to religion and government, of absolute necessity, I
+declared them or the ministry in any wise fit to be trusted, so far
+as to exercise any power not derived from the civil magistrate in the
+administration of either, if the Jewish religion were directed and
+established by Moses, it was directed and established by the civil
+magistrate; or if Moses exercised this administration as a prophet, the
+same prophet did invest with the same administration the Sanhedrim, and
+not the priests; and so does our commonwealth the Senate, and not the
+clergy. They who had the supreme administration or government of
+the national religion in Athens, were the first Archon, the rex
+sacrificulus, or high-priest, and a polemarch, which magistrates
+were ordained or elected by the holding up of hands in the church,
+congregation, or comitia of the people. The religion of Lacedaemon was
+governed by the kings, who were also high-priests, and officiated at the
+sacrifice; these had power to substitute their pythii, ambassadors,
+or nuncios, by which, not without concurrence of the Senate, they
+held intelligence with the oracle of Apollo at Delphos. And the
+ecclesiastical part of the Commonwealth of Rome was governed by the
+pontifex maximus, the rex sacrificulus, and the Flamens, all ordained
+or elected by the people, the pontifex by the tribes, the King by the
+centuries, and the Flamens by the parishes.
+
+“I do not mind you of these things, as if, for the matter, there were
+any parallel to be drawn out of their superstitions to our religion,
+but to show that for the manner, ancient prudence is as well a rule in
+divine as human things; nay, and such a one as the apostles themselves,
+ordaining elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation, have
+exactly followed; for some of the congregations where they thus ordained
+elders were those of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, the countries of
+Lycaona, Pisidia, Pamphilia, Perga, with Attalia. Now that these cities
+and countries, when the Romans propagated their empire into Asia, were
+found most of them commonwealths, and that many of the rest were endued
+with like power, so that the people living under the protection of the
+Roman emperors continued to elect their own magistrates, is so known
+a thing, that I wonder whence it is that men, quite contrary to the
+universal proof of these examples, will have ecclesiastical government
+to be necessarily distinct from civil power, when the right of the
+elders ordained by the holding up of hands in every congregation to
+teach the people, was plainly derived from the same civil power by which
+they ordained the rest of their magistrates. And it is not otherwise in
+our commonwealth, where the parochial congregation elects or ordains its
+pastor. To object the Commonwealth of Venice in this place, were to show
+us that it has been no otherwise but where the civil power has lost the
+liberty of her conscience by embracing popery; as also that to take away
+the liberty of conscience in this administration from the civil power,
+were a proceeding which has no other precedent than such as is popish.
+
+“Wherefore your religion is settled after the following manner: the
+universities are the seminaries of that part which is national, by which
+means others with all safety may be permitted to follow the liberty of
+their own consciences, in regard that, however they behave themselves,
+the ignorance of the unlearned in this case cannot lose your religion
+nor disturb your government, which otherwise it would most certainly do;
+and the universities with their emoluments, as also the benefices of
+the whole nation, are to be improved by such augmentations as may make
+a very decent and comfortable subsistence for the ministry, which is
+neither to be allowed synods nor assemblies, except upon the occasion
+shown in the universities, when they are consulted by the Council
+of State, and suffered to meddle with affairs of religion, nor to be
+capable of any other public preferment whatsoever; by which means the
+interest of the learned can never come to corrupt your religion, nor
+disturb your government, which otherwise it would most certainly do.
+Venice, though she does not see, or cannot help the corruption of her
+religion, is yet so circumspect to avoid disturbance of her government
+in this kind, that her Council proceeds not to election of magistrates
+till it be proclaimed fora papalini, by which words such as have
+consanguinity with red hats, or relation to the Court of Rome, are
+warned to withdraw.
+
+“If a minister in Holland meddles with matter of state, the magistrate
+sends him a pair of shoes; whereupon, if he does not go, he is driven
+away from his charge. I wonder why ministers, of all men, should be
+perpetually tampering with government; first because they, as well as
+others, have it in express charge to submit themselves to the ordinances
+of men; and secondly because these ordinances of men must go upon such
+political principles as they of all others, by anything that can be
+found in their writings or actions, least understand: whence you have
+the suffrage of all nations to this sense, that an ounce of wisdom is
+worth a pound of clergy. Your greatest clerks are not your wisest men:
+and when some foul absurdity in state is committed, it is common
+with the French, and even the Italians, to call it ‘pas de clerc,’
+or ‘governo de prete.’ They may bear with men that will be preaching
+without study, while they will be governing without prudence. My lords,
+if you know not how to rule your clergy, you will most certainly, like
+a man that cannot rule his wife, have neither quiet at home nor honor
+abroad. Their honest vocation is to teach your children at the schools
+and the universities, and the people in the parishes, and yours is
+concerned to see that they do not play the shrews, of which parts
+does consist the education of your commonwealth, so far as it regards
+religion.
+
+“To justice, or that part of it which is commonly executive, answers the
+education of the inns of court and chancery. Upon which to philosophize,
+requires a public kind of learning that I have not. But they who take
+upon them any profession proper to the educations mentioned--that is,
+theology, physic, or law--are not at leisure for the essays.
+Wherefore the essays, being degrees whereby the youth commence for all
+magistracies, offices, and honors in the parish, hundred, tribe, Senate,
+or prerogative; divines, physicians, and lawyers not taking these
+degrees, exclude themselves from all such magistracies, offices, and
+honors. And whereas lawyers are likest to exact further reason for
+this, they (growing up from the most gainful art at the bar to those
+magistracies upon the bench which are continually appropriated to
+themselves, and not only endowed with the greatest revenues, but also
+held for life) have the least reason of all the rest to pretend to
+any other, especially in an equal commonwealth, where accumulation of
+magistracy or to take a person engaged by his profit to the laws, as
+they stand, into the power, which is legislative, and which should keep
+them to what they were, or ought to he, were a solecism in prudence.
+It is true that the legislative power may have need of advice and
+assistance from the executive magistracy, or such as are learned in
+the law; for which cause the judges are, as they have heretofore been,
+assistants in the Senate. Nor, however it came about, can I see any
+reason why a judge, being but an assistant or lawyer, should be member
+of a legislative council.
+
+“I deny not that the Roman patricians were all patrons, and that the
+whole people were clients, some to one family and some to another,
+by which means they had their causes pleaded and defended in some
+appearance gratis; for the patron took no money, though if he had a
+daughter to marry, his clients were to pay her portion, nor was this so
+great a grievance. But if the client accused his patron, gave testimony
+or suffrage against him, it was a crime of such a nature that any man
+might lawfully kill him as a traitor; and this, as being the nerve of
+the optimacy, was a great cause of ruin to that commonwealth; for
+when the people would carry anything that pleased not the Senate, the
+senators were ill provided if they could not intercede-that is, oppose
+it by their clients; with whom, to vote otherwise than they pleased,
+was the highest crime. The observation of this bond till the time of the
+Gracchi--that is to say, till it was too late, or to no purpose to break
+it--was the cause why, in all the former heats and disputes that had
+happened between the Senate and the people, it never came to blows,
+which indeed was good; but withal, the people could have no remedy,
+which was certainly evil. Wherefore I am of opinion that a senator
+ought not to be a patron or advocate, nor a patron or advocate to be a
+senator; for if his practice be gratis it debauches the people, and if
+it be mercenary it debauches himself: take it which way you will, when
+he should be making of laws, he will be knitting of nets.
+
+“Lycurgus, as I said, by being a traveller became a legislator, but in
+times when prudence was another thing. Nevertheless we may not shut
+out this part of education in a commonwealth, which will be herself
+a traveller; for those of this make have seen the world, especially
+because this is certain (though it be not regarded in our times, when
+things being left to take their chance, it fares with us accordingly)
+that no man can be a politician except he be first a historian or a
+traveller; for except he can see what must be, or what may be, he is no
+politician. Now if he has no knowledge in history he cannot tell what
+has been, and if he has not been a traveller, he cannot tell what is;
+but he that neither knows what has been, nor what is, can never tell
+what must be, or what may be. Furthermore, the embassies-in-ordinary by
+our constitution are the prizes of young men, more especially such as
+have been travellers. Wherefore they of these inclinations, having leave
+of the censors, owe them an account of their time, and cannot choose but
+lay it out with some ambition of praise or reward, where both are open,
+whence you will have eyes abroad, and better choice of public ministers,
+your gallants showing themselves not more to the ladies at their balls
+than to your commonwealth at her Academy when they return from their
+travels.
+
+“But this commonwealth being constituted more especially of two
+elements, arms and councils, drives by a natural instinct at courage and
+wisdom; which he who has attained is arrived at the perfection of human
+nature. It is true that these virtues must have some natural root in him
+that is capable of them; but this amounts not to so great a matter
+as some will have it. For if poverty makes an industrious, a moderate
+estate a temperate, and a lavish fortune a wanton man, and this be
+the common course of things, wisdom then is rather of necessity than
+inclination. And that an army which was meditating upon flight, has been
+brought by despair to win the field, is so far from being strange,
+that like causes will evermore produce like effects. Wherefore this
+commonwealth drives her citizens like wedges; there is no way with them
+but thorough, nor end but that glory whereof man is capable by art or
+nature. That the genius of the Roman families commonly preserved itself
+throughout the line (as to instance in some, the Manlii were still
+severe, the Publicolae lovers, and the Appii haters of the people) is
+attributed by Machiavel to their education; nor, if interest might add
+to the reason why the genius of a patrician was one thing, and that of
+a plebeian another, is the like so apparent between different nations,
+who, according to their different educations, have yet as different
+manners. It was anciently noted, and long confirmed by the actions of
+the French, that in their first assaults their courage was more
+than that of men, and for the rest less than that of women, which
+nevertheless, through the amendment of their discipline, we see now to
+be otherwise. I will not say but that some man or nation upon an equal
+improvement of this kind may be lighter than some other; but certainly
+education is the scale without which no man or nation can truly know
+his or her own weight or value. By our histories we can tell when one
+Marpesian would have beaten ten Oceaners, and when one Oceaner would
+have beaten ten Marpesians. Marc Antony was a Roman, but how did that
+appear in the embraces of Cleopatra? You must have some other education
+for your youth, or they, like that passage, will show better in romance
+than true story.
+
+“The custom of the Commonwealth of Rome in distributing her magistracies
+without respect of age, happened to do well in Corvinus and Scipio; for
+which cause Machiavel (with whom that which was done by Rome, and that
+which is well done, are for the most part all one) commends this course.
+Yet how much it did worse at other times, is obvious in Pompey and
+Caesar, examples by which Boccalini illustrates the prudence of Venice
+in her contrary practice, affirming it to have been no small step to the
+ruin of the Roman liberty, that these (having tasted in their youth
+of the supreme honors) had no greater in their age to hope for, but by
+perpetuating of the same in themselves; which came to blood and ended in
+tyranny. The opinion of Verulamius is safe: ‘The errors,’ says he, ‘of
+young men are the ruin of business; whereas the errors of old men amount
+but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner.’ But though
+their wisdom be little, their courage is great; wherefore (to come to
+the main education of this commonwealth) the militia of Oceana is the
+province of youth.
+
+“The distribution of this province by the essays is so fully described
+in the order, that I need repeat nothing; the order itself being but a
+repetition or copy of that original, which in ancient prudence is of all
+others the fairest, as that from whence the Commonwealth of Rome more
+particularly derived the empire of the world. And there is much more
+reason in this age, when governments are universally broken, or swerved
+from their foundations, and the people groan under tyranny, that the
+same causes (which could not be withstood when the world was full of
+popular governments) should have the like effects.
+
+“The causes in the Commonwealth of Rome, whereof the empire of the
+world was not any miraculous, but a natural (nay, I may safely say a
+necessary) consequence, are contained in that part of her discipline
+which was domestic, and in that which she exercises in her provinces or
+conquest. Of the latter I shall have better occasion to speak when we
+come to our provincial orbs; the former divided the whole people by
+tribes, amounting, as Livy and Cicero show, at their full growth to
+thirty-five, and every tribe by the sense or valuation of estates into
+five classes: for the sixth being proletary, that is the nursery, or
+such as through their poverty contributed nothing to the commonwealth
+but children, was not reckoned nor used in arms. And this is the first
+point of the militia, in which modern prudence is quite contrary to the
+ancient; for whereas we, excusing the rich and arming the poor, become
+the vassals of our servants, they, by excusing the poor and arming
+such as were rich enough to be freemen, became lords of the earth. The
+nobility and gentry of this nation, who understand so little what it is
+to be the lords of the earth that they have not been able to keep their
+own lands, will think it a strange education for their children to be
+common soldiers, and obliged to all the duties of arms; nevertheless it
+is not for four shillings a week, but to be capable of being the best
+man in the field or in the city the latter part of which consideration
+makes the common soldier herein a better man than the general of any
+monarchical army.
+
+“And whereas it may be thought that this would drink deep of noble
+blood, I dare boldly say, take the Roman nobility in the heat of their
+fiercest wars, and you shall not find such a shambles of them as has
+been made of ours by mere luxury and slothfulness; which, killing the
+body, kill the soul also: Animasque in vulnere ponunt. Whereas common
+right is that which he who stands in the vindication of, has used that
+sword of justice for which he receives the purple of magistracy. The
+glory of a man on earth can go no higher, and if he falls he rises
+again, and comes sooner to that reward which is so much higher as heaven
+is above the earth. To return to the Roman example: every class was
+divided, as has been more than once shown, into centuries, and every
+century was equally divided into youth and elders; the youth for foreign
+service, and the elders for the guard of the territory. In the first
+class were about eighteen centuries of horse, being those which, by
+the institution of Servius, were first called to the suffrage in the
+centurial assemblies. But the delectus, or levy of an army, which is the
+present business, proceeded, according to Polybius, in this manner:
+
+“Upon a war decreed, the Consuls elected four-and-twenty military
+tribunes or colonels, whereof ten, being such as had merited their tenth
+stipend, were younger officers. The tribunes being chosen, the Consuls
+appointed a day to the tribes, when those in them of military age were
+to appear at the capitol. The day being come, and the youth assembled
+accordingly, the Consuls ascended their tribunal, and the younger
+tribunes were straight divided into four parts after this manner: four
+were assigned to the first legion (a legion at the most consisted of
+6,000 foot and 300 horse), three to the second, four to the third, and
+three to the fourth. The younger tribunes being thus distributed, two of
+the elder were assigned to the first legion, three to the second, two to
+the third, and three to the fourth; and the officers of each legion thus
+assigned, having drawn the tribes by lot, and being seated according to
+their divisions at a convenient distance from each other, the tribe of
+the first lot was called, whereupon they that were of it knowing the
+business, and being prepared, presently bolted out four of their number,
+in the choice whereof such care was taken that they offered none that
+was not a citizen, no citizen that was not of the youth, no youth that
+was not of some one of the five classes, nor any one of the five classes
+that was not expert at his exercises. Moreover, they used such diligence
+in matching them for age and stature, that the officers of the legion,
+except they happened to be acquainted with the youth so bolted, were
+forced to put themselves upon fortune, while they of the first legion
+chose one, they of the second the next, they of the third another and
+the fourth youth fell to the last legion; and thus was the election (the
+legions and the tribes varying according to their lots) carried on till
+the foot were complete.
+
+“The like course with little alteration was taken by the horse officers
+till the horse also were complete. This was called giving of names,
+which the children of Israel did also by lot; and if any man refused to
+give his name, he was sold for a slave, or his estate confiscated to the
+commonwealth. ‘When Marcus Curius the Consul was forced to make a sudden
+levy, and none of the youth would give in their names, all the tribes
+being put to the lot, he commanded the first name drawn out of the urn
+of the Pollian tribe (which happened to come first) to be called; but
+the youth not answering, he ordered his goods to be sold; which was
+conformable to the law in Israel, according to which Saul took a yoke
+of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout the tribes,
+saying, ‘Whosoever comes not forth to battle after Saul and Samuel, so
+shall it be done to his oxen.’ By which you may observe also that they
+who had no cattle were not of the militia in Israel. But the age of
+the Roman youth by the Tullian law determined at thirty; and by the law
+(though it should seem by Machiavel and others that this was not
+well observed) a man could not stand for magistracy till he was miles
+emeritus, or had fulfilled the full term of his militia, which was
+complete in his tenth stipend or service, nor was he afterward obliged
+under any penalty to give his name, except the commonwealth were
+invaded, in which case the elders were as well obliged as the youth. The
+Consul might also levy milites evocatos, or soldiers, commanded men
+out of such as had served their turn, and this at his discretion. The
+legions being thus complete, were divided by two to each consul, and
+in these no man had right to serve but a Roman citizen; now because two
+legions made but a small army, the Romans added to every one of their
+arms an equal number of foot, and a double number of horse levied among
+their Latin or Italian associates; so a consular army, with the legions
+and auxiliaries, amounted to about 30,000, and whereas they commonly
+levied two such armies together, these being joined made about 60,000.
