"A people, when they are reduced to misery and despair, become their own politicians, as certain beasts, when they are sick, become their own physicians, and are carried by a natural instinct to the desire of such herbs as are their proper cure; but the people, for the greater part, are beneath the beasts in the use of them. Thus the people of Rome, though in their misery they had recourse by instinct, as it were, to the two main fundamentals of a commonwealth, partic.i.p.ation of magistracy and the agrarian, did but taste and spit at them, not (which is necessary in physic) drink down the potion, and in that their healths. For when they had obtained partic.i.p.ation of magistracy it was but lamely, not to a full and equal rotation in all elections; nor did they greatly regard it in what they had got. And when they had attained to the agrarian, they neglected it so far as to suffer the law to grow obsolete; but if you do not take the due dose of your medicines (as there be slight tastes which a man may have of philosophy that incline to atheism) it may chance to be poison, there being a like taste of the politics that inclines to confusion, as appears in the inst.i.tution of the Roman tribunes, by which magistracy and no more the people were so far from attaining to peace, that they in getting but so much, got but heads for an eternal feud; whereas if they had attained in perfection either to the agrarian, they had introduced the equality and calm of Lacedaemon, or to rotation, and they had introduced that of Venice: and so there could have been no more enmity between the Senate and the people of Rome than there was between those orders in Lacedaemon, or is now in Venice. Wherefore Machiavel seems to me, in attributing the peace of Venice more to her luck than her prudence, of the whole stable to have saddled the wrong horse; for though Rome in her military part could beat it better, beyond all comparison, upon the sounding hoof, Venice for the civil part has plainly had the wings of Pegasus.
"The whole question then will come upon this point, whether the people of Rome could have obtained these orders? And first, to say that they could not have obtained them without altering the commonwealth, is no argument; seeing neither could they, without altering the commonwealth, have obtained their tribunes, which nevertheless were obtained. And if a man considers the posture that the people were in when they obtained their tribunes, they might as well, and with as great ease (forasmuch as the reason why the n.o.bility yielded to the tribunes was no other than that there was no remedy) have obtained anything else. And for experience, it was in the like case that the Lacedaemonians did set up their ephors, and the Athenians, after the battle of Plataea, bowed the Senate (so hard a thing it is for a commonwealth that was born crooked to become straight) as much the other way. Nor, if it be objected that this must have ruined the n.o.bility (and in that deprived the commonwealth of the greatness which she acquired by them), is this opinion holding, but confuted by the sequel of the story, showing plainly that the n.o.bility, through the defect of such orders (that is to say, of rotation and the agrarian), came to eat up the people; and battening themselves in luxury, to be, as Sall.u.s.t speaks of them, "a most sluggish and lazy n.o.bility, in whom, besides the name, there was no more than in a statue;" and to bring so mighty a commonwealth, and of so huge a glory, to so deplorable an end. Wherefore means might have been found to remove the enmity that was between the Senate and the people of Rome.
"My lords, if I have argued well, I have given you the comfort and a.s.surance that, notwithstanding the judgment of Machiavel, your commonwealth is both safe and sound; but if I have not argued well, then take the comfort and a.s.surance which he gives you while he is firm, that a legislator is to lay aside all other examples, and follow that of Rome only, conniving and temporizing with the enmity between the Senate and the people as a necessary step to the Roman greatness. Whence it follows that your commonwealth, at the worst, is that which he has given you his word is the best.
"I have held your lordships long, but upon an account of no small importance, which I can now sum up in these few words: where there is a liquorishness in a popular a.s.sembly to debate, it proceeds not from the const.i.tution of the people, but of the commonwealth. Now that your commonwealth is of such a const.i.tution as is naturally free from this kind of intemperance, is that which, to make good, I must divide the remainder of my discourse into two parts:
"The first, showing the several const.i.tutions of the a.s.semblies of the people in other commonwealths;
"The second, comparing our a.s.sembly of the people with theirs; and showing how it excludes the inconveniences and embraces the conveniences of them all.
