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.’