+
+“The steps whereby our militia follows the greatest captain, are the
+three essays; the first, elected by a fifth man in the parishes,
+and amounting in the whole to 100,000, choose their officers at the
+hundreds, where they fall also to their games or exercises, invited by
+handsome prizes, such as for themselves and the honor of them will be
+coveted, such as will render the hundred a place of sports, and exercise
+of arms all the year long, such as in the space of ten years will equip
+30,000 men horse and foot, with such arms for their forge, proof, and
+beauty, as (notwithstanding the argyraspides, or silver shields of
+Alexander’s guards) were never worn by so many, such as will present
+marks of virtue and direction to your general or strategus in the
+distribution of his army, which doubles the value of them to the
+proprietors, who are bound to wear them, and eases the commonwealth of
+so much charge, so many being armed already.
+
+“But here will be the objection now. How shall such a revenue be
+compassed? Fifty pounds a year in every hundred is a great deal, not so
+easily raised; men will not part with their money, nor would the sum,
+as it is proposed by the order of Pompey, rise in many years. These
+are difficulties that fit our genius exactly, and yet £1,000 in each
+hundred, once levied, establishes the revenue forever. Now the hundreds
+one with another are worth £10,000 a year dry-rent, over and above
+personal estates, which bring it to twice the value, so that a twentieth
+part of one year’s revenue of the hundred does it, if you cannot afford
+this while you pay taxes, though from henceforth they will be but small
+ones, do it when you pay none, if it be then too much for one year, do
+it in two; if it be too much for two years, do it in four. What husbands
+have we hitherto been? what is become of greater sums? My lords, if you
+should thus cast your bread upon the waters, after many days you shall
+find it; stand not huckling when you are offered corn and your money
+again in the mouth of the sack.
+
+“But to proceed: the first essay being officered at the hundreds, and
+mustered at the tribes (where they are entertained with other sports,
+which will be very fine ones), proceeds to the election of the second
+essay, or standing army of this nation, consisting of 30,000 foot and
+10,000 horse; and these, upon a war decreed, being delivered at the
+rendezvous of Oceana to the strategus, are the third essay, which
+answers to the Roman legions. But you may observe, that whereas the
+consuls elected the military tribunes, and raised commanded men out of
+the veterans at their own discretion, our polemarchs, or field officers,
+are elected by the scrutiny of the Council of War, and our veterans
+not otherwise taken on than as volunteers, and with the consent of the
+polemarchs, which may serve for the removal of certain scruples which
+might otherwise be incident in this place, though without encouragement
+by the Roman way of proceeding, much less by that which is proposed.
+But whereas the Roman legions in all amounted not in one army to above
+30,000 men, or little more, you have here 40,000; and whereas they
+added auxiliaries, it is in this regard that Marpesia will be a greater
+revenue to you than if you had the Indies; for whereas heretofore she
+has yielded you nothing but her native thistles, in ploughing out the
+rankness of her aristocracy by your agrarian, you will find her an
+inexhaustible magazine of men, and to her own advantage, who will make a
+far better account by the arms than by the pins of Poland. Wherefore as
+a consular army consisted of about an equal number of auxiliaries added
+to their legions by their Latin or Italian associates, you may add to a
+parliamentary army an equal number of Marpesians or Panopeans, as
+that colony shall hereafter be able to supply you, by which means the
+commonwealth will be able to go forth to battle with 80,000 men.
+
+“To make wars with small forces is no husbandry, but a waste, a disease,
+a lingering and painful consumption of men and money the Romans making
+theirs thick, made them short, and had little regard to money, as that
+which they who have men enough can command where it is fittest that it
+should be levied. All the ancient monarchies by this means got on wing,
+and attained to vast riches. Whereas your modern princes being dear
+purchasers of small parcels, have but empty pockets. But it may be some
+will accuse the order of rashness, in that it commits the sole conduct
+of the war to the general; and the custom of Venice by her proveditori,
+or checks upon her commanders-in-chief, may seem to be of greater
+prudence; but in this part of our government neither Venice nor any
+nation that makes use of mercenary forces is for our instruction. A
+mercenary army, with a standing general, is like the fatal sister that
+spins; but proper forces, with an annual magistrate, are like her that
+cuts the thread. Their interests are quite contrary, and yet you have a
+better proveditor than the Venetian, another strategus sitting with an
+army standing by him; whereupon that which is marching, if there were
+any probability it should, would find as little possibility that it
+could recoil, as a foreign enemy to invade you. These things considered,
+a war will appear to be of a contrary nature to that of all other
+reckonings, inasmuch as of this you must never look to have a good
+account if you be strict in imposing checks. Let a council of huntsmen,
+assembled beforehand, tell you which way the stag shall run, where you
+shall cast about at the fault, and how you shall ride to be in at the
+chase all the day; but these may as well do that, as a council of war
+direct a general. The hours that have painted wings, and of different
+colors, are his council; he must be like the eye that makes not the
+scene, but has it so soon as it changes. That in many counsellors there
+is strength, is spoken of civil administrations; as to those that are
+military, there is nothing more certain than that in many counsellors
+there is weakness. Joint commissions in military affairs, are like
+hunting your hounds in their couples. In the Attic War Cleomenes and
+Demaratus, Kings of Lacedaemon, being thus coupled, tugged one against
+another; and while they should have joined against the Persian, were the
+cause of the common calamity, whereupon that commonwealth took better
+counsel, and made a law whereby from henceforth there went at once but
+one of her kings to battle.
+
+“‘The Fidenati being in rebellion, and having slain the colony of the
+Romans, four tribunes with consular power were created by the people of
+Rome, whereof one being left for the guard of the city, the other three
+were sent against the Fidenati, who, through the division that happened
+among them, brought nothing home but dishonor, whereupon the Romans
+created the Dictator, and Livy gives his judgment in these words: “The
+three tribunes with consular power were a lesson how useless in war
+is the joint command of several generals; for each following his own
+counsels, while they all differed in their opinions, gave by this
+opportunity an advantage to the enemy.” When the consuls Quintus and
+Agrippa were sent against the AEqui, Agrippa for this reason refused
+to go with his colleague, saying: “That in the administration of great
+actions it was most safe that the chief command should be lodged in one
+person.” And if the ruin of modern armies were well considered, most of
+it would be found to have fallen upon this point, it being in this case
+far safer to trust to any one man of common prudence, than to any two or
+more together of the greatest parts.’ The consuls indeed, being equal in
+power, while one was present with the Senate, and the other in the field
+with the army, made a good balance; and this with us is exactly followed
+by the election of a new strategus upon the march of the old one.
+
+“The seven-and-twentieth order, whereby the elders in case of invasion
+are obliged to equal duty with the youth, and each upon their own
+charge, is suitable to reason (for every man defends his own estate) and
+to our copy, as in the war with the Samnites and Tuscans. ‘The Senate
+ordered a vacation to be proclaimed, and a levy to be made of all sorts
+of persons, and not only the freemen and youths were listed, but cohorts
+of the old men were likewise formed.’ This nation of all others is the
+least obnoxious to invasion. Oceana, says a French politician, is
+a beast that cannot be devoured but by herself. Nevertheless, that
+government is not perfect which is not provided at all points; and in
+this (ad triarios res rediit) the elders being such as in a martial
+state must be veterans, the commonwealth invaded gathers strength like
+Antaeus by her fall, while the whole number of the elders, consisting
+of 500,000, and the youth of as many, being brought up according to the
+order, give twelve successive battles, each battle consisting of
+80,000 men, half elders and half youth. And the commonwealth, whose
+constitution can be no stranger to any of those virtues which are to be
+acquired in human life, grows familiar with death ere she dies. If the
+hand of God be upon her for her transgressions, she shall mourn for
+her sins, and lie in the dust for her iniquities, without losing her
+manhood.
+
+     “‘Si fractus illabatur orbis,
+     Impavidam ferient ruinoe.’”
+
+The remaining part, being the constitution of the provincial orb, is
+partly civil, or consisting of the elders; and partly military, or
+consisting of the youth. The civil part of the provincial orb is
+directed by--
+
+The twenty-eighth order, “Whereby the council of a province being
+constituted of twelve knights, divided by four into three regions (for
+their term and revolution conformable to the Parliament), is perpetuated
+by the annual election at the tropic of four knights (being triennial
+magistrates) out of the region of the Senate whose term expires; and
+of one knight out of the same region to be strategus or general of the
+province, which magistracy is annual. The strategus or magistrate thus
+chosen shall be as well president of the provincial council with power
+to propose to the same, as general of the army. The council for the
+rest shall elect weekly provosts, having any two of them also right
+to propose after the manner of the senatorian councils of Oceana. And
+whereas all provincial councils are members of the Council of State,
+they may and ought to keep diligent correspondence with the same, which
+is to be done after this manner: Any opinion or opinions legitimately
+proposed and debated at a provincial council, being thereupon signed
+by the strategus or any two of the provosts, may be transmitted to the
+Council of State in Oceana; and the Council of State proceeding upon
+the same in their natural course (whether by their own power, if it be
+a matter within their instructions; or by authority of the Senate
+thereupon consulted, if it be a matter of state which is not in their
+instructions; or by authority of the Senate and command of the people,
+if it be a matter of law, as for the levies of men or money upon common
+use and safety) shall return such answers, advice, or orders as in any
+of the ways mentioned shall be determined upon the case.
+
+“The provincial councils of Marpesia and Panopea respectively shall take
+special care that the agrarian laws, as also all other laws that be
+or shall from time to time be enacted by the Parliament of Oceana, for
+either of them, be duly put in execution; they shall manage and receive
+the customs of either nation for the shipping of Oceana, being the
+common guard; they shall have a care that moderate and sufficient
+pay upon the respective province be duly raised for the support and
+maintenance of the officers and soldiers, or army of the same, in the
+most effectual, constant, and convenient way; they shall receive
+the regalia, or public revenues of those nations, out of which every
+councillor shall have for his term, and to his proper use, the sum of
+£500 per annum, and the strategus £500 as president, beside his pay as
+general, which shall be £1,000, the reminder to go to the use of the
+knights and deputies of the respective provinces, to be paid, if it
+will reach, according to the rates of Oceana; if not, by an equal
+distribution, respectively, or the overplus, if there be any, to be
+returned to the Treasury of Oceana. They shall manage the lands (if
+there be any such held in either of the provinces by the commonwealth
+of Oceana, in dominion) and return the rents into the Exchequer. If the
+commonwealth comes to be possessed of richer provinces, the pay of
+the general or strategus, and of the councils, may be respectively
+increased. The people for the rest shall elect their own magistrates,
+and be governed by their own laws, having power also to appeal from
+their native or provincial magistrates, if they please, to the people of
+Oceana. And whereas there may be such as receiving injury, are not
+able to prosecute their appeals at so great a distance, eight
+sergeants-at-law, being sworn by the commissioners of the seal, shall
+be sent by four into each province once in two years; who, dividing
+the same by circuits, shall hear such causes, and having gathered and
+introduced them, shall return to the several appellants, gratis, the
+determinations and decrees of the people in their several cases.
+
+“The term of a knight in a provincial orb, as to domestic magistracies,
+shall be esteemed a vacation, and no bar to present election to any
+other honor, his provincial magistracy being expired.
+
+“The quorum of a provincial council, as also of every other council
+or assembly in Oceana, shall in time of health consist of two parts in
+three of the whole number proper to that council or assembly; and in a
+time of sickness, of one part in three; but of the Senate there can be
+no quorum without three of the signory, nor of a council without two of
+the provosts.”
+
+The civil part of the provincial orb being declared by the foregoing
+order, the military part of the same is constituted by--
+
+The twenty-ninth order, “Whereby the stratiots of the third essay having
+drawn the gold balls marked with the letter M, and being ten horse and
+fifty foot in a tribe, that is to say, 500 horse and 2,500 foot in
+all, the tribes shall be delivered by the respective conductors to
+the provincial strategus or general, at such a time and place, or
+rendezvous, as he shall appoint by order and certificate of his
+election, and the strategus having received the horse and foot
+mentioned, which are the third classes of his provincial guard or army,
+shall forthwith lead them away to Marpesia, where the army consists of
+three classes, each class containing 3,000 men, whereof 500 are horse;
+and receiving the new strategus with the third class, the old strategus
+with the first class shall be dismissed by the provincial council. The
+same method with the stratiots of the letter P, is to be observed for
+the provincial orb of Panopea; and the commonwealth coming to acquire
+new provinces, the Senate and the people may erect new orbs in like
+manner, consisting of greater or less numbers, according as is required
+by the respective occasion. If a stratiot has once served his term in a
+provincial orb, and happens afterward to draw the letter of a province
+at the election of the second essay, he may refuse his lot; and if he
+refuses it, the censor of that urn shall cause the files balloting at
+the same to make a halt; and if the stratiot produces the certificate of
+his strategus or general, that he has served his time accordingly, the
+censor throwing the ball that he drew into the urn again, and taking out
+a blank, shall dismiss the youth, and cause the ballot to proceed.”
+
+To perfect the whole structure of this commonwealth, some directions are
+given to the third essay, or army marching, in--
+
+The thirtieth order. “‘When thou goest to battle against thy enemies,
+and seest horses and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not
+afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is he that goes with thee to fight
+for thee against thy enemies. And when thou dividest the spoil, it shall
+be as a statute and an ordinance to thee, that as his part is that goes
+down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarries by the stuff;
+that is (as to the commonwealth of Oceana) the spoil takin of the enemy
+(except clothes, arms, horses, ammunition, and victuals, to be divided
+to the soldiery by the strategus and the polemarchs upon the place
+according to their discretion) shall be delivered to four commissaries
+of the spoils elected and sworn by the Council of War, which
+commissaries shall be allowed shipping by the State, and convoys
+according as occasion shall require by the strategus, to the end that
+having a bill of lading signed by three or more of the polemarchs,
+they may ship and bring, or cause such spoils to be brought to the
+prize-office in Oceana, where they shall be sold, and the profit arising
+by such spoils shall be divided into three parts, whereof one shall go
+to the Treasury, another shall be paid to the soldiery of this nation,
+and a third to the auxiliaries at their return from their service,
+provided that the said auxiliaries be equal in number to the proper
+forces of this nation, otherwise their share shall be so much less as
+they themselves are fewer in number; the rest of the two-thirds to go
+to the officers and soldiers of the proper forces. And the spoils so
+divided to the proper forces, shall be subdivided into three equal
+parts, whereof one shall go to the officers, and two to the common
+soldiers, the like for the auxiliaries. And the share allotted the
+officers shall be divided into four equal parts, whereof one shall go to
+the strategus, another to the polemarchs, a third to the colonels, and a
+fourth to the captains, cornets, ensigns, and under-officers,
+receiving their share of the spoil as common soldiers, the like for the
+auxiliaries. And this upon pain, in the case of failure, of what the
+people of Oceana (to whom the cognizance of peculation or crimes of this
+nature is properly appertaining) shall adjudge or decree.”
+
+Upon these three last orders the Archon seemed to be haranguing at the
+head of his army in this manner:
+
+“MY DEAR LORDS AND EXCELLENT PATRIOTS:
+
+“A government of this make is a commonwealth for increase. Of those for
+preservation, the inconveniences and frailties have been shown: their
+roots are narrow, such as do not run, have no fibres; their tops weak
+and dangerously exposed to the weather, except you chance to find
+one, as Venice, planted in a flower-pot, and if she grows, she grows
+topheavy, and falls, too. But you cannot plant an oak in a flowerpot;
+she must have earth for her root, and heaven for her branches.
+
+“‘Imperium Oceano, famam quoe terminet astris.’
+
+“Rome was said to be broken by her own weight, but poetically; for that
+weight by which she was pretended to be ruined was supported in her
+emperors by a far slighter foundation. And in the common experience of
+good architecture, there is nothing more known than that buildings stand
+the firmer and the longer for their own weight, nor ever swerve through
+any other internal cause than that their materials are corruptible; but
+the people never die, nor, as a political body, are subject to any other
+corruption than that which derives from their government. Unless a man
+will deny the chain of causes, in which he denies God, he must also
+acknowledge the chain of effects; wherefore there can be no effect in
+nature that is not from the first cause, and those successive links of
+the chain without which it could not have been. Now except a man can
+show the contrary in a commonwealth, if there be no cause of corruption
+in the first make of it, there can never be any such effect. Let no
+man’s superstition impose profaneness upon this assertion; for as man is
+sinful, but yet the universe is perfect, so may the citizen be sinful,
+and yet the commonwealth be perfect. And as man, seeing the world is
+perfect, can never commit any such sin as shall render it imperfect,
+or bring it to a natural dissolution, so the citizen, where the
+commonwealth is perfect, can never commit any such crime as will render
+it imperfect, or bring it to a natural dissolution.