"In the beginning of the first part I must take notice, that among the popular errors of our days it is no small one that men imagine the ancient governments of this kind to have consisted for the most part of one city that is, of one town; whereas by what we have learned of my "lords that owned them, it appears that there was not any considerable one of such a Const.i.tution but Carthage, till this in our days of Venice.
"For to begin with Israel, it consisted of the twelve tribes, locally spread or quartered throughout the whole territory, and these being called together by trumpets, const.i.tuted the Church or a.s.sembly of the people. The vastness of this weight, as also the slowness thence unavoidable, became a great cause (as has been shown at large by my Lord Phosphorus) of the breaking that commonwealth; notwithstanding that the Temple, and those religious ceremonies for which the people were at least annually obliged to repair thither, were no small ligament of the tribes, otherwise but slightly tacked together.
"Athens consisted of four tribes, taking in the whole people, both of the city and of the territory; not so gathered by Theseus into one town, as to exclude the country, but to the end that there might be some capital of the commonwealth: though true it be, that the congregation, consisting of the inhabitants within the walls, was sufficient to all intents and purposes, without those of the country. These also being exceeding numerous, became burdensome to themselves and dangerous to the commonwealth; the more for their ill-education, as is observed by Xenophon and Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are perpetually disputing and swaggering one with another, and never lay their hands to the common tackling or safety till they be all endangered by some storm. Which caused Thucydides, when he saw this people through the purchase of their misery become so much wiser as to reduce their Comitia or a.s.semblies to 5,000, to say in his eighth book: "And now, at least in my time, the Athenians seem to have ordered their State aright, consisting of a moderate tempor both of the few (by which he means the Senate of the Bean) and of the many," or the 5,000. And he does not only give you his judgment, but the best proof of it; for "this," says he, "was the first thing that, after so many misfortunes past, made the city again to raise her head." The place I would desire your lordships to note, as the first example that I find, or think is to be found, of a popular a.s.sembly by way of representative.
"Lacedaemon consisted of 30,000 citizens dispersed throughout Laconia, one of the greatest provinces in all Greece, and divided, as by some authors is probable, into six tribes. Of the whole body of these, being gathered, consisted the great Church or a.s.sembly, which had the legislative power; the little church, gathered sometimes for matters of concern within the city, consisted of the Spartans only. These happened, like that of Venice, to be good const.i.tutions of a congregation, but from an ill-cause the infirmity of a commonwealth, which through her paucity was oligarchical.
"Wherefore, go which way you will, it should seem that without a representative of the people, your commonwealth, consisting of a whole nation, can never avoid falling either into oligarchy or confusion.
"This was seen by the Romans, whose rustic tribes, extending themselves from the river Arno to the Vulturnus, that is, from Fesulae or Florence to Capua, invented a way of representative by lots: the tribe upon which the first fell being the prerogative, and some two or three more that had the rest, the jure vocatoe. These gave the suffrage of the commonwealth in two meetings; the prerogative at the first a.s.sembly, and the jure vocatoe at a second.
"Now to make the parallel: all the inconveniences that you have observed in these a.s.semblies are shut out, and all the conveniences taken into your prerogative. For first, it is that for which Athens, shaking off the blame of Xenophon and Polybius, came to deserve the praise of Thucydides, a representative. And, secondly, not, as I suspect in that of Athens, and is past suspicion in this of Rome, by lot, but by suffrage, as was also the late House of Commons, by which means in your prerogatives all the tribes of Oceana are jure vocatoe; and if a man shall except against the paucity of the standing number, it is a wheel, which in the revolution of a few years turns every hand that is fit, or fits every hand that it turns to the public work. Moreover, I am deceived if, upon due consideration, it does not fetch your tribes, with greater equality and ease to themselves and to the government, from the frontiers of Marpesia, than Rome ever brought any one of hers out of her pomoeria, or the nearest parts of her adjoining territories. To this you may add, that whereas a commonwealth, which in regard of the people is not of facility in execution, were sure enough in this nation to be cast off through impatience; your musters and galaxies are given to the people, as milk to babes, whereby when they are brought up through four days" election in a whole year (one at the parish, one at the hundred, and two at the tribe) to their strongest meat, it is of no harder digestion than to give their negative or affirmative as they see cause.
