Chapter IX: Part III: The Model of the Commonwealth of Oceana (4)

“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