+
+“To come to experience: Venice, notwithstanding we have found some flaws
+in it, is the only commonwealth in the make whereof no man can find
+a cause of dissolution; for which reason we behold her (though she
+consists of men that are not without sin) at this day with 1,000 years
+upon her back, yet for any internal cause, as young, as fresh, and free
+from decay, or any appearance of it, as she was born; but whatever in
+nature is not sensible of decay by the course of 1,000 years, is capable
+of the whole age of nature; by which calculation, for any check that
+I am able to give myself, a commonwealth, rightly ordered, may for any
+internal causes be as immortal or long-lived as the world. But if
+this be true, those commonwealths that are naturally fallen, must have
+derived their ruin from the rise of them. Israel and Athens died, not
+natural, but violent deaths, in which manner the world itself is to
+die. We are speaking of those causes of dissolution which are natural to
+government; and they are but two, either contradiction or inequality. If
+a commonwealth be a contradiction, she must needs destroy herself; and
+if she be unequal, it tends to strife, and strife to ruin. By the former
+of these fell Lacedaemon, by the latter Rome. Lacedaemon being made
+altogether for war, and yet not for increase, her natural progress
+became her natural dissolution, and the building of her own victorious
+hand too heavy for her foundation, so that she fell, indeed, by her own
+weight. But Rome perished through her native inequality, which how it
+inveterated the bosoms of the Senate and the people each against other,
+and even to death, has been shown at large.
+
+“Look well to it, my lords, for if there be a contradiction or
+inequality in your commonwealth, it must fall; but if it has neither of
+these, it has no principle of mortality. Do not think me impudent; if
+this be truth, I shall commit a gross indiscretion in concealing it.
+Sure I am that Machiavel is for the immortality of a commonwealth upon
+far weaker principles. ‘If a commonwealth,’ says he, ‘were so happy
+as to be provided often with men, that, when she is swerving from
+her principles, should reduce her to her institution, she would be
+immortal.’ But a commonwealth, as we have demonstrated, swerves not from
+her principles, but by and through her institution; if she brought no
+bias into the world with her, her course for any internal cause must
+be straightforward, as we see is that of Venice. She cannot turn to the
+right hand nor to the left, but by some rub, which is not an internal,
+but external, cause: against such she can be no way fortified but
+through her situation, as is Venice, or through her militia, as was
+Rome, by which examples a commonwealth may be secure of those also.
+Think me not vain, for I cannot conceal my opinion here; a commonwealth
+that is rightly instituted can never swerve, nor one that is not
+rightly instituted be secured from swerving by reduction to her
+first principles; wherefore it is no less apparent in this place that
+Machiavel understood not a commonwealth as to the whole piece, than
+where having told you that a tribune, or any other citizen of Rome,
+might propose a law to the people, and debate it with them, he adds,
+‘this order was good while the people were good; but when the people
+became evil, it became most pernicious.’ As if this order (through
+which, with the like, the people most apparently became evil) could ever
+have been good, or that the people or the commonwealth could ever have
+become good, by being reduced to such principles as were the original of
+their evil.
+
+“The disease of Rome was, as has been shown, from the native inequality
+of her balance, and no otherwise from the empire of the world, than as,
+this falling into one scale, that of the nobility (an evil in such a
+fabric inevitable) kicked out the people. Wherefore a man that could
+have made her to throw away the empire of the world, might in that have
+reduced her to her principles, and yet have been so far from rendering
+her immortal that, going no further, he should never have cured her. But
+your commonwealth is founded upon an equal agrarian; and if the earth be
+given to the sons of men, this balance is the balance of justice, such a
+one as in having due regard to the different industry of different men,
+yet faithfully judges the poor’ And the king that faithfully judges
+the poor, his throne shall be established forever;, much more the
+commonwealth, seeing that equality, which is the necessary dissolution
+of monarchy, is the generation, the very life and soul, of a
+commonwealth. And now, if ever, I may be excusable, seeing my assertion,
+that the throne of a commonwealth may be established forever, is
+consonant to the holy Scriptures.
+
+“The balance of a commonwealth that is equal is of such a nature that
+whatever falls into her empire must fall equally; and if the whole
+earth falls into your scales, it must fall equally, and so you may be
+a greater people and yet not swerve from your principles one hair. Nay,
+you will be so far from that that you must bring the world in such a
+case to your balance, even to the balance of justice. But hearken, my
+lords; are we on earth, do we see the sun, or are we visiting those
+shady places which are feigned by the poets?
+
+“‘Continuo auditoe voces, vagitus et ingens.’
+
+“These Gothic empires that are yet in the world, were at the first,
+though they had legs of their own, but a heavy and unwieldy burden; but
+their foundations being now broken, the iron of them enters even into
+the souls of the oppressed; and hear the voice of their comforters:
+‘My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with
+scorpions.’ Hearken, I say, if thy brother cries to thee in affliction,
+wilt thou not hear him? This is a commonwealth of the fabric that has
+an open ear and a public concern; she is not made for herself only, but
+given as a magistrate of God to mankind, for the vindication of common
+right and the law of nature. Wherefore says Cicero of the like, that of
+the Romans, ‘We have rather undertaken the patronage than the empire of
+the world.’ If you, not regarding this example, like some other nations
+that are upon the point to smart for it, shall, having attained to your
+own liberty, bear the sword of your common magistracy in vain, sit still
+and fold your arms, or, which is worse, let out the blood of your people
+to tyrants, to be shed in the defence of their yokes like water, and
+so not only turn the grace of God into wantonness, but his justice into
+wormwood: I say if you do thus, you are not now making a commonwealth,
+but heaping coals of fire upon your own heads. A commonwealth of this
+make is a minister of God upon earth, to the end that the world may be
+governed with righteousness. For which cause (that I may come at length
+to our present business) the orders last rehearsed are buds of
+empire, such as with the blessing of God may spread the arms of your
+commonwealth, like a holy asylum, to the distressed world, and give the
+earth her sabbath of years, or rest from her labors, under the shadow
+of your wings. It is upon this point where the writings of Machiavel,
+having for the rest excelled all other authors, come as far to excel
+themselves.
+
+“Commonwealths, says he, have had three ways of propagating themselves:
+One after the manner of monarchies, by imposing the yoke, which was the
+way of Athens, and, toward the latter times, of Lacedaemon; another by
+equal leagues, which is the way of Switzerland (I shall add of Holland,
+though since his time); a third by unequal leagues, which, to the shame
+of the world, was never practised, nay, nor so much as seen or minded,
+by any other commonwealth but that only of Rome. They will each of them,
+either for caution or imitation, be worthy to be well weighed, which
+is the proper work of this place. Athens and Lacedaemon have been the
+occasion of great scandal to the world, in two, or at least one of two
+regards: the first, their emulation, which involved Greece in perpetual
+wars; the second, their way of propagation, which by imposing yokes upon
+others, was plainly contradictory to their own principles.
+
+“For the first: governments, be they of what kind soever, if they be
+planted too close, are like trees, that impatient in their growth to
+have it hindered, eat out one another. It was not unknown to these in
+speculation, or, if you read the story of Agesilaus, in action, that
+either of them with 30,000 men might have mastered the East; and
+certainly, if the one had not stood in the other’s light, Alexander had
+come too late to that end, which was the means (and would be if they
+were to live again) of ruin, at least to one of them; wherefore with any
+man that understands the nature of government this is excusable. So
+it was between Oceana and Marpesia; so it is between France and Spain,
+though less excusable; and so it ever will be in the like cases. But to
+come to the second occasion of scandal by them given, which was in the
+way of their propagation, it is not excusable; for they brought their
+confederates under bondage, by which means Athens gave occasion of
+the Peloponnesian War, the wound of which she died stinking, when
+Lacedaemon, taking the same infection from her carcass, soon followed.
+
+“Wherefore, my lords, let these be warnings to you not to make that
+liberty which God has given you a snare to others in practising this
+kind of enlargement to yourselves.
+
+“The second way of propagation or enlargement used by commonwealths is
+that of Switzerland and Holland, equal leagues; this, though it be
+not otherwise mischievous, is useless to the world, and dangerous to
+themselves: useless to the world, for as the former governments were
+storks, these are blocks, have no sense of honor, or concern in the
+sufferings of others. But as the AEtolians, a state of the like fabric,
+were reproached by Philip of Macedon to prostitute themselves; by
+letting out their arms to the lusts of others, while they leave their
+own liberty barren and without legitimate issue; so I do not defame
+these people; the Switzer for valor has no superior, the Hollander for
+industry no equal; but themselves in the meantime shall so much the less
+excuse their governments, seeing that to the Switz it is well enough
+known that the ensigns of his commonwealth have no other motto than in
+te converte manus; and that of the Hollander, though he sweats more gold
+than the Spaniard digs, lets him languish in debt; for she herself lives
+upon charity. These are dangerous to themselves, precarious governments,
+such as do not command, but beg their bread from province to province,
+in coats that being patched up of all colors are in effect of none. That
+their cantons and provinces are so many arrows, is good; but they are so
+many bows too, which is naught.
+
+“Like to these was the commonwealth of the ancient Tuscans, hung
+together like bobbins, without a hand to weave with them; therefore
+easily overcome by the Romans, though at that time, for number, a far
+less considerable people. If your liberty be not a root that grows,
+it will be a branch that withers, which consideration brings me to the
+paragon, the Commonwealth of Rome.
+
+“The ways and means whereby the Romans acquired the patronage, and in
+that the empire, of the world were different, according to the different
+condition of their commonwealth in her rise and in her growth: in her
+rise she proceeded rather by colonies, in her growth by unequal leagues.
+Colonies without the bounds of Italy she planted none (such dispersion
+of the Roman citizen as to plant him in foreign parts, till the contrary
+interest of the emperors brought in that practice, was unlawful), nor
+did she ever demolish any city within that compass, or divest it of
+liberty; but whereas the most of them were commonwealths, stirred ‘up by
+emulation of her great felicity to war against her, if she overcame
+any, she confiscated some part of their lands that were the greatest
+incendiaries, or causes of the trouble, upon which she planted colonies
+of her own people, preserving the rest of their lands and liberties for
+the natives or inhabitants. By this way of proceeding, that I may be as
+brief as possible, she did many and great things. For in confirming
+of liberty, she propagated her empire; in holding the inhabitants from
+rebellion, she put a curb upon the incursion of enemies; in exonerating
+herself of the poorer sort, she multiplied her citizens; in rewarding
+her veterans, she rendered the rest less seditious; and in acquiring to
+herself the reverence of a common parent, she from time to time became
+the mother of new-born cities.
+
+“In her further growth the way of her propagation went more upon
+leagues, which for the first division were of two kinds, social and
+provincial.
+
+“Again, social leagues, or leagues of society, were of two kinds:
+
+“The first called Latinity or Latin, the second Italian right.” The
+league between the Romans and the Latins, or Latin right, approached
+nearest to jus quiritium, or the right of a native Roman. The man or
+the city that was honored with this right, was civitate donatus cum
+suffragio, adopted a citizen of Rome, with the right of giving suffrage
+with the people in some cases, as those of conformation of law, or
+determination in judicature, if both the Consuls were agreed, not
+otherwise; wherefore that coming to little, the greatest and most
+peculiar part of this privilege was, that who had borne magistracy (at
+least that of oedile or quoestor) in any Latin city, was by consequence
+of the same a citizen of Rome at all points.
+
+“Italian right was also a donation of the city, but without suffrage:
+they who were in either of these leagues, were governed by their own
+laws and magistrates, having all the rights, as to liberty, of citizens
+of Rome, yielding and praying to the commonwealth as head of the league,
+and having in the conduct of all affairs appertaining to the common
+cause, such aid of men and money as was particularly agreed to upon the
+merit of the cause, and specified in their respective leagues, whence
+such leagues came to be called equal or unequal accordingly.
+
+“Provincial leagues were of different extension, according to the merit
+and capacity of a conquered people; but they were all of one kind, for
+every province was governed by Roman magistrates, as a praetor or a
+proconsul, according to the dignity of the province, for the civil
+administration and conduct of the provincial army, and a quaestor for
+the gathering of the public revenue, from which magistrates a province
+might appeal to Rome.
+
+“For the better understanding of these particulars, I shall exemplify in
+as many of them as is needful, and first in Macedon:
+
+“The Macedonians were thrice conquered by the Romans, first under the
+conduct of Titus Quintus Flaminius; secondly, under that of Lucius
+AEmilius Paulus; and, thirdly under that of Quintus Caecilius Metellus,
+thence called Macedonicus.
+
+“For the first time Philip of Macedon, who (possessed of Acrocorinthus)
+boasted no less than was true, that he had Greece in fetters, being
+overcome by Flaminius, had his kingdom restored to him, upon condition
+that he should immediately set all the cities which he held in Greece
+and in Asia at liberty, and that he should not make war out of Macedon
+but by leave of the Senate of Rome; which Philip (having no other way to
+save anything) agreed should be done accordingly.
+
+“The Grecians being at this time assembled at the isthmian games, where
+the concourse was mighty great, a crier, appointed to the office by
+Flaminius, was heard among them proclaiming all Greece to be free;
+to which the people being amazed at so hopeless a thing, gave little
+credit, till they received such testimony of the truth as put it past
+all doubt, whereupon they fell immediately on running to the proconsul
+with flowers and garlands, and such violent expressions of their
+admiration and joy, as, if Flaminius, a young man, about thirty-three,
+had not also been very strong, he must have died of no other death than
+their kindness, while everyone striving to touch his hand, they bore him
+up and down the field with an unruly throng, full of such ejaculations
+as these: How is there a people in the world, that at their own charge,
+at their own peril, will fight for the liberty of another? Did they
+live at the next door to the fire? Or what kind of men are these, whose
+business it is to pass the seas, that the world may be governed with
+righteousness? The cities of Greece and of Asia shake off their iron
+fetters at the voice of a crier was it madness to imagine such a thing,
+and is it done? O virtue! O felicity! O fame!
+
+“In this example your lordships have a donation of liberty or of Italian
+right to a people, by restitution to what they had formerly enjoyed; and
+some particular men, families or cities, according to their merit of the
+Romans, if not upon this, yet upon the like occasions, were gratified
+with Latinity.” But Philip’s share by this means did not please him,
+wherefore the league was broken by his son Perseus; and the Macedonians
+thereupon for the second time conquered by AEmilius Paulus, their King
+taken, and they some time after the victory summoned to the tribunal of
+the general; where, remembering how little hope they ought to have of
+pardon, they expected some dreadful sentence: when AEmilius, in the
+first place, declared the Macedonians to be free, in the full possession
+of their lands, goods, and laws, with right to elect annual magistrates,
+yielding and paying to the people of Rome one-half of the tribute which
+they were accustomed to pay to their own kings. This done he went on,
+making so skilful a division of the country in order to the methodizing
+of the people, and casting them into the form of popular government,
+that the Macedonians, being first surprised with the virtue of the
+Romans, began now to alter the scene of their admiration, that a
+stranger should do such things for them in their own country, and with
+such facility as they had never so much as once imagined to be possible.
+Nor was this all; for AEmilius, as if not dictating to conquered
+enemies, but to some well-deserving friends, gave them in the last place
+laws so suitable, and contrived with such care and prudence, that long
+use and experience (the only correctness of works of this nature) could
+never find a fault in them.
+
+“In this example you have a donation of liberty, or of Italian right,
+to a people that had not tasted of it before, but were now taught how to
+use it.
+
+“My lords, the royalists should compare what we are doing, and we what
+hitherto we have done for them, with this example. It is a shame that
+while we are boasting up ourselves above all others, we should yet be
+so far from imitating such examples as these, that we do not so much as
+understand that if government be the parent of manners, where there are
+no heroic virtues, there is no heroic government.
+
+“But the Macedonians rebelling, at the name of a false Philip, the third
+time against the Romans, were by them judged incapable of liberty, and
+reduced by Metellus to a province.
+
+“Now whereas it remains that I explain the nature of a province, I shall
+rather choose that of Sicily, because, having been the first which the
+Romans made, the descriptions of the rest relate to it.