There be gallant men among us that laugh at such an appeal or umpire; but I refer it whether you be more inclining to pardon them or me, who I confess have been this day laughing at a sober man, but without meaning him any harm, and that is Petrus Cunaeus, where speaking of the nature of the people, he says, "that taking them apart, they are very simple, but yet in their a.s.semblies they see and know something, and so runs away without troubling himself with what that something is. Whereas the people, taken apart, are but so many private interests; but if you take them together, they are the public interest.
"The public interest of a commonwealth, as has been shown, is nearest that of mankind, and that of mankind is right reason; but with aristocracy (whose reason or interest, when they are all together, as appeared by the patricians, is but that of a party) it is quite contrary: for as, taken apart, they are far wiser than the people considered in that manner, so, being put together, they are such fools, who by deposing the people, as did those of Rome, will saw off the branch whereupon they sit, or rather destroy the root of their own greatness. Wherefore Machiavel, following Aristotle, and yet going before him, may well a.s.sert, "that the people are wiser and more constant in their resolutions than a prince:" which is the prerogative of popular government for wisdom. And hence it is that the prerogative of your commonwealth, as for wisdom so for power, is in the people, which (though I am not ignorant that the Roman prerogative was so called a proerogando, because their suffrage was first asked) gives the denomination to your prerogative tribe."
The elections, whether annual or triennial, being shown by the twenty-second, that which comes in the next place to be considered is--
The twenty-third order, "Showing the power, function, and manner of proceeding of the prerogative tribe.
"The power or function of the prerogative is of two parts: the one of result, in which it is the legislative, power, the other of judicature, in which regard it is the highest court, and the last appeal in this commonwealth.
"For the former part (the people by this const.i.tution being not obliged by any law that is not of their own making or confirmation, by the result of the prerogative, their equal representative) it shall not be lawful for the Senate to require obedience from the people, nor for the people to give obedience to the Senate in or by any law that has not been promulgated, or printed and published for the s.p.a.ce of six weeks, and afterward proposed by the authority of the Senate to the prerogative tribe, and resolved by the major vote of the same in the affirmative.
Nor shall the Senate have any power to levy war, men, or money, otherwise than by the consent of the people so given, or by a law so enacted, except in cases of exigence, in which it is agreed that the power, both of the Senate and the people, shall be in the dictator so qualified, and for such a term of time, as is according to that const.i.tution already prescribed. While a law is in promulgation, the censors shall animadvert upon the Senate, and the tribunes upon the people, that there be no laying of heads together, no conventicles or canva.s.sing to carry on or oppose anything; but that all may be done in a free and open way.
"For the latter part of the power of the prerogative, or that whereby they are the supreme judicatory of this nation, and of the provinces of the same, the cognizances of crimes against the majesty of the people, such as high treason, as also of peculation, that is, robbery of the treasury, or defraudation of the commonwealth, appertains to this tribe.
And if any person or persons, provincials or citizens, shall appeal to the people, it belongs to the prerogative to judge and determine the case; provided that if the appeal be from any court of justice in this nation or the provinces, the appellant shall first deposit 100 in the court from which he appeals, to be forfeited to the same if he be cast in his suit by the people. But the power of the Council of War being the expedition of this commonwealth, and the martial law of the strategus in the field, are those only from which there shall lie no appeal to the people.