+
+“‘We have so received the Sicilian cities into amity,’ says Cicero,
+‘that they enjoy their ancient laws; and upon no other condition than of
+the same obedience to the people of Rome, which they formerly yielded to
+their own princes or superiors.’ So the Sicilians, whereas they had been
+parcelled out to divers princes, and into divers states (the cause of
+perpetual wars, whereby, hewing one another down, they became sacrifices
+to the ambition of their neighbors, or of some invader), were now
+received at the old rate into a new protection which could hold them,
+and in which no enemy durst touch them; nor was it possible, as the
+case then stood, for the Sicilians to receive, or for the Romans to give
+more.
+
+“A Roman province is defined by Sigonius as a region having provincial
+right. Provincial right in general was to be governed by a Roman
+praetor, or consul, in matters at least of state, and of the militia;
+and by a quaeStor, whose office it was to receive the public revenue.
+Provincial right in particular was different, according to the different
+leagues or agreements between the commonwealth, and the people reduced
+into a province. ‘Siculi hoc jure sunt, ut quod civis cum cive agat,
+domi certet suis legibus; quod siculus cum siculo non ejusdem civitatis,
+ut de eo proetor judices, ex P. Rupilii decreto, sortiatur. Quod
+privatus a populo petit, aut populus a privato, senatus ex aliqua
+civitate, qui judicet, datur, cui alternoe civitates rejectoe sunt. Quod
+vivis Romanus a siculo petit, siculus judex datur quod siculus a cive
+Romano, civis Romanus datur. Coeterarum rerum selecti judices ex civium
+Romanorum conventu proponi solent. Inter aratores et decumanos lege
+frumentaria, quam Hieronicam appellant, judicia fiunt.’ Because the
+rest would oblige me to a discourse too large for this place, it shall
+suffice that I have showed you how it was in Sicily.
+
+“My lords, upon the fabric of your provincial orb I shall not hold you;
+because it is sufficiently described in the order, and I cannot believe
+that you think it inferior to the way of a praetor and a quaestor. But
+whereas the provincial way of the Roman Commonwealth was that whereby it
+held the empire of the world, and your orbs are intended to be capable
+at least of the like use, there may arise many controversies, as whether
+such a course be lawful, whether it be feasible; and, seeing that the
+Romans were ruined upon that point, whether it would not be to the
+destruction of the commonwealth.
+
+“For the first: if the empire of a commonwealth be an occasion to ask
+whether it be lawful for a commonwealth to aspire to the empire of the
+world, it is to ask whether it be lawful for it to do its duty, or to
+put the world into a better condition than it was before.
+
+“And to ask whether this be feasible, is to ask why the Oceaner, being
+under the like administration of government, may not do as much with
+200 men as the Roman did with 100; for comparing their commonwealths in
+their rise, the difference is yet greater: now that Rome (seris avaritia
+luxuriaque), through the natural thirst of her constitution, came at
+length with the fulness of her provinces to burst herself, this is no
+otherwise to be understood than as when a man that from his own evil
+constitution had contracted the dropsy, dies with drinking, it being
+apparent that in case her agrarian had held, she could never have been
+thus ruined, and I have already demonstrated that your agrarian being
+once poised, can never break or swerve.
+
+“Wherefore to draw toward some conclusion of this discourse, let me
+inculcate the use, by selecting a few considerations out of many. The
+regard had in this place to the empire of the world appertains to a
+well-ordered commonwealth, more especially for two reasons:
+
+“1. The facility of this great enterprise, by a government of the model
+proposed;
+
+“2. The danger that you would run in the omission of such a government.
+
+“The facility of this enterprise, upon the grounds already laid, must
+needs be great, forasmuch as the empire of the world has been, both in
+reason and experience, the necessary consequence of a commonwealth of
+this nature only; for though it has been given to all kinds to drive at
+it, since that of Athens or Lacedaemon, if the one had not hung in the
+other’s light, might have gained it, yet could neither of them have held
+it; not Athens, through the manner of her propagation, which, being
+by downright tyranny, could not preserve what she had, nor Lacedaemon,
+because she was overthrown by the weight of a less conquest. The
+facility then of this great enterprise being peculiar to popular
+government, I shall consider it, first, in gaining, and secondly, in
+holding.
+
+“For the former, volenti non fit injuria. It is said of the people under
+Eumenes, that they would not have changed them no their subjection for
+liberty; wherefore the Romans gave disturbance. If a people be contented
+with their government, it is a certain sign that it is good, and much
+good do them with it. The sword of your magistracy is for a terror to
+them that do evil. Eumenes had the fear of God, or of the Romans, before
+his eyes; concerning such he has given you no commission.
+
+“But till we can say, here are the Romans, where is Eumenes? do not
+think that the late appearances of God to you have been altogether for
+yourselves; ‘He has surely seen the affliction of your brethren,
+and heard their cry by reason of their task masters.’ For to believe
+otherwise is not only to be mindless of his ways, but altogether deaf.
+If you have ears to hear, this is the way in which you will certainly be
+called upon; for if, while there is no stock of liberty no sanctuary
+of the afflicted, it be a common object to behold a people casting
+themselves out of the pan of one prince into the fire of another, what
+can you think, but if the world should see the Roman ‘eagle again, she
+would renew her age and her flight? Nor did ever she spread her wings
+with better omen than will be read in your ensigns; which if, called in
+by an oppressed people they interpose between them and their yoke, the
+people themselves must either do nothing in the meantime or have no more
+pains to take for their wished fruit than to gather it, if that be not
+likewise done for them. Wherefore this must needs be easy, and yet you
+have a greater facility than is in the arm of flesh; for if the cause of
+mankind be the cause of God, the Lord of Hosts will be your captain, and
+you shall be a praise to the whole earth.
+
+“The facility of holding is in the way of your propagation; if you take
+that of Athens and Lacedemon, you shall rain snares, but either catch or
+hold nothing. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: if setting up
+for liberty you impose yokes, he will infallibly destroy you. On the
+other side, to go about a work of this nature by a league without a
+head, is to abdicate that magistracy wherewith he has not only endued
+you, but whereof he will require an account of you; for, ‘cursed is he
+that does the work of the Lord negligently.’ Wherefore you are to take
+the course of Rome: if you have subdued a nation that is capable of
+liberty, you shall make them a present of it, as did Flaminius to
+Greece, and AEmilius to Macedon, reserving to yourselves some part of
+that revenue which was legally paid to the former government, together
+with the right of being head of the league, which includes such levies
+of men and money as shall be necessary for the carrying on of the public
+work.
+
+“For if a people have by your means attained to freedom, they owe both
+to the cause and you such aid as may propagate the like fruit to the
+rest of the world. But whereas every nation is not capable of her
+liberty to this degree, lest you be put to doing and undoing of things,
+as the Romans were in Macedon, you shall diligently observe what nation
+is fit for her liberty to this degree, and what not; which is to be done
+by two marks, the first if she be willing to ‘help the Lord against the
+mighty;’ for if she has no care of the liberty of mankind she deserves
+not her own. But because in this you may be deceived by pretences,
+which, continuing for a while specious, may afterward vanish; the other
+is more certain, and that is if she be capable of an equal agrarian;
+which that it was not observed by excellent AEmilius in his donation of
+liberty, and introduction of a popular state among the Macedonians, I
+am more than moved to believe for two reasons; the first, because at the
+same time the agrarian was odious to the Roman patricians; the second,
+that the pseudo-Philip could afterward so easily recover Macedon, which
+could not have happened but by the nobility, and their impatience,
+having great estates, to be equalled with the people; for that the
+people should otherwise, at the mere sound of a name, have thrown away
+their liberty, is incredible. Wherefore be assured that the nation where
+you cannot establish an equal agrarian, is incapable of its liberty
+as to this kind of donation. For example, except the aristocracy in
+Marpesia be dissolved, neither can that people have their liberty there,
+nor you govern at home; for they continuing still liable to be sold
+by their lords to foreign princes, there will never (especially in a
+country of which there is no other profit to be made) be want of such
+merchants and drovers, while you must be the market where they are to
+receive their second payment.
+
+“Nor can the aristocracy there be dissolved but by your means, in
+relation whereto you are provided with your provincial orb; which, being
+proportioned to the measure of the nation that you have vindicated or
+conquered, will easily hold it: for there is not a people in the
+world more difficult to be held than the Marpesians, which, though by
+themselves it be ascribed to their own nature, is truly to be attributed
+to that of their country. Nevertheless, you having 9,000 men upon the
+continual guard of it, that, threatened by any sudden insurrection, have
+places of retreat, and an army of 40,000 men upon a day’s warning ready
+to march to their rescue, it is not to be rationally shown which way
+they can possibly slip out of your hands. And if a man should think that
+upon a province more remote and divided by the sea, you have not the
+like hold, he has not so well considered your wings as your talons,
+your shipping being of such a nature as makes the descent of your armies
+almost of equal facility in any country, so that what you take you hold,
+both because your militia, being already populous, will be of great
+growth in itself, and also through your confederates, by whom in taking
+and holding you are still more enabled to do both.
+
+“Nor shall you easier hold than the people under your empire or
+patronage may be held. My lords, I would not go to the door to see
+whether it be close shut; this is no underhand dealing, nor a game at
+which he shall have any advantage against you who sees your cards, but,
+on the contrary the advantage shall be your own: for with 18,000 men
+(which number I put, because it circulates your orb by the annual change
+of 6,000) having established your matters in the order shown, you will,
+be able to hold the greatest province; and 18,000 men, allowing them
+greater pay than any prince ever gave, will not stand the province in
+£1,000,000 revenue; in consideration whereof, they shall have their
+own estates free to themselves, and be governed by their own laws and
+magistrates; which, if the revenue of the province be in dry-rent (as
+there may be some that are four times as big as Oceana) £40,000,000,
+will bring it with that of industry, to speak with the least, to twice
+the value: so that the people there, who at this day are so oppressed
+that they have nothing at all whereon to live, shall for £1,000,000 paid
+to you, receive at least £79,000,000 to their proper use: in which place
+I appeal to any man, whether the empire described can be other than the
+patronage of the world.
+
+“Now if you add to the propagation of civil liberty (so natural to this
+commonwealth that it cannot be omitted) the propagation of the liberty
+of conscience, this empire, this patronage of the world, is the kingdom
+of Christ: for as the kingdom of God the Father was a commonwealth, so
+shall the kingdom of God the Son; ‘the people shall be willing in the
+day of his power.’
+
+“Having showed you in this and other places some of those inestimable
+benefits of this kind of government, together with the natural and
+facile emanation of them from their fountain, I come (lest God who
+has appeared to you, for he is the God of nature, in the glorious
+constellation of these subordinate causes, whereof we have hitherto been
+taking the true elevation, should shake off the dust of his feet against
+you) to warn you of the dangers which you, not taking the opportunity,
+will incur by omission.
+
+“Machiavel, speaking of the defect of Venice, through her want of proper
+arms, cries out, ‘This cut her wings, and spoiled her mount to heaven.’
+If you lay your commonwealth upon any other foundation than the people,
+you frustrate yourself of proper arms, and so lose the empire of the
+world; nor is this all, but some other nation will have it.
+
+“Columbus offered gold to one of your kings, through whose happy
+incredulity another prince has drunk the poison, even to the consumption
+of his people; but I do not offer you a nerve of war that is made
+of purse-strings, such a one as has drawn the face of the earth into
+convulsions, but such as is natural to her health and beauty. Look you
+to it, where there is tumbling and tossing upon the bed of sickness, it
+must end in death or recovery. Though the people of the world, in the
+dregs of the Gothic empire, be yet tumbling and tossing upon the bed of
+sickness, they cannot die; nor is there any means of recovery for them
+but by ancient prudence, whence of necessity it must come to pass that
+this drug be better known, if France, Italy, and Spain were not all
+sick, all corrupted together, there would be none of them so; for the
+sick would not be able to withstand the sound, nor the sound to preserve
+their health, without curing of the sick. The first of these nations
+(which if you stay her leisure, will in my mind be France) that recovers
+the health of ancient prudence, shall certainly govern the world; for
+what did Italy when she had it? and as you were in that, so shall you in
+the like case be reduced to a province; I do not speak at random. Italy,
+in the consulship of Lucius AEmilius Papus and Caius Attilius Regulus,
+armed, upon the Gallic tumult that then happened of herself, and without
+the aid of foreign auxiliaries, 70,000 horse and 700,000 foot; but as
+Italy is the least of those three countries in extent, so is France now
+the most populous.
+
+“‘I, decus, I, nostrum, melioribus utere fatis.’
+
+“My dear lords, Oceana is as the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the
+valley. As the lily among thorns, such is my love among the daughters.
+She is comely as the tents of Kedar, and terrible as an army with
+banners. Her neck is as the tower of David, builded for an armory,
+whereon there hang 1,000 bucklers and shields of mighty men. Let me hear
+thy voice in the morning, whom my soul loves. The south has dropped,
+and the west is breathing upon thy garden of spices. Arise, queen of the
+earth, arise, holy spouse of Jesus; for lo, the winter is past, the
+rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time for the
+singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
+land. Arise, I say, come forth, and do not tarry: ah! wherefore should
+my eyes behold thee by the rivers of Babylon, hanging thy harps upon the
+willows, thou fairest among women?
+
+“Excellent patriots, if the people be sovereign, here is that which
+establishes their prerogative; if we be sincere, here is that which
+disburdens our souls, and makes good all our engagements; if we be
+charitable, here is that which embraces all parties; if we would be
+settled, here is that which will stand, and last forever.
+
+“If our religion be anything else but a vain boast, scratching and
+defacing human nature or reason, which, being the image of God, makes
+it a kind of murder, here is that empire whence ‘justice shall run down
+like a river, and judgment like a mighty stream.’ Who is it then that
+calls us? or, what is in our way? A lion! Is it not the dragon, that old
+serpent? For what wretched shifts are these? Here is a great deal; might
+we not have some of this at one time, and some at another?
+
+“My lords, permit me to give you the sum, or brief:
+
+EPITOME OF THE WHOLE COMMONWEALTH
+
+“The centre or fundamental laws are, first, the agrarian, proportioned
+at £2,000 a year in land, lying and being within the proper territory of
+Oceana, and stating property in land at such a balance, that the power
+can never swerve out of the hands of the many.
+
+“Secondly, the ballot conveying this equal sap from the root, by an
+equal election or rotation, into the branches of magistracy or sovereign
+power.
+
+“The orbs of this commonwealth being civil, military, or provincial,
+are, as it were, cast upon this mould or centre by the divisions of
+the people; first, into citizens and servants; secondly, into youth
+and elders; thirdly, into such as have £100 a year in lands, goods, or
+moneys, who are of the horse; and such as have under, who are of the
+foot; fourthly, they are divided by their usual residence into parishes,
+hundreds, and tribes.
+
+“The civil orbs consist of the elders, and are thus created: every
+Monday next ensuing the last of December, the elders in every parish
+elect the fifth man to be a deputy, which is but half a day’s work;
+every Monday next ensuing the last of January, the deputies meet at
+their respective hundred, and elect out of their number one justice of
+the peace, one juryman, one coroner, and one high constable of the foot,
+one day’s work.
+
+“Every Monday next ensuing the last of February, the hundreds meet
+at their respective tribe, and there elect the lords high sheriff,
+lieutenant, custos rotulorum, the conductor, the two censors out of
+the horse, the magistrates of the tribe and of the hundreds, with the
+jurymen constituting the phylarch, and who assist in their respective
+offices at the assizes, hold the quarter-sessions, etc. The day
+following the tribe elects the annual galaxy, consisting of two knights
+and three deputies out of the horse, with four deputies out of the foot,
+thereby endued with power, as magistrates of the whole nation, for the
+term of three years. An officer chosen at the hundred may not be elected
+a magistrate of the tribe; but a magistrate or officer either of the
+hundred or of the tribe, being elected into the galaxy, may substitute
+any one of his office in the hundred or in own order to his magistracy
+or office in the hundred or in the tribe. This of the muster is two
+days’ work. So the body of the people is annually, at the charge of
+three days’ work and a half, in their own tribes, for the perpetuation
+of their power, receiving over and above the magistracies so divided
+among them.
+
+“Every Monday next ensuing the last of March, the knights, being 100
+in all the tribes, take their places in the Senate. The knights, having
+taken their places in the Senate, make the third region of the same, and
+the house proceeds to the senatorian elections. Senatorian elections are
+annual, biennial, or emergent.
+
+“The annual are performed by the tropic.
+
+“The tropic is a schedule consisting of two parts; the first by which
+the senatorian magistrates are elected; and the second, by which the
+senatorian councils are perpetuated.
+
+“The first part is of this tenor:
+
+     The lord strategus,
+     The lord orator,
+     The first censor,
+     The second censor,
+
+“Annual magistrates and therefore such as may be elected out of any
+region; the term of every region having at the tropic one year at the
+least unexpired.
+
+     The third commissioner of the seal,
+     The third commissioner of the Treasury.
+
+“Triennial magistrates, and therefore such as can be chosen out of the
+third region only, as that alone which has the term of three years
+unexpired.
+
+“The strategus and the orator sitting, are consuls, or presidents of the
+Senate.
+
+“The strategus marching is general of the army, in which case a new
+strategus is to be elected in his room.
+
+“The strategus sitting with six commissioners, being councillors of the
+nation, are the signory of the commonwealth.”
+
+The censors are magistrates of the ballot, presidents of the Council for
+Religion, and chancellors of the universities.
+
+“The second part of the tropic perpetuates the Council of State, by the
+election of five knights out of the first region of the Senate, to be
+the first region of that council consisting of fifteen knights, five in
+every region.
+
+“The like is done by the election of four into the Council of Religion,
+and four into the Council of Trade, out of the same region in the
+Senate; each of these councils consisting of twelve knights, four in
+every region.
+
+“But the Council of War, consisting of nine knights, three in every
+region, is elected by and out of the Council of State, as the other
+councils are elected by and out of the Senate. And if the Senate add a
+juncta of nine knights more, elected out of their own number, for the
+term of three months, the Council of War, by virtue of that addition, is
+Dictator of Oceana for the said term.
+
+“The signory jointly or severally has right of session and suffrage in
+every senatorial council, and to propose either to the Senate, or any of
+them. And every region in a council electing one weekly provost, any
+two of those provosts have power also to propose to their respective
+council, as the proper and peculiar proposers of the same, for which
+cause they hold an academy, where any man, either by word of mouth or
+writing, may propose to the proposers.
+
+“Next to the elections of the tropic is the biennial election of one
+ambassador-in-ordinary, by the ballot of the house, to the residence
+of France; at which time the resident of France removes to Spain, he
+of Spain to Venice, he of Venice to Constantinople, and he of
+Constantinople returns. So the orb of the residents is wheeled about in
+eight years, by the biennial election of one ambassador-in-ordinary.
+
+“The last kind of election is emergent. Emergent elections are made by
+the scrutiny. Election by scrutiny is when a competitor, being made by
+a council, and brought into the Senate, the Senate chooses four more
+competitors to him, and putting all five to the ballot, he who has most
+above half the suffrages is the magistrate. The polemarchs or
+field officers are chosen by the scrutiny of the Council of War; an
+ambassador-extraordinary by the scrutiny of the Council of State; the
+judges and sergeants-at-law by the scrutiny of the seal; and the barons
+and prime officers of the Exchequer, by the scrutiny of the Treasury..
+
+“The opinion or opinions that are legitimately proposed to any council
+must be debated by the same, and so many as are resolved upon the debate
+are introduced into the Senate, where they are debated and resolved, or
+rejected by the whole house; that which is resolved by the Senate is
+a decree which is good in matters of state, but no law, except it be
+proposed to and resolved by the prerogative.
+
+“The deputies of the galaxy being three horse and four foot in a tribe,
+amount in all the tribes to 150 horse and 200 foot; which, having
+entered the prerogative, and chosen their captains, cornet, and ensign
+(triennial officers), make the third class, consisting of one troop
+and one company; and so, joining with the whole prerogative, elect four
+annual magistrates, called tribunes, whereof two are of the horse and
+two of the foot. These have the command of the prerogative sessions,
+and suffrage in the Council of War, and sessions without suffrage in the
+Senate.
+
+“The Senate having passed a decree which they would propose to the
+people, cause it to be printed and published, or promulgated for the
+space of six weeks, which, being ordered, they choose their proposers.
+The proposers must be magistrates, that is, the commissioners of the
+seal, those of the Treasury, or the censors. These being chosen, desire
+the muster of the tribunes, and appoint the day. The people being
+assembled at the day appointed, and the decree proposed, that which is
+proposed by authority of the Senate, and commanded by the people, is the
+law of Oceana, or an act of Parliament.
+
+“So the Parliament of Oceana consists of the Senate proposing, and the
+people resolving.
+
+“The people or prerogative are also the supreme judicatory of this
+nation, having power of hearing and determining all causes of appeal
+from all magistrates, or courts provincial or domestic, as also to
+question any magistrate, the term of his magistracy being expired, if
+the case be introduced by the tribunes, or any one of them.
+
+“The military orbs consist of the youth, that is, such as are from
+eighteen to thirty years of age; and are created in the following
+manner:
+
+“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of December, the youth of
+every parish, assembling, elect the fifth of their number to be their
+deputies; the deputies of the youth are called stratiots, and this is
+the first essay.
+
+“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of January, the stratiots,
+assembling at the hundred, elect their captain and their ensign, and
+fall to their games and sports.
+
+“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of February the stratiots are
+received by the lord lieutenant, their commander-in-chief, with the
+conductors and the censors; and, having been disciplined and entertained
+with other games, are called to the urns, where they elect the second
+essay, consisting of 200 horse and 600 foot in a tribe; that is, of
+10,000 horse and 30,000 foot in all the tribes, which is the standing
+army of this nation, to march at any warning. They also elect at the
+same time a part of the third essay, by the mixture of balls marked with
+the letter M and the letter P, for Marpesia and Panopea; they of either
+mark being ten horse and fifty foot in a tribe, that is, 500 horse and
+2,500 foot in all the tribes, which are forthwith to march to their
+respective provinces.
+
+“But the third essay of this nation more properly so called, is when the
+strategus with the polemarchs (the Senate and the people or the Dictator
+having decreed a war) receive in return of his warrants the second essay
+from the hands of the conductors at the rendezvous of Oceana; which
+army, marching with all accommodations provided by the Council of War,
+the Senate elects a new strategus, and the lords-lieutenant a new second
+essay.
+
+“A youth, except he be an only son, refusing any one of his three
+essays, without sufficient cause shown to the phylarch or the censors,
+is incapable of magistracy, and is fined a fifth part of his yearly
+rent, or of his estate, for protection. In case of invasion the elders
+are obliged to like duty with the youth, and upon their own charge.
+
+“The provincial orb consisting in part of the elders, and in part of the
+youth, is thus created:
+
+“Four knights out of the first region falling, are elected in the Senate
+to be the first region of the provincial orb of Marpesia; these, being
+triennial magistrates, take their places in the provincial council,
+consisting of twelve knights, four in every region, each region choosing
+their weekly provosts of the council thus constituted. One knight more,
+chosen out of the same region in the Senate, being an annual magistrate,
+is president, with power to propose; and the opinions proposed by the
+president, or any two of the provosts, are debated by the council, and,
+if there be occasion of further power or instruction than they yet have,
+transmitted to the Council of State, with which the provincial is to
+hold intelligence.
+
+“The president of this council is also strategus or general of the
+provincial army; wherefore the conductors, upon notice of his election,
+and appointment of his rendezvous, deliver to him the stratiots of his
+letter, which he takes with him into his province; and the provincial
+army having received the new strategus with the third class, the council
+dismisses the old strategus with the first class. The like is done for
+Panopea, or any other province.
+
+“But whereas the term of every other magistracy or election in this
+commonwealth, whether annual or triennial, requires an equal vacation,
+the term of a provincial councillor or magistrate requires no vacation
+at all. The quorum of a provincial, as also that of every other council
+and assembly, requires two-thirds in a time of health, and one-third in
+a time of sickness.
+
+“I think I have omitted nothing but the props and scaffolds, which
+are not of use but in building. And how much is here? Show me another
+commonwealth in this compass? how many things? Show me another entire
+government consisting but of thirty orders. If you now go to law with
+anybody, there lie to some of our courts 200 original writs: if you stir
+your hand, there go more nerves and bones to that motion; if you play,
+you have more cards in the pack; nay, you could not sit with your ease
+in that chair, if it consisted not of more parts. Will you not then
+allow to your legislator, what you can afford your upholsterer, or to
+the throne, what is necessary to a chair?
+
+“My lords, if you will have fewer orders in a commonwealth, you will
+have more; for where she is not perfect at first, every day, every hour
+will produce a new order, the end whereof is to have no order at all,
+but to grind with the clack of some demagogue. Is he providing already
+for his golden thumb? Lift up your heads; away with ambition, that
+fulsome complexion of a statesman, tempered, like Sylla’s, with blood
+and muck. ‘And the Lord give to his senators wisdom; and make our faces
+to shine, that we may be a light to them that sit in darkness and the
+shadow of death, to guide their feet in the way of peace.’--In the name
+of God, what’s the matter?”
+
+Philadelphus, the secretary of the council, having performed his task
+in reading the several orders as you have seen, upon the receipt of
+a packet from his correspondent Boccalini, secretary of Parnassus, in
+reading one of the letters, burst forth into such a violent passion of
+weeping and downright howling, that the legislators, being startled with
+the apprehension of some horrid news, one of them had no sooner snatched
+the letter out of his hand, than the rest crying, “Read, read,” he
+obeyed in this manner:
+
+“The 3d instant his Phoebean majesty having taken the nature of free
+states into his royal consideration, and being steadily persuaded that
+the laws in such governments are incomparably better and more surely
+directed to the good of mankind than in any other; that the courage of
+such a people is the aptest tinder to noble fire; that the genius of
+such a soil is that wherein the roots of good literature are least
+worm-eaten with pedantism, and where their fruits have ever come to the
+greatest maturity and highest relish, conceived such a loathing of
+their ambition and tyranny, who, usurping the liberty of their native
+countries, become slaves to themselves, inasmuch as (be it never so
+contrary to their own nature or consciences) they have taken the earnest
+of sin, and are engaged to persecute all men that are good with the same
+or greater rigor than is ordained by laws for the wicked, for none ever
+administered that power by good which he purchased by ill arts--Phoebus,
+I say, having considered this, assembled all the senators residing in
+the learned court at the theatre of Melpomene, where he caused Caesar
+the Dictator to come upon the stage, and his sister Actia, his nephew
+Augustus, Julia his daughter, with the children which she had by
+Marcus Agrippa, Lucius and Caius Caesars, Agrippa Posthumus, Julia,
+and Agrippina, with the numerous progeny which she bore to her renowned
+husband Germanicus, to enter. A miserable scene in any, but most
+deplorable in the eyes of Caesar, thus beholding what havoc his
+prodigious ambition, not satisfied with his own bloody ghost, had made
+upon his more innocent remains, even to the total extinction of his
+family. For it is (seeing where there is any humanity, there must
+be some compassion) not to be spoken without tears, that of the full
+branches deriving from Octavia the eldest sister, and Julia the daughter
+of Augustus, there should not be one fruit or blossom that was not cut
+off or blasted by the sword, famine, or poison.
+
+“Now might the great soul of Caesar have been full; and yet that which
+poured in as much or more was to behold that execrable race of the
+Claudii, having hunted and sucked his blood, with the thirst of tigers,
+to be rewarded with the Roman Empire, and remain in full possession
+of that famous patrimony: a spectacle to pollute the light of heaven!
+Nevertheless, as if Caesar had not yet enough, his Phoeban majesty
+caused to be introduced on the other side of the theatre, the most
+illustrious and happy prince Andrea Doria, with his dear posterity,
+embraced by the soft and constant arms of the city of Genoa, into whose
+bosom, ever fruitful in her gratitude, he had dropped her fair liberty
+like the dew of heaven, which, when the Roman tyrant beheld, and how
+much more fresh that laurel was worn with a firm root in the hearts of
+the people than that which he had torn off, he fell into such a horrid
+distortion of limbs and countenance, that the senators, who had thought
+themselves steel and flint at such an object, having hitherto stood
+in their reverend snow-like thawing Alps, now covered their faces with
+their large sleeves.”
+
+“My lords,” said the Archon, rising, “witty Philadelphus has given us
+grave admonition in dreadful tragedy. Discite justitiam moniti, et non
+temnere divos. Great and glorious Caesar the highest character of flesh,
+yet could not rule but by that part of man which is the beast; but a
+commonwealth is a monarchy; to her God is king, inasmuch as reason, his
+dictate, is her sovereign power.” Which said, he adjourned the Council.
+And the model was soon after promulgated. Quod bonum, foelix, faustumque
+sit huic reipublicoe. Agite quirites, censuere patres, jubeat populus.
+(The sea roared, and the floods clapped their hands.)
+
+                LIBERTAS
+
+The Proclamation of his Highness the Lord Archon of Oceana upon
+Promulgation of the Model,
+
+“Whereas his Highness and the Council, in the framing of the model
+promulgated, have not had any private interest or ambition but the fear
+of God and the good of this people before their eyes; and it remains
+their desire that this great work may be carried on accordingly. This
+present greeting is to inform the good people of this land, that as the
+Council of Prytans sat during the framing of the model, to receive from
+time to time such propositions as should be offered by any wise-hearted
+or public-spirited man, toward the institution of a well-ordered
+commonwealth, so the said Council is to sit as formerly in the great
+hall of the Pantheon during promulgation (which is to continue for
+the space of three months) to receive, weigh, and, as there shall be
+occasion, transmit to the Council of Legislators, all such objections
+as shall be made against the said model, whether in the whole or in any
+part. Wherefore that nothing be done rashly or without the consent of
+the people, such, of what party soever, with whom there may remain any
+doubts or difficulties, are desired with all convenient speed to address
+themselves to the said prytans; where, if such objections, doubts, or
+difficulties receive solution to the satisfaction of the auditory,
+they shall have public thanks, but if the said objections, doubts, or
+difficulties receive no solution to the satisfaction of the auditory,
+then the model promulgated shall be reviewed, and the party that was the
+occasion of the review, shall receive public thanks, together with
+the best horse in his Highness’s stable, and be one of the Council of
+Legislators. And so God have you in his keeping.”
+
+I should now write the same Council of the Prytans, but for two reasons:
+the one, that having had but a small time for that which is already
+done, I am over-labored; the other, that there may be new objections.
+Wherefore, if my reader has any such as to the model, I entreat him to
+address himself by way of oration, as it were, to the prytans, that
+when this rough draught comes to be a work, his speech being faithfully
+inserted in this place, may give or receive correction to amendment; for
+what is written will be weighed. But conversation, in these days, is a
+game at which they are best provided that have light gold; it is like
+the sport of women that make flowers of straws, which must be stuck
+up but may not be touched. Nor, which is worse, is this the fault of
+conversation only: but to the examiner I say if to invent method and
+teach an art be all one, let him show that this method is not truly
+invented, or this art is faithfully taught.
+
+I cannot conclude a circle (and such is this commonwealth) without
+turning the end into the beginning. The time of promulgation being
+expired, the surveyors were sent down, who having in due season made
+report that their work was perfect, the orators followed, under the
+administration of which officers and magistrates the commonwealth was
+ratified and established by the whole body of the people, in their
+parochial, hundred, and county assemblies. And the orators being, by
+virtue of their scrolls or lots, members of their respective tribes,
+were elected each the first knight of the third list, or galaxy;
+wherefore, having at their return assisted the Archon in putting the
+Senate and the people or prerogative into motion, they abdicated the
+magistracy both of orators and legislators.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV. THE COROLLARY
+
+FOR the rest (says Plutarch, closing up the story of Lycurgus) when he
+saw that his government had taken root, and was in the very plantation
+strong enough to stand by itself, he conceived such a delight within
+him, as God is described by Plato to have done when he had finished the
+creation of the world, and saw his own orbs move below him: for in the
+art of man (being the imitation of nature, which is the art of God)
+there is nothing so like the first call of beautiful order out of chaos
+and confusion, as the architecture of a well-ordered commonwealth.
+Wherefore Lycurgus, seeing in effect that his orders were good, fell
+into deep contemplation how he might render them, so far as could be
+effected by human providence, unalterable and immortal. To which end he
+assembled the people, and remonstrated to them: That for aught he could
+perceive, their policy was already such, and so well established, as was
+sufficient to entail upon them and theirs all that virtue and felicity
+whereof human life is capable: nevertheless that there being another
+thing of greater concern than all the rest, whereof he was not yet
+provided to give them a perfect account, nor could till he had consulted
+the oracle of Apollo, he desired that they would observe his laws
+without any change or alteration whatsoever till his return from
+Delphos; to which all the people cheerfully and unanimously engaged
+themselves by promise, desiring him that he would make as much haste
+as he could. But Lycurgus, before he went, began with the kings and the
+senators, and thence taking the whole people in order, made them all
+swear to that which they had promised, and then took his journey. Being
+arrived at Delphos, he sacrificed to Apollo, and afterward inquired
+if the policy which he had established was good and sufficient for a
+virtuous and happy life?
+
+By the way, it has been a maxim with legislators not to give checks to
+the present superstition, but to make the best use of it, as that which
+is always the most powerful with the people; otherwise, though Plutarch,
+being a priest, was interested in the cause, there is nothing plainer
+than Cicero, in his book “De Divinatione” has made it, that there was
+never any such thing as an oracle, except in the cunning of the priests.