"The proceeding of the prerogative in case of a proposition is to be thus ordered: The magistrates, proposing by authority of the Senate, shall rehea.r.s.e the whole matter, and expound it to the people; which done, they shall put the whole together to the suffrage, with three boxes, the negative, the affirmative, and the non-sincere; and the suffrage being returned to the tribunes, and numbered in the presence of the proposers. If the major vote be in the non-sincere, the proposer shall desist, and the Senate shall resume the debate. If the major vote be in the negative, the proposers shall desist, and the Senate, too. But if the major vote be in the affirmative, then the tribe is clear and the proposers shall begin and put the whole matter, with the negative and the affirmative (leaving out the non-sincere) by clauses; and the suffrages being taken and numbered by the tribunes in the presence of the proposers, shall be written and reported by the tribunes of the Senate. And that which is proposed by the authority of the Senate, and confirmed by the command of the people, is the law of Oceana.
"The proceeding of the prerogative in a case of judicature is to be thus ordered: The tribunes being auditors of all causes appertaining to the cognizance of the people, shall have notice of the suit or trial, whether of appeal or otherwise, that is to be commenced; and if any one of them shall accept of the same, it appertains to him to introduce it.
A cause being introduced, and the people mustered or a.s.sembled for the decision of the same, the tribunes are presidents of the court, having power to keep it to orders, and shall be seated upon a scaffold erected in the middle of the tribe. Upon the right hand shall stand a seat or large pulpit a.s.signed to the plaintiff or the accuser; and, upon the left, another for the defendant, each if they please with his counsel.
And the tribunes (being attended upon such occasions with so many ballotins, secretaries, doorkeepers, and messengers of the Senate as shall be requisite) one of them shall turn up a gla.s.s of the nature of an hour-gla.s.s, but such a one as is to be of an hour and a half"s running; which being turned up, the party or counsel on the right hand may begin to speak to the people. If there be papers to be read, or witnesses to be examined, the officer shall lay the gla.s.s sideways till the papers be read and the witnesses examined, and then turn it up again; and so long as the gla.s.s is running, the party on the right hand has liberty to speak, and no longer. The party on the right hand having had his time, the like shall be done in every respect for the party on the left. And the cause being thus heard, the tribunes shall put the question to the tribe with a white, a black, and a red box (or non-sincere), whether guilty or not guilty. And if the suffrage being taken, the major vote be in the non-sincere, the cause shall be reheard upon the next juridicial day following, and put to the question in the same manner. If the major vote comes the second time in the non-sincere, the cause shall be heard again upon the third day; but at the third hearing the question shall be put without the non-sincere. Upon the first of the three days in which the major vote comes in the white box, the party accused is absolved; and upon the first of them in which it comes in the black box, the party accused is condemned. The party accused being condemned, the tribunes (if the case be criminal) shall put with the white and the black box these questions, or such of them as, regard had to the case, they shall conceive most proper:
1. Whether he shall have a writ of ease; 2. Whether he shall be fined so much or so much; 3. Whether he shall be confiscated; 4. Whether he shall be rendered incapable of magistracy; 5. Whether he shall be banished; 6. Whether he shall be put to death.
"These, or any three of these questions, whether simple or such as shall be thought fitly mixed, being put by the tribunes, that which has most above half the votes in the black box is the sentence of the people, which the troop of the third cla.s.s is to see executed accordingly.
"But whereas by the const.i.tution of this commonwealth it may appear that neither the propositions of the Senate nor the judicature of the people will be so frequent as to hold the prerogative in continual employment, the Senate, a main part of whose office it is to teach and instruct the people, shall duly (if they have no greater affairs to divert them) cause an oration to be made to the prerogative by some knight or magistrate of the Senate, to be chosen out of the ablest men, and from time to time appointed by the orator of the house, in the great hall of the Pantheon, while the Parliament resides in the town, or in some grove or sweet place in the field, while the Parliament for the heat of the year shall reside in the country, upon every Tuesday, morning or afternoon.
"And the orator appointed for the time to this office shall first repeat the orders of the commonwealth with all possible brevity; and then, making choice of one or some part of it, discourse thereof to the people. An oration or discourse of this nature, being afterward perused by the Council of State, may as they see cause be printed and published."