+But to be civil to the author, the god answered to Lycurgus that
+his policy was exquisite, and that his city, holding to the strict
+observation of his form of government, should attain to the height of
+fame and glory. Which oracle Lycurgus causing to be written, failed not
+of transmitting to his Lacedaemon. This done, that his citizens might
+be forever inviolably bound by their oath, that they would alter nothing
+till his return, he took so firm a resolution to die in the place, that
+from thenceforward, receiving no manner of food, he soon after performed
+it accordingly. Nor was he deceived in the consequence; for his city
+became the first in glory and excellency of government in the whole
+world. And so much for Lycurgus, according to Plutarch.
+
+My Lord Archon, when he beheld not only the rapture of motion, but
+of joy and harmony, into which his spheres (without any manner of
+obstruction or interfering, but as if it had been naturally) were
+cast, conceived not less of exultation in his spirit; but saw no more
+necessity or reason why he should administer an oath to the Senate and
+the people that they would observe his institutions, than to a man
+in perfect health and felicity of constitution that he would not kill
+himself. Nevertheless whereas Christianity, though it forbids violent
+hands, consists no less in self-denial than any other religion, he
+resolved that all unreasonable desires should die upon the spot; to
+which end that no manner of food might be left to ambition, he entered
+into the Senate with a unanimous applause, and having spoken of his
+government as Lycurgus did when he assembled the people, he abdicated
+the magistracy of Archon. The Senate, as struck with astonishment,
+continued silent, men upon so sudden an accident being altogether
+unprovided of what to say; till the Archon withdrawing, and being almost
+at the door, divers of the knights flew from their places, offering as
+it were to lay violent hands on him, while he escaping, left the Senate
+with the tears in their eyes, of children that had lost their father and
+to rid himself of all further importunity, retired to a country house of
+his, being remote, and very private, insomuch that no man could tell for
+some time what was become of him.
+
+Thus the law-maker happened to be the first object and reflection of the
+law made; for as liberty of all things is the most welcome to a people,
+so is there nothing more abhorrent from their nature than ingratitude.
+We, accusing the Roman people of this crime against some of their
+greatest benefactors, as Camillus, heap mistake upon mistake; for being
+not so competent judges of what belongs to liberty as they were, we take
+upon us to be more competent judges of virtue. And whereas virtue, for
+being a vulgar thing among them, was of no less rate than jewels are
+with such as wear the most, we are selling this precious stone, which
+we have ignorantly raked out of the Roman ruins, at such a rate as the
+Switzers did that which they took in the baggage of Charles of Burgundy.
+For that Camillus had stood more firm against the ruin of Rome than her
+capitol, was acknowledged; but on the other side, that he stood as firm
+for the patricians against the liberty of the people, was as plain;
+wherefore he never wanted those of the people that would die at his foot
+in the field, nor that would withstand him to his beard in the city.
+An example in which they that think Camillus had wrong, neither do
+themselves right, nor the people of Rome; who in this signify no less
+than that they had a scorn of slavery beyond the fear of ruin, which is
+the height of magnanimity.
+
+The like might be shown by other examples objected against this and
+other popular governments, as in the banishment of Aristides the Just
+from Athens, by the ostracism, which, first, was no punishment, nor
+ever understood for so much as a disparagement; but tended only to the
+security of the commonwealth, through the removal of a citizen (whose
+riches or power with a party was suspected) out of harm’s way for the
+space of ten years, neither to the diminution of his estate or
+honor. And next, though the virtue of Aristides might in itself be
+unquestioned, yet for him under the name of the Just to become universal
+umpire of the people in all cases, even to the neglect of the legal ways
+and orders of the commonwealth, approached so much to the prince, that
+the Athenians, doing Aristides no wrong, did their government no more
+than right in removing him; which therefore is not so probable to have
+come to pass, as Plutarch presumes, through the envy of Themistocles,
+seeing Aristides was far more popular than Themistocles, who soon after
+took the same walk upon a worse occasion. Wherefore as Machiavel,
+for anything since alleged, has irrefragably proved that popular
+governments are of all others the least ungrateful, so the obscurity,
+I say, into which my Lord Archon had now withdrawn himself caused a
+universal sadness and clouds in the minds of men upon the glory of his
+rising commonwealth.
+
+Much had been ventilated in private discourse, and the people (for
+the nation was yet divided into parties that had not lost their
+animosities), being troubled, bent their eyes upon the Senate,
+when after some time spent in devotion, and the solemn action of
+thanksgiving, his Excellency Navarchus de Paralo in the tribe of Dorean,
+lord strategus of Oceana (though in a new commonwealth a very prudent
+magistrate) proposed his part or opinion in such a manner to the Council
+of State, that, passing the ballot of the same with great unanimity
+and applause, it was introduced into the Senate, where it passed with
+greater. Wherefore the decree being forthwith printed and published,
+copies were returned by the secretaries to the phylarchs (which is the
+manner of promulgation) and the commissioners of the seal, that is
+to say, the Right Honorable Phosphorus de Auge in the tribe of Eudia,
+Dolabella d’Enyo in the tribe of Turmae, and Linceus de Stella in the
+tribe of Nubia, being elected proposers pro tempore, bespoke of the
+tribunes a muster of the people to be held that day six weeks, which was
+the time allowed for promulgation at the halo.
+
+The satisfaction which the people throughout the tribes received upon
+promulgation of the decree, loaded the carriers with weekly letters
+between friend and friend, whether magistrates or private persons. But
+the day for proposition being come, and the prerogative upon the place
+appointed in discipline, Sanguine de Ringwood in the tribe of Saltum,
+captain of the Phoenix, marched by order of the tribunes with his troop
+to the piazza of the Pantheon, where his trumpets, entering into the
+great hall, by their blazon gave notice of his arrival; at which the
+sergeant of the house came down, and returning, in formed the proposers,
+who descending, were received at the foot of the stairs by the captain,
+and attended to the coaches of state, with which Calcar de Gilvo in
+the tribe of Phalera, master of the horse, and the ballotins upon their
+great horses, stood waiting at the gate.
+
+The proposers being in their coaches, the train for the pomp, the same
+that is used at the reception of ambassadors, proceeded in this order.
+In the front marched the troop with the cornet in the van and the
+captain in the rear; next the troop came the twenty messengers or
+trumpets, the ballotins upon the curvet with their usher in the van,
+and the master of the horse in the rear; next the ballotins, Bronchus de
+Rauco, in the tribe of Bestia, king of the heralds, with his fraternity
+in their coats-of-arms, and next to Sir Bronchus, Boristhenes de
+Holiwater in the tribe of Ave, master of the ceremonies; the mace and
+the seal of the chancery went immediately before the coaches, and
+on either side, the doorkeepers or guard of the Senate, with their
+pole-axes, accompanied with some 300 or 400 footmen belonging to the
+knights or senators, the trumpeters, ballotins, guards, postilions,
+coachmen and footmen, being very gallant in the liveries of the
+commonwealth, but all, except the ballotins, without hats, in lieu
+whereof they wore black velvet calots, being pointed with a little peak
+at the forehead. After the proposers came a long file of coaches full of
+such gentlemen as use to grace the commonwealth upon the like occasions.
+In this posture they moved slowly through the streets (affording, in the
+gravity of the pomp and the welcomeness of the end, a most reverend and
+acceptable prospect to the people all the way from the Pantheon,
+being about half a mile) and arrived at the halo, where they found the
+prerogative in a close body environed with scaffolds that were covered
+with spectators. The tribunes received the proposers, and conducted them
+into a seat placed in the front of the tribe, like a pulpit, but that it
+was of some length, and well adorned by the heralds with all manner of
+birds and beasts, except that they were ill-painted, and never a one of
+his natural color. The tribunes were placed at a table that stood below
+the long seat, those of the horse in the middle, and those of the foot
+at either end, with each of them a bowl or basin before him, that on the
+right hand being white, and the other green: in the middle of the table
+stood a third, which was red. And the housekeepers of the pavilion, who
+had already delivered a proportion of linen balls or pellets to
+every one of the tribe, now presented boxes to the ballotins. But the
+proposers as they entered the gallery, or long seat, having put off
+their hats by way of salutation, were answered by the people with a
+shout; whereupon the younger commissioners seated themselves at either
+end; and the first, standing in the middle, spoke after this manner:
+
+“MY LORDS, THE PEOPLE OF OCEANA:
+
+“While I find in myself what a felicity it is to salute you by this
+name, and in every face, anointed as it were with the oil of gladness,
+a full and sufficient testimony of the like sense, to go about to feast
+you with words, who are already filled with that food of the mind which,
+being of pleasing and wholesome digestion, takes in the definition of
+true joy, were a needless enterprise. I shall rather put you in mind
+of that thankfulness which is due, than puff you up with anything that
+might seem vain. Is it from the arms of flesh that we derive these
+blessings? Behold the Commonwealth of Rome falling upon her own
+victorious sword. Or is it from our own wisdom, whose counsels had
+brought it even to that pass, that we began to repent ourselves of
+victory? Far be it from us, my lords, to sacrifice to our own nets,
+which we ourselves have so narrowly escaped! Let us rather lay our
+mouths in the dust, and look up (as was taught the other day when we
+were better instructed in this lesson) to the hills with our gratitude.
+Nevertheless, seeing we read how God upon the neglect of his prophets
+has been provoked to wrath, it must needs follow that he expects
+honor should be given to them by whom he has chosen to work as his
+instruments. For which cause, nothing doubting of my warrant, I shall
+proceed to that which more particularly concerns the present occasion,
+the discovery of my Lord Archon’s virtues and merit, to be ever placed
+by this nation in their true meridian.
+
+“My lords, I am not upon a subject which persuades me to balk, but
+necessitates me to seek out the greatest examples. To begin with
+Alexander, erecting trophies common to his sword and the pestilence: to
+what good of mankind did he infect the air with his heap of carcasses?
+The sword of war, if it be any otherwise used than as the sword of
+magistracy, for the fear and punishment of those that do evil, is as
+guilty in the sight of God as the sword of a murderer; nay more, for if
+the blood of Abel, of one innocent man, cried in the ears of the Lord
+for vengeance, what shall the blood of an innocent nation? Of this kind
+of empire, the throne of ambition, and the quarry of a mighty hunter, it
+has been truly said that it is but a great robbery. But if Alexander
+had restored the liberty of Greece, and propagated it to mankind, he had
+done like my Lord Archon, and might have been truly called the Great.
+Alexander cared not to steal a victory that would be given; but my Lord
+Archon has torn away a victory which had been stolen, while we went
+tamely yielding up obedience to a nation reaping in our fields,
+whose fields he has subjected to our empire, and nailed them with his
+victorious sword to their native Caucasus.
+
+“Machiavel gives a handsome caution: ‘Let no man,’ says he, ‘be
+circumvented with the glory of Caesar, from the false reflection of
+their pens, who through the longer continuance of his empire in the name
+than in the family, changed their freedom for flattery. But if a man
+would know truly what the Romans thought of Caesar, let them observe
+what they said of Catiline.’” And yet by how much he who has perpetrated
+some heinous crime is more execrable than he who did but attempt it, by
+so much is Caesar more execrable than Catiline. On the contrary, let
+him that would know what ancient and heroic times, what the Greeks and
+Romans would both have thought and said of my Lord Archon, observe what
+they thought and said of Solon, Lycurgus, Brutus, and Publicola. And yet
+by how much his virtue, that is crowned with the perfection of his work,
+is beyond theirs, who were either inferior in their aim, or in their
+performance; by so much is my Lord Archon to be preferred before Solon,
+Lycurgus, Brutus, and Publicola.
+
+“Nor will we shun the most illustrious example of Scipio: this
+hero, though never so little less, yet was he not the founder of a
+commonwealth; and for the rest, allowing his virtue to have been of the
+most untainted ray in what did it outshine this of my Lord Archon? But
+if dazzling the eyes of the magistrates it overawed liberty, Rome might
+be allowed some excuse that she did not like it, and I, if I admit not
+of this comparison: for where is my Lord Archon? Is there a genius, how
+free soever, which in his presence would not find itself to be under
+power? He is shrunk into clouds, he seeks obscurity in a nation that
+sees by his light. He is impatient of his own glory, lest it should
+stand between you and your liberty.”
+
+Liberty! What is even that, if we may not be grateful? And if we may, we
+have none: for who has anything that he does not owe? My lords, there be
+some hard conditions of virtue: if this debt were exacted, it were not
+due; whereas being cancelled, we are all entered into bonds. On the
+other side, if we make such a payment as will not stand with a free
+people, we do not enrich my Lord Archon, but rob him of his whole estate
+immense glory.
+
+“These particulars had in due deliberation and mature debate, according
+to the order of this commonwealth, it is proposed by authority of the
+Senate, to you my lords the people of Oceana:
+
+“I. That the dignity and office of Archon, or protector of the
+commonwealth of Oceana, be and are hereby conferred, by the Senate
+and the people of Oceana, upon the most illustrious Prince and sole
+legislator of this commonwealth, Olphaus Megaletor, pater patrioe, whom
+God preserve, for the term of his natural life, yet remaining of the
+ancient.
+
+“II. That £350,000 per annum revenue, be estated upon the said
+illustrious Prince, or Lord Archon, for the said term, and to the proper
+and peculiar use of his Highness.
+
+“III. That the Lord Archon have the reception of all foreign ambassadors,
+by and with the Council of State, according to the orders of this
+commonwealth.
+
+“IV. That the Lord Archon have a standing army of 12,000 defrayed upon a
+monthly tax, during the term of three years, for the protection of this
+commonwealth against dissenting parties, to be governed, directed, and
+commanded by and with the advice of the Council of War, according to the
+orders of this commonwealth.
+
+“V. That this commonwealth make no distinction of persons or parties,
+but every man being elected and sworn, according to the orders of the
+same, be equally capable of magistracy, or not elected, be equally
+capable of liberty, and the enjoyment of his estate free from all other
+than common taxes.
+
+“VI. That a man putting a distinction upon himself, refusing oath upon
+election, or declaring himself of a party not conformable to the civil
+government, may within any time of his the three years’ standing of
+the army transport himself and his estate, without molestation or
+impediment, into any other nation.
+
+“VII. That in case there remains any distinction of parties not
+conforming to the civil government of this commonwealth, after the
+three years of the standing army being expired, and the commonwealth
+be thereby forced to prolong the term of the said army, the pay from
+henceforth of the said army be levied upon the estates of such parties
+so remaining unconformable to the civil government.”
+
+The proposer having ended his oration, the trumpets sounded; and the
+tribunes of the horse being mounted to view the ballot, caused the tribe
+(which thronging up to the speech, came almost round the gallery)
+to retreat about twenty paces, when Linceus de Stella, receiving the
+propositions, repaired with Bronchus de Rauco the herald, to a little
+scaffold erected in the middle of the tribe, where he seated himself,
+the herald standing bare upon his right hand. The ballotins, having
+their boxes ready, stood before the gallery, and at the command of the
+tribunes marched, one to every troop on horseback, and one to every
+company on foot, each of them being followed by other children that bore
+red boxes: now this is putting the question whether the question should
+be put. And the suffrage being very suddenly returned to the tribunes at
+the table, and numbered in the view of the proposers, the votes were all
+in the affirmative, whereupon the red or doubtful boxes were laid aside,
+it appearing that the tribe, whether for the negative or affirmative,
+Was clear in the matter. Wherefore the herald began from the scaffold
+in the middle of the tribe, to pronounce the first proposition, and the
+ballotins marching with the negative or affirmative only, Bronchus, with
+his voice like thunder, continued to repeat the proposition over and
+over again, so long as it was in balloting. The like was done for every
+clause, till the ballot was finished, and the tribunes assembling, had
+signed the points, that is to say, the number of every suffrage, as it
+was taken by the secretary upon the tale of the tribunes, and in the
+sight of the proposers; for this may not be omitted: it is the pulse
+of the people. Now whereas it appertains to the tribunes to report the
+suffrage of the people to the Senate, they cast the lot for this office
+with three silver balls and one gold one; and it fell upon the Right
+Worshipful Argus de Crookhorn, in the tribe of Pascua, first tribune of
+the foot. Argus, being a good sufficient man in his own country, was
+yet of the mind that he should make but a bad spokesman, and therefore
+became something blank at his luck, till his colleagues persuaded him
+that it was no such great matter, if he could but read, having his paper
+before him. The proposers, taking coach, received a volley upon the
+field, and returned in the same order, save that, being accompanied with
+the tribunes, they were also attended by the whole prerogative to the
+piazza of the Pantheon, where, with another volley, they took their
+leaves. Argus, who had not thought upon his wife and children all the
+way, went very gravely up: and everyone being seated, the Senate by
+their silence seemed to call for the report, which Argus, standing up,
+delivered in this wise:
+
+“RIGHT HONORABLE LORDS AND FATHERS ASSEMBLED IN PARLIAMENT:
+
+“So it is, that it has fallen to my lot to report to your excellencies
+in the votes of the people, taken upon the 3d instant, in the first year
+of this commonwealth, at the halo; the Right Honorable Phosphorus de
+Auge in the tribe of Eudia, Dolabella d’Enyo in the tribe of Turmae,
+and Linceus de Stella in the tribe of Nubia, lords commissioners of the
+great seal of Oceana, and proposers pro temporibus, together with my
+brethren the tribunes, and myself being present. Wherefore these are to
+certify to your fatherhoods, that the said votes of the people were as
+follows, that is to say:
+
+To the first proposition, nemine contradicente;
+
+To the second, nemine contradicente;
+
+To the third, the like;
+
+To the fourth, 211, above half;
+
+To the fifth, 201, above half;
+
+To the sixth, 150, above half, in the affirmative;
+
+To the seventh, nemine contradicente again, and so forth.
+
+“My Lords, it is a language that is out of my prayers, and if I be out
+at it, no harm--
+
+“But as concerning my Lord Archon (as I was saying) these are to signify
+to you the true-heartedness and goodwill which are in the people, seeing
+by joining with you, as one man, they confess that all they have to give
+is too little for his highness. For truly fathers, if he who is able to
+do harm, and does none, may well be called honest; what shall we say to
+my Lord Archon’s highness, who having had it in his power to have done
+us the greatest mischief that ever befell a poor nation, so willing
+to trust such as they thought well of, has done us so much good, as
+we should never have known how to do ourselves? Which was so sweetly
+delivered by my Lord Chancellor Phosphorus to the people, that I dare
+say there was never a one of them could forbear to do as I do-and, it
+please your fatherhoods, they be tears of joy. Aye, my Lord Archon shall
+walk the streets (if it be for his ease I mean) with a switch, while the
+people run after him and pray for him; he shall not wet his foot; they
+will strew flowers in his way; he shall sit higher in their hearts,
+and in the judgment of all good men, than the kings that go upstairs
+to their seats; and one of these had as good pull two or three of his
+fellows out of their great chairs as wrong him or meddle with him; he
+has two or three hundred thousand men, that when you say the word, shall
+sell themselves to their shirts for him, and die at his foot. His pillow
+is of down, and his grave shall be as soft, over which they that are
+alive shall wring their hands. And to come to your fatherhoods, most
+truly so called, as being the loving parents of the people, truly you
+do not know what a feeling they have of your kindness, seeing you are so
+bound up, that if there comes any harm, they may thank themselves. And,
+alas! poor souls, they see that they are given to be of so many minds,
+that though they always mean well, yet if there comes any good, they
+may thank them that teach them better. Wherefore there was never such a
+thing as this invented, they do verily believe that it is no other than
+the same which they always had in their very heads, if they could
+have but told how to bring it out. As now for a sample: my lords the
+proposers had no sooner said your minds, than they found it to be that
+which heart could wish. And your fatherhoods may comfort yourselves,
+that there is not a people in the world more willing to learn what is
+for their own good, nor more apt to see it, when you have showed it
+them. Wherefore they do love you as they do their own selves; honor you
+as fathers; resolve to give you as it were obedience forever, and so
+thanking you for your most good and excellent laws, they do pray for
+you as the very worthies of the land, right honorable lords and fathers
+assembled in Parliament.”
+
+Argus came off beyond his own expectation; for thinking right, and
+speaking as he thought, it was apparent by the house and the thanks they
+gave him, that they esteemed him to be absolutely of the best sort of
+orators; upon which having a mind that till then misgave him, he became
+very crounse, and much delighted with that which might go down the next
+week in print to his wife and neighbors. Livy makes the Roman tribunes
+to speak in the same style with the consuls, which could not be, and
+therefore for aught in him to the contrary, Volero and Canuleius might
+have spoken in no better style than Argus. However, they were not
+created the first year of the commonwealth; and the tribunes of Oceana
+are since become better orators than were needful. But the laws being
+enacted, had the preamble annexed, and were delivered to Bronchus, who
+loved nothing in the earth so much as to go staring and bellowing up
+and down the town, like a stag in a forest, as he now did, with his
+fraternity in their coats-of-arms, and I know not how many trumpets,
+proclaiming the act of parliament; when, meeting my Lord Archon, whom
+from a retreat that was without affectation, as being for devotion only
+and to implore a blessing by prayer and fasting upon his labors, now
+newly arrived in town, the herald of the tribe of Bestia set up his
+throat, and having chanted out his lesson, passed as haughtily by him as
+if his own had been the better office, which in this place was very well
+taken, though Bronchus for his high mind happened afterward upon some
+disasters, too long to tell, that spoiled much of his embroidery.
+
+My Lord Archon’s arrival being known, the signory, accompanied by the
+tribunes, repaired to him, with the news he had already heard by the
+herald, to which my lord strategus added that his highness could not
+doubt upon the demonstrations given, but the minds of men were firm in
+the opinion that he could be no seeker of himself in the way of earthly
+pomp and glory, and that the gratitude of the Senate and the people
+could not therefore be understood to have any such reflection upon him.
+But so it was, that in regard of dangers abroad, and parties at home,
+they durst not trust themselves without a standing army, nor a standing
+army in any man’s hands but those of his highness.
+
+The Archon made answer, that he ever expected this would be the sense
+of the Senate and the people; and this being their sense, he should have
+been sorry they had made choice of any other than himself for a standing
+general; first, because it could not have been more to their own safety,
+and secondly because so long as they should have need of a standing
+army, ‘his work was, not done, that he would not dispute against
+the judgment of the Senate and the people, nor ought that to be.
+Nevertheless, he made little doubt but experience would show every party
+their own interest in this government, and that better improved
+than they could expect from any other; that men’s animosities should
+overbalance their interest for any time was impossible, that humor could
+never be lasting, nor through the constitution of the government of any
+effect at the first charge. For supposing the worst, and that the people
+had chosen no other into the Senate and the prerogative than royalists,
+a matter of 1,400 men must have taken their oaths at their election,
+with an intention to go quite contrary not only to their oaths so taken,
+but to their own interest; for being estated in the sovereign power,
+they must have decreed it from themselves (such an example for which
+there was never any experience, nor can there be any reason), or holding
+it, it must have done in their hands as well every wit as in any other.
+Furthermore, they must have removed the government from a foundation
+that apparently would hold, to set it upon another which apparently
+would not hold; which things if they could not come to pass, the Senate
+and the people consisting wholly of royalists, much less by a parcel of
+them elected. But if the fear of the Senate and of the people derived
+from a party without, such a one as would not be elected, nor engage
+themselves to the commonwealth by an oath; this again must be so large,
+as would go quite contrary to their own interest, they being as free and
+as fully estated in their liberty as any other, or so narrow that they
+could do no hurt, while the people being in arms, and at the beck of the
+strategus, every tribe would at any time make a better army than such
+a party; and there being no parties at home, fears from abroad would
+vanish. But seeing it was otherwise determined by the Senate and the
+people, the best course was to take that which they held the safest, in
+which, with his humble thanks for their great bounty, he was resolved to
+serve them with all duty and obedience.
+
+A very short time after the royalists, now equal citizens, made good
+the Archon’s judgment, there being no other that found anything near so
+great a sweet in the government. For he who has not been acquainted with
+affliction, says Seneca, knows but half the things of this world.
+
+Moreover they saw plainly, that to restore the ancient government they
+must cast up their estates into the hands of 300 men; wherefore in case
+the Senate and the prerogative, consisting of 1,300 men, had been all
+royalists, there must of necessity have been, and be forever, 1,000
+against this or any such vote. But the Senate, being informed by the
+signory that the Archon had accepted of his dignity and office, caused
+a third chair to be set for his Highness, between those of the strategus
+and the orator in the house, the like at every council; to which he
+repaired, not of necessity, but at his pleasure, being the best, and as
+Argus not vainly said, the greatest prince in the world; for in the
+pomp of his court he was not inferior to any, and in the field he was
+followed with a force that was formidable to all. Nor was there a cause
+in the nature of this constitution to put him to the charge of guards,
+to spoil his stomach or his sleep: insomuch, as being handsomely
+disputed by the wits of the academy, whether my Lord Archon, if he had
+been ambitious, could have made himself so great, it was carried
+clear in the negative; not only for the reasons drawn from the present
+balance, which was popular, but putting the case the balance had been
+monarchical. For there be some nations, whereof this is one, that will
+bear a prince in a commonwealth far higher than it is possible for them
+to bear a monarch. Spain looked upon the Prince of Orange as her most
+formidable enemy; but if ever there be a monarch in Holland, he will
+be the Spaniard’s best friend. For whereas a prince in a commonwealth
+derives his greatness from the root of the people, a monarch derives his
+from one of those balances which nip them in the root; by which means
+the Low Countries under a monarch were poor and inconsiderable, but in
+bearing a prince could grow to a miraculous height, and give the
+glory of his actions by far the upper hand of the greatest king in
+Christendom. There are kings in Europe, to whom a king of Oceana would
+be put a petit companion. But the Prince of this commonwealth is the
+terror and judge of them all.
+
+That which my Lord Archon now minded most was the agrarian, upon which
+debate he incessantly thrust the Senate and the Council of State, to the
+end it might be planted upon some firm root, as the main point and basis
+of perpetuity to the commonwealth.
+
+And these are some of the most remarkable passages that happened in the
+first year of this government. About the latter end of the second, the
+army was disbanded, but the taxes continued at £30,000 a month, for
+three years and a half. By which means a piece of artillery was planted,
+and a portion of land to the value of £50 a year purchased for the
+maintenance of the games, and of the prize arms forever, in each
+hundred.
+
+With the eleventh year of the commonwealth, the term of the excise,
+allotted for the maintenance of the Senate and the people and for the
+raising of a public revenue, expired. By which time the Exchequer, over
+and above the annual salaries, amounting to £300,000 accumulating every
+year out of £1,000,000 income, £700,000 in banco, brought it with a
+product of the sum, rising to about £8,000,000 in the whole: whereby at
+several times they had purchased to the Senate and the people £400,000
+per annum solid revenue; which, besides the lands held in Panopea,
+together with the perquisites of either province, was held sufficient
+for a public revenue. Nevertheless, taxes being now wholly taken off,
+the excise, of no great burden (and many specious advantages not vainly
+proposed in the heightening of the public revenue), was very cheerfully
+established by the Senate and the people, for the term of ten years
+longer, and the same course being taken, the public revenue was found in
+the one-and-twentieth year of the commonwealth to be worth £1,000,000
+in good land. Whereupon the excise was so abolished for the present,
+as withal resolved to be the best, the most fruitful and easy way of
+raising taxes, according to future exigencies.
+
+But the revenue being now such as was able to be a yearly purchaser,
+gave a jealousy that by this means the balance of the commonwealth,
+consisting in private fortunes, might be eaten out, whence this year is
+famous for that law whereby the Senate and the people, forbidding any
+further purchase of lands to the public within the dominions of Oceana
+and the adjacent provinces, put the agrarian upon the commonwealth
+herself. These increases are things which men addicted to monarchy
+deride as impossible, whereby they unwarily urge a strong argument
+against that which they would defend. For having their eyes fixed upon
+the pomp and expense, by which not only every child of a king, being
+a prince, exhausts his father’s coffers, but favorites and servile
+spirits, devoted to the flattery of those princes, grow insolent and
+profuse, returning a fit gratitude to their masters, whom, while they
+hold it honorable to deceive, they suck and keep eternally poor:
+it follows that they do not see how it should be possible for a
+commonwealth to clothe herself in purple, and thrive so strangely upon
+that which would make a prince’s hair grow through his hood, and not
+afford him bread. As if it were a miracle that a careless and prodigal
+man should bring £10,000 a year to nothing, or that an industrious and
+frugal man brings a little to £10,000 a year. But the fruit of one man’s
+industry and frugality can never be like that of a commonwealth; first,
+because the greatness of the increase follows the greatness of the stock
+or principal; and, secondly, because a frugal father is for the most
+part succeeded by a lavish son; whereas a commonwealth is her own heir.
+
+This year a part was proposed by the Right Honorable Aureus de Woolsack
+in the tribe of Pecus, first commissioner of the Treasury, to the
+Council of State, which soon after passed the ballot of the Senate
+and the people, by which the lands of the public revenue, amounting
+to £1,000,000, were equally divided into £5,000 lots, entered by their
+names and parcels into a lot-book preserved in the Exchequer. And if
+any orphan, being a maid, should cast her estate into the Exchequer for
+£1,400, the Treasury was bound by the law to pay her quarterly £200 a
+year, free from taxes, for her life, and to assign her a lot for her
+security; if she married, her husband was neither to take out the
+principal without her consent (acknowledged by herself to one of the
+commissioners of the Treasury, who, according as he found it to be free,
+or forced, was to allow or disallow of it), nor any other way engage
+it than to her proper use. But if the principal were taken out, the
+Treasury was not bound to repay any more of it than £1,000, nor might
+that be repaid at any time, save within the first year of her marriage:
+the like was to be done by a half or quarter lot respectively.
+
+This was found to be a great charity to the weaker sex, and as some say,
+who are more skilful in the like affairs than myself, of good profit to
+the commonwealth.
+
+Now began the native spleen of Oceana to be much purged, and men not to
+affect sullenness and pedantism. The elders could remember that they had
+been youths. Wit and gallantry were so far from being thought crimes in
+themselves, that care was taken to preserve their innocence. For which
+cause it was proposed to the Council for Religion by the Right Honorable
+Cadiscus de Clero, in the tribe of Stamnum, first censor, that such
+women as, living in gallantry and view about the town, were of evil
+fame, and could not show that they were maintained by their own estates
+or industry, or such as, having estates of their own, were yet wasteful
+in ‘their way of life, and of ill-example to others, should be obnoxious
+to the animadversion of the Council of Religion, or of the censors: in
+which the proceeding should be after this manner. Notice should be first
+given of the scandal to the party offending, in private: if there were
+no amendment within the space of six months, she should be summoned
+and rebuked before the said Council or censors; and, if after other six
+months it were found that neither this availed, she should be censored
+not to appear at any public meetings, games, or recreations, upon
+penalty of being taken up by the doorkeepers or guards of the Senate,
+and by them to be detained, till for every such offence £5 were duly
+paid for her enlargement.
+
+Furthermore, if any common strumpet should be found or any scurrility
+or profaneness represented at either of the theatres, the prelates for
+every such offence should be fined £20 by the said Council, and the
+poet, for every such offence on his part, should be whipped. This law
+relates to another, which was also enacted the same year upon this
+occasion.
+
+The youth and wits of the Academy having put the business so home in the
+defence of comedies that the provosts had nothing but the consequences
+provided against by the foregoing law to object, prevailed so far that
+two of the provosts of the Council of State joined in a proposition,
+which after much ado came to a law, whereby £100,000 was allotted for
+the building of two theatres on each side of the piazza of the halo: and
+two annual magistrates called prelates, chosen out of the knights,
+were added to the tropic, the one called the prelate of the buskin,
+for inspection of the tragic scene called Melpomene; and the other the
+prelate of the sock, for the comic called Thalia, which magistrates had
+each £500 a year allowed out of the profits of the theatres; the rest,
+except £800 a year to four poets, payable into the Exchequer. A poet
+laureate created in one of these theatres by the strategus, receives
+a wreath of £500 in gold, paid out of the said profits. But no man
+is capable of this creation that had not two parts in three of the
+suffrages at the Academy, assembled after six weeks’ warning and upon
+that occasion.
+
+These things among us are sure enough to be censured, but not know the
+nature of a commonwealth; that they are free, and yet to curb the genius
+in a lawful recreation to which they are naturally is to tell a tale of
+a tub. I have heard the Protestant ministers in France, by men that
+were wise and of their own profession, much blamed in that they forbade
+dancing, a recreation to which the genius of that air is so inclining
+that they lost many who would not lose that: nor do they less than blame
+the former determination of rashness, who now gently connive at that
+which they had so roughly forbidden. These sports in Oceana are so
+governed, that they are pleasing for private diversion, and profitable
+to the public: for the theatres soon defrayed their own charge, and
+now bring in a good revenue. All this is so far from the detriment
+of virtue, that it is to the improvement of it, seeing women that
+heretofore made havoc of their honor that they might have their
+pleasures are now incapable of their pleasures if they lose their honor.