The Archon"s comment upon the order I find to have been of this sense:
"MY LORDS:
"To crave pardon for a word or two in further explanation of what was read, I shall briefly show how the const.i.tution of this tribe or a.s.sembly answers to their function; and how their function, which is of two parts, the former in the result or legislative power, the latter in the supreme judicature of the commonwealth, answers to their const.i.tution. Machiavel has a discourse, where he puts the question, "Whether the guard of liberty may with more security be committed to the n.o.bility or to the people?" Which doubt of his arises through the want of explaining his terms; for the guard of liberty can signify nothing else but the result of the commonwealth; so that to say that the guard of liberty may be committed to the n.o.bility, is to say that the result may be committed to the Senate, in which case the people signify nothing.
"Now to show it was a mistake to affirm it to have been thus in Lacedaemon, sufficient has been spoken; and whereas he will have it to be so in Venice also: "They," says Contarini, "in whom resides the supreme power of the whole commonwealth, and of the laws, and upon whose orders depends the authority as well of the Senate as of all the other magistrates, is the Great Council." It is inst.i.tutively in the Great Council, by the judgment of all that know that commonwealth; though, for the reasons shown, it be sometimes exercised by the Senate. Nor need I run over the commonwealths in this place for the proof of a thing so doubtless, and such as has been already made so apparent, as that the result of each was in the popular part of it. The popular part of yours, or the prerogative tribe, consists of seven deputies (whereof three are of the horse) annually elected out of every tribe of Oceana; which being fifty, amounts to 150 horse and 200 foot. And the prerogative consisting of three of these lists, consists of 450 horse and 600 foot, besides those of the provinces to be hereafter mentioned; by which means the overbalance in the suffrage remaining to the foot by 150 votes, you have to the support of a true and natural aristocracy the deepest root of a democracy that has been ever planted.
"Wherefore there is nothing in art or nature better qualified for the result than this a.s.sembly it is noted out of Cicero by Machiavel, "That the people, though they are not so p.r.o.ne to find out truth of themselves as to follow custom or run into error yet if they be shown truth, they not only acknowledge and embrace it very suddenly, but are the most constant and faithful guardians and conservators of it." it is your duty and office, whereto you are also qualified by the orders of this commonwealth, to have the people as you have your hawks and greyhounds, in leashes and slips, to range the fields and beat the bushes for them, for they are of a nature that is never good at this sport, but when you spring or start their proper quarry. Think not that they will stand to ask you what it is, or less know it than your hawks and greyhounds do theirs; but presently make such a flight or course, that a huntsman may as well undertake to run with his dogs, or a falconer to fly with his hawk, as an aristocracy at this game to compare with the people. The people of Rome were possessed of no less a prey than the empire of the world, when the n.o.bility turned tails, and perched among daws upon the tower of monarchy. For though they did not all of them intend the thing, they would none of them endure the remedy, which was the agrarian.
"But the prerogative tribe has not only the result, but is the supreme judicature, and the ultimate appeal in this commonwealth. For the popular government that makes account to be of any standing, must make sure in the first place of the appeal to the people. As an estate in trust becomes a man"s own if he be not answerable for it, so the power of a magistracy not accountable to the people, from whom it was received, becoming of private use, the commonwealth loses her liberty Wherefore the right of supreme judicature in the people (Without which there can be no such thing as popular government) is confirmed by the constant practice of all commonwealths; as that of Israel in the cases of Achan, and of the tribe of Benjamin, adjudged by the congregation.
"The dicasterian, or court called the heliaia in Athens, which (the comitia of that commonwealth consisting of the whole people, and so being too numerous to be a judicatory) was const.i.tuted sometimes of 500, at others of 1,000, or, according to the greatness of the cause, of 1,500, elected by the lot out of the whole body of the people, had, with the nine Archons that were presidents, the cognizance of such causes as were of highest importance in that State. The five ephors in Lacedaemon, which were popular magistrates, might question their kings, as appears by the cases of Pausanias, and of Agis, who being upon his trial in this court, was cried to by his mother to appeal to the people, as Plutarch has it in his life. The tribunes of the people of Rome (like, in the nature of their magistracy, and for some time in number, to the ephors, as being, according to Halicarna.s.sus and Plutarch, inst.i.tuted in imitation of them) had power to summon any man, his magistracy at least being expired (for from the Dictator there lay no appeal) to answer for himself to the people. As in the case of Coriola.n.u.s, who was going about to force the people, by withholding corn from them in a famine, to relinquish the magistracy of the tribunes, in that of Spurius Ca.s.sius for affecting tyranny, of Marcus Sergius for running away at Veii, of Caius Lucretius for spoiling his province, of Junius Sila.n.u.s for making war without a command from the people against the Cimbri, with divers others. And the crimes of this nature were called loesoe majestatis, or high treason. Examples of such as were arraigned or tried for peculation, or defraudation of the commonwealth, were Marcus Curius for intercepting the money of the Samnites, Salinator for the unequal division of spoils to his soldiers, Marcus Posthumius for cheating the commonwealth by a feigned shipwreck. Causes of these two kinds were of a more public nature; but the like power upon appeals was also exercised by the people in private matters, even during the time of the kings, as in the case of Horatius. Nor is it otherwise with Venice, where the Doge Loredano was sentenced by the great Council, and Antonio Grimani, afterward doge, questioned, for that he, being admiral, had suffered the Turk to take Lepanto in view of his fleet.
"Nevertheless, there lay no appeal from the Roman dictator to the people; which, if there had, might have cost the commonwealth dear, when Spurius Melius, affecting empire, circ.u.mvented and debauched the tribunes: whereupon t.i.tus Quintus Cincinnatus was created Dictator, who having chosen Servilius Ahala to be his lieutenant, or magister equitum, sent him to apprehend Melius, whom, while he disputed the commands of the Dictator and implored the aid of the people, Ahala cut off upon the place. By which example you may see in what cases the dictator may prevent the blow which is ready sometimes to fall ere the people be aware of the danger. Wherefore there lies no appeal from the Dieci, or the Council of Ten, in Venice, to the Great Council, nor from our Council of War to the people. For the way of proceeding of this tribe, or the ballot, it is, as was once said for all, Venetian.
"This discourse of judicatories whereupon we are fallen, brings us rather naturally than of design from the two general orders of every commonwealth, that is to say, from the debating part, or the Senate, and the resolving part, or the people, to the third, which is the executive part or the magistracy, whereupon I shall have no need to dwell, for the executive magistrates of this commonwealth are the strategus in arms; the signory in their several courts, as the chancery, the exchequer; as also the councils in divers cases within their instructions; the censors as well in their proper magistracy, as in the Council of Religion; the tribunes in the government of the prerogative, and that judicatory; and the judges with their courts; of all which so much is already said or known as may suffice.
"The Tuesday lectures or orations to the people will be of great benefit to the Senate, the prerogative, and the whole nation. To the Senate, because they will not only teach your Senators elocution, but keep the system of the government in their memories. Elocution is of great use to your Senators, for if they do not understand rhetoric (giving it at this time for granted that the art were not otherwise good) and come to treat with, or vindicate the cause of the commonwealth against some other nation that is good at it, the advantage will be subject to remain upon the merit of the art, and not upon the merit of the cause. Furthermore, the genius or soul of this government being in the whole and in every part, they will never be of ability in determination upon any particular, unless at the same time they have an idea of the whole.
That this therefore must be, in that regard, of equal benefit to the prerogative, is plain; though these have a greater concernment in it.