+
+About the one-and-fortieth year of the commonwealth, the censors,
+according to their annual custom, reported the pillar of Nilus, by
+which it was found that the people were increased very near one-third.
+Whereupon the Council of War was appointed by the Senate to bring in a
+state of war, and the treasurers the state of the Treasury. The state of
+war, or the pay and charge of an army, was soon after exhibited by the
+Council in this account:
+
+     THE FIELD PAY OF A PARLIAMENTARY ARMY
+
+     The lord strategus, marching                £10,000
+     Polemarches--
+
+     General of the horse...                   2,000
+
+     Lieutenant-general...                     2,000
+
+     General of the artillery....              1,000
+
+     Commissary-general...                     1,000
+
+     Major-general....                         1,000
+
+     Quartermaster-general...                  1,000
+     Two adjutants to the major-general...         1,000
+     Forty colonels.....                          40,000
+     100 captains of horse, at £500 a man...      50,000
+     300 captains of foot, at £300 a man...       90,000
+     100 cornets, at £100 a man....               10,000
+     300 ensigns, at £50 a man....                15,000
+     800 Quartermasters, Sergeants, Trumpeters,
+
+     Drummers,                                20,000
+     10,000 horse, at 2s 6d per day each...      470,000
+     30,000 foot, at 1s per day each....         500,000
+     Chirurgeons...                                  400
+     40,000 auxiliaries, amounting to within a
+
+     little as much...                     1,100,000
+     The charge of mounting 20,000 horse..       300,000
+     The train of artillery, holding a 3d to
+
+     the whole                               900,000
+
+         Sum total                        £3,514,400
+
+     Arms and ammunition are not reckoned, as those which are
+     furnished out of the store or arsenal of Emporium: nor wastage,
+     as that which goes upon the account of the fleet, maintained by
+     the customs; which customs, through the care of the Council for
+     Trade and growth of traffic, were long since improved to about
+     £1,000,000 revenue. The house being thus informed of a state of
+     war, the commissioners brought in--
+
+     THE STATE OF THE TREASURY THIS PRESENT YEAR, BEING THE
+     ONE-AND-FORTIETH OF THE COMMONWEALTH
+
+     Received from the one-and-twentieth of the commonwealth:
+
+     By £700,000 a year in bank, with the product of the sum
+
+         rising..............
+     £16,000,000
+
+     Expended from the one-and-twentieth of this commonwealth:
+
+      Imprimis, for the addition of arms for 100,000 men to
+
+     the arsenal, or tower of Emporium.........
+     £1,000,000
+      For the storing of the same with artillery...
+     300,000
+      For the storing of the same with ammunition...
+     200,000
+      For beautifying the cities, parks, gardens, public walks,
+
+     and places for recreation of Emporium and Hiera, with
+
+     public buildings, aqueducts, statues,
+
+     and fountains, etc......
+     1,500,000
+      Extraordinary embassies...
+     150,000
+
+     Sum........
+     £3,150,000
+
+      Remaining in the Treasury, the salaries of the
+
+     Exchequer being defalked.......
+     £12,000,000
+
+By comparison of which accounts if a war with an army of 80,000 men were
+to be made by the penny, yet was the commonwealth able to maintain such
+a one above three years without levying a tax. But it is against all
+experience, sense, and reason that such an army should not be soon
+broken, or make a great progress; in either of which cases, the charge
+ceases; or rather if a right course be taken in the latter, profit comes
+in: for the Romans had no other considerable way but victory whereby to
+fill their treasury, which nevertheless was seldom empty. Alexander
+did not consult his purse upon his design for Persia: it is observed by
+Machiavel, that Livy, arguing what the event in reason must have been
+had that King invaded Rome, and diligently measuring what on each
+side was necessary to such a war, never speaks a word of money. No
+man imagines that the Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Lombards, Saxons,
+Normans, made their inroads or conquests by the strength of the purse;
+and if it be thought enough, according to the dialect of our age, to say
+in answer to these things that those times are past and gone: what money
+did the late Gustavus, the most victorious of modern princes, bring out
+of Sweden with him into Germany? An army that goes upon a golden leg
+will be as lame as if it were a wooden one; but proper forces have
+nerves and muscles in them, such for which, having £4,000,000 or
+£5,000,000, a sum easy enough, with a revenue like this of Oceana, to be
+had at any time in readiness, you need never, or very rarely, charge the
+people with taxes. What influence the commonwealth by such arms has had
+upon the world, I leave to historians, whose custom it has been of old
+to be as diligent observers of foreign actions as careless of those
+domestic revolutions which (less pleasant it may be, as not partaking
+so much of the romance) are to statesmen of far greater profit; and this
+fault, if it be not mine, is so much more frequent with modern writers,
+as has caused me to undertake this work; on which to give my own
+judgment, it is performed as much above the time I have been about it,
+as below the dignity of the matter.
+
+But I cannot depart out of this country till I have taken leave of my
+Lord Archon, a prince of immense felicity who having built as high with
+his counsels as he digged deep with his sword, had now seen fifty years
+measured with his own unerring orbs.
+
+Timoleon (such a hater of tyrants that, not able to persuade his brother
+Timophanes to relinquish the tyranny of Corinth, he slew him) was
+afterward elected by the people (the Sicilians groaning to them from
+under the like burden) to be sent to their relief: whereupon Teleclides,
+the man at that time of most authority in the Commonwealth of Corinth,
+stood up, and giving an exhortation to Timoleon, how he should behave
+himself in this expedition, told him that if he restored the Sicilians
+to liberty, it would be acknowledged that he destroyed a tyrant; if
+otherwise, he must expect to hear he had murdered a king. Timoleon,
+taking his leave with a very small provision for so great a design,
+pursued it with a courage not inferior to, and a felicity beyond, any
+that had been known to that day in mortal flesh, having in the space
+of eight years utterly rooted out of all Sicily those weeds of tyranny,
+through the detestation whereof men fled in such abundance from their
+native country that whole cities were left desolate, and brought it
+to such a pass that others, through the fame of his virtues and the
+excellency of the soil, flocked as fast from all quarters to it as to
+the garden of the world: while he, being presented by the people of
+Syracuse with his town-house and his country retreat, the sweetest
+places in either, lived with his wife and children a most quiet, happy,
+and holy life; for he attributed no part of his success to himself, but
+all to the blessing and providence of the gods. As he passed his time
+in this manner, admired and honored by mankind, Laphistius, an envious
+demagogue, going to summon him upon some pretence or other to answer for
+himself before the assembly, the people fell into such a mutiny as could
+not be appeased but by Timoleon, who, understanding the matter, reproved
+them, by repeating the pains and travel which he had gone through, to
+no other end than that every man might have the free use of the laws.
+Wherefore when Daemenetus, another demagogue, had brought the same
+design about again, and blamed him impertinently to the people for
+things which he did when he was general, Timoleon answered nothing,
+but raising up his hands, gave the gods thanks for their return to his
+frequent prayers, that he might but live to see the Syracusans so free,
+that they could question whom they pleased.
+
+Not long after, being old, through some natural imperfection, he fell
+blind; but the Syracusans by their perpetual visits held him, though he
+could not see, their greatest object: if there arrived strangers, they
+brought him to see this sight. Whatever came in debate at the assembly,
+if it were of small consequence, they determined it themselves; but if
+of importance, they always sent for Timoleon, who, being brought by his
+servants in a chair, and set in the middle of the theatre, there ever
+followed a great shout, after which some time was allowed for the
+benedictions of the people; and then the matter proposed, when Timoleon
+had spoken to it, was put to the suffrage; which given, his servants
+bore him back in his chair, accompanied by the people clapping their
+hands, and making all expressions of joy and applause, till, leaving him
+at his house, they returned to the despatch of their business. And this
+was the life of Timoleon, till he died of age, and dropped like a mature
+fruit, while the eyes of the people were as the showers of autumn.
+
+The life and death of my Lord Archon (but that he had his senses to the
+last, and that his character, as not the restorer, but the founder of a
+commonwealth, was greater) are so exactly the same, that (seeing by men
+wholly ignorant of antiquity I am accused of writing romance) I shall
+repeat nothing: but tell you that this year the whole nation of Oceana,
+even to the women and children, were in mourning, where so great or
+sad a funeral pomp had never been seen or known. Some time after the
+performance of the obsequies a Colossus, mounted on a brazen horse of
+excellent fabric, was erected in the piazza of the Pantheon, engraved
+with this inscription on the eastern side of the pedestal:
+
+             HIS NAME
+
+               IS AS
+
+          PRECIOUS OINTMENT
+
+     And on the wester with the following:
+
+             GRATA PATRIA
+
+     Piae et Perpetuae Memorie
+
+                  D.D.
+
+         OLPHAUS MEGALETOR
+
+     LORD ARCHON, AND SOLE LEGISLATOR
+
+      OF
+
+      OCEANA
+
+      PATER PATRIAE
+
+      Invincible in the Field     The Greatest of Captains
+      Inviolable in his Faith     The Best of Princes
+      Unfeigned in his Zeal       The Happiest of Legislators
+      Immortal in his Fame        The Most Sincere of Christians
+
+      Who setting the Kingdoms of Earth at Liberty,
+      Took the Kingdom of the Heavens by Violence.
+
+      Anno AEtat. suoe 116
+
+       Hujus Reipub. 50
+
+
+
+
+DESCRIPTION OF OCEANA
+
+OCEANA is saluted by the panegyrist after this manner: “O the most
+blessed and fortunate of all countries, Oceana! how deservedly has
+nature with the bounties of heaven and earth endued thee! Thy ever
+fruitful womb not closed with ice nor dissolved by the raging star;
+where Ceres and Bacchus are perpetual twins: thy woods are not the
+harbor of devouring beasts, nor thy continual verdure the ambush of
+serpents, but the food of innumerable herds and flocks presenting thee,
+their shepherdess, with distended dugs or golden fleeces. The wings of
+thy night involve thee not in the horror of darkness, but have still
+some white feather; and thy day is (that for which we esteem life) the
+longest.” But this ecstasy of Pliny, as is observed by Bertius, seems
+to allude as well to Marpesia and Panopea, now provinces of this
+commonwealth, as to Oceana itself.
+
+To speak of the people in each of these countries. This of Oceana, for
+so soft a one, is the most martial in the whole world. “Let States that
+aim at greatness,” says Verulamius, “take heed how their nobility and
+gentlemen multiply too fast, for that makes the common subject grow to
+be a peasant and base swain driven out of heart, and in effect but a
+gentleman’s laborer; just as you may see in coppice woods, if you leave
+the staddels too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs
+and bushes; so in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the commons
+will be base; and you will bring it to that at last, that not the
+hundreth poll will be fit for a helmet, specially as to the infantry,
+which is the nerve of an army, and so there will be great population and
+little strength. This of which I speak has been nowhere better seen than
+by comparing of Oceana and France, whereof Oceana, though far less in
+territory and population, has been nevertheless an overmatch, in regard
+the middle people of Oceana make good solders, which the peasants in
+France do not.” In which words Verulamius, as Machiavel has done before
+him, harps much upon a string which he has not perfectly tuned, and that
+is, the balance of dominion or property, as it follows more plainly, in
+his praise “of the profound and admirable device of Panurgus, King of
+Oceana, in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is,
+maintained with such a proportion of land to them as may breed a subject
+to live in convenient plenty, and no servile condition, and to keep the
+plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus,
+indeed,” says he, “you shall attain to Virgil’s character which he gives
+of ancient Italy.” But the tillage, bringing up a good soldiery, brings
+up a good commonwealth; which the author in the praise of Panurgus did
+not mind, nor Panurgus in deserving that praise; for where the owner of
+the plough comes to have the sword, too, he will use it in defence of
+his own; whence it has happened that the people of Oceana, in proportion
+to their property, have been always free. And the genius of this nation
+has ever had some resemblance with that of ancient Italy, which was
+wholly addicted to commonwealths, and where Rome came to make the
+greatest account of her rustic tribes, and to call her consuls from the
+plough; for in the way of parliaments, which was the government of this
+realm, men of country lives have been still intrusted with the greatest
+affairs, and the people have constantly had an aversion to the ways of
+the court. Ambition, loving to be gay and to fawn, has been a gallantry
+looked upon as having something in it of the livery; and husbandry, or
+the country way of life, though of a grosser spinning, as the best stuff
+of a commonwealth, according to Aristotle, such a one being the most
+obstinate assertress of her liberty and the least subject to innovation
+or turbulency. Wherefore till the foundations, as will be hereafter
+shown, were removed, this people was observed to be the least subject
+to shakings and turbulency of any; whereas commonwealths, upon which
+the city life has had the stronger influence, as Athens, have seldom or
+never been quiet, but at the best are found to have injured their own
+business by overdoing it. Whence the urban tribes of Rome, consisting
+of the Turba forensis, and libertines that had received their freedom by
+manumission, were of no reputation in comparison of the rustics. It
+is true that with Venice it may seem to be otherwise, in regard
+the gentlemen (for so are all such called as have a right to that
+government) are wholly addicted to the city life; but then the Turba
+forensis, the secretaries, Cittadini, with the rest of the populace,
+are wholly excluded. Otherwise a commonwealth consisting but of one city
+would doubtless be stormy, in regard that ambition would be every man’s
+trade; but where it consists of a country, the plough in the hands of
+the owner finds him a better calling, and produces the most innocent and
+steady genius of a commonwealth, such as is that of Oceana.
+
+Marpesia, being the northern part of the same island, is the dry-nurse
+of a populous and hardy nation, but where the staddels have been
+formerly too thick, whence their courage answered not their hardiness,
+except in the nobility, who govern much after the manner of Poland, but
+that the King was not elective till the people received their liberty;
+the yoke of the nobility being broken by the commonwealth of Oceana,
+which in grateful return is thereby provided with an inexhaustible
+magazine of auxiliaries.
+
+Panopea, the soft mother of a slothful and pusillanimous people, is a
+neighbor island, anciently subjected by the arms of Oceana; since almost
+depopulated for shaking the yoke, and at length replanted with a new
+race. But, through what virtues of the soil or vice of the air soever it
+be, they come still to degenerate. Wherefore seeing it is neither likely
+to yield men fit for arms, nor necessary it should, it had been the
+interest of Oceana so to have disposed of this province, being both rich
+in the nature of the soil, and full of commodious ports for trade, that
+it might have been ordered for the best in relation to her purse, which
+in my opinion, if it had been thought upon in time, might have been best
+done by planting it with Jews, allowing them their own rites and laws;
+for that would have brought them suddenly from all parts of the world,
+and in sufficient numbers. And though the Jews be now altogether for
+merchandise, yet in the land of Canaan (except since their exile
+from whence they have not been landlords) they were altogether for
+agriculture; and there is no cause why a man should doubt, but having a
+fruitful country and excellent ports, too, they would be good at both.
+Panopea, well peopled, would be worth a matter of £4,000,000 dry-rents;
+that is, besides the advantage of the agriculture and trade, which,
+with a nation of that industry, come at least to as much more. Wherefore
+Panopea, being farmed out to the Jews and their heirs forever, for the
+pay of a provincial army to protect them during the term of seven years,
+and for £2,000,000 annual revenue from that time forward, besides the
+customs, which would pay the provincial army, would have been a bargain
+of such advantage, both to them and this commonwealth, as is not to be
+found otherwise by either. To receive the Jews after any other manner
+into a commonwealth were to maim it; for they of all nations never
+incorporate, but taking up the room of a limb, are of no use office to
+the body, while they suck the nourishment which would sustain a natural
+and useful member.
+
+If Panopea had been so disposed of, that knapsack, with the Marpesian
+auxiliary, had been an inestimable treasure; the situation of these
+countries being islands (as appears by Venice how advantageous such a
+one is to the like government) seems to have been designed by God for
+a commonwealth. And yet that, through the straitness of the place
+and defect of proper arms, can be no more than a commonwealth for
+preservation; whereas this, reduced to the like government, is a
+commonwealth for increase, and upon the mightiest foundation that any
+has been laid from the beginning of the world to this day.
+
+     “Illam arcta capiens Neptunus compede stringit:
+      Hanc autem glaucis captus complectitur ulnis.”
+
+The sea gives law to the growth of Venice, but the growth of Oceana
+gives law to the sea.
+
+These countries, having been anciently distinct and hostile kingdoms,
+came by Morpheus the Marpesian, who succeeded by hereditary right to the
+crown of Oceana, not only to be joined under one head, but to be cast,
+as it were by a charm, into that profound sleep, which, broken at length
+by the trumpet of civil war, has produced those effects that have given
+occasion to the preceding discourse, divided into four parts.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, by James Harrington
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