For this commonwealth is the estate of the people; and a man, you know, though he be virtuous, yet if he does not understand his estate, may run out or be cheated of it. Last of all, the treasures of the politics will by this means be so opened, rifled, and dispersed, that this nation will as soon dote, like the Indians, upon gla.s.s beads, as disturb your government with whimsies and freaks of mother-wit, or suffer themselves to be stuttered out of their liberties. There is not any reason why your grandees, your wise men of this age, that laugh out and openly at a commonwealth as the most ridiculous thing, do not appear to be, as in this regard they are, mere idiots, but that the people have not eyes."
There remains no more relating to the Senate and the people than--
The twenty-fourth order, "Whereby it is lawful for the province of Marpesia to have thirty knights of their own election continually present in the Senate of Oceana, together with sixty deputies of horse, and 120 of foot in the prerogative tribe, endued with equal power (respect had to their quality and number) in the debate and result of this commonwealth, provided that they observe the course or rotation of the same by the annual return of ten knights, twenty deputies of the horse, and forty of the foot. The like in all respects is lawful for Panopea; and the horse of both the provinces amounting to one troop, and the foot to one company, one captain and one cornet of the horse shall be annually chosen by Marpesia, and one captain and one ensign of the foot shall be annually chosen by Panopea."
The orb of the prerogative being thus complete, is not unnaturally compared to that of the moon, either in consideration of the light borrowed from the Senate, as from the sun; or of the ebbs and floods of the people, which are marked by the negative or affirmative of this tribe. And the const.i.tution of the Senate and the people being shown, you have that of the Parliament of Oceana, consisting of the Senate proposing, and of the people resolving, which amounts to an act of Parliament. So the Parliament is the heart, which, consisting of two ventricles, the one greater and replenished with a grosser matter, the other less and full of a purer, sucks in and spouts forth the vital blood of Oceana by a perpetual circulation. Wherefore the life of this government is no more unnatural or obnoxious upon this score to dissolution than that of a man; nor to giddiness than the world; seeing the earth, whether it be itself or the heavens that are in rotation, is so far from being giddy, that it could not subsist without motion. But why should not this government be much rather capable of duration and steadiness by motion? Than which G.o.d has ordained no other to the universal commonwealth of mankind: seeing one generation comes and another goes, but the earth remains firm forever, that is, in her proper situation or place, whether she be moved or not moved upon her proper centre. The Senate, the people, and the magistracy, or the Parliament so const.i.tuted, as you have seen, is the guardian of this commonwealth, and the husband of such a wife as is elegantly described by Solomon: "She is like the merchant"s ships; she brings her food from far. She considers a field, and buys it: with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She perceives that her merchandise is good. She stretches forth her hands to the poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known (by his robes) in the gates, when he sits among the senators of the land."
The gates, or inferior courts, were branches, as it were, of the Sanhedrim, or Senate, of Israel. Nor is our commonwealth a worse housewife, nor has she less regard to her magistrates; as may pear by--
The twenty-fifth order, "That, whereas the public revenue is through the late civil wars dilapidated, the excise, being improved or improvable to the revenue of 1,000,000, be applied, for the s.p.a.ce of eleven years to come, to the reparation of the same, and for the present maintenance of the magistrates, knights, deputies, and other officers, who, according to their several dignities and functions, shall annually receive toward the support of the same, as follows:
"The lord strategus marching, is, upon another account, to have field-pay as general.
Per Annum The lord strategus sitting...... 2,000 The lord orator...... 2,000 The three commissioners of the seal... 4,500 The three commissioners of the treasury... 4,500 The two censors.... 3,000 The 290 knights, at 500 a man..... 145,000 The four amba.s.sadors-in-ordinary.... 12,000 The Council of War for intelligence.... 3,000 The master of the ceremonies..... 500 The master of the horse...... 500 His subst.i.tute..... 150 The twelve ballotins for their winter liveries 240
For summer liveries... 120
For their board-wages...... 480 For the keeping of three coaches of state,
twenty-four coach-horses, with coachmen
and postilions.......... 1,500 For the grooms, and keeping of sixteen