whereas by what we have learnt of my lords that opened them, it appears that there was not any considerable one of such a constitution but Carthage, till this in our days of Venice.

"For to begin with Israel, it consisted of the twelve tribes, locally spread or quartered throughout the whole territory; and these being called together by trumpets, constituted the church or assembly of the people The vastness of this weight, as also the slowness thence unavoidable, became a great cause (as has been shown at large by my Lord Phosphorus) of the breaking that commonwealth; notwithstanding that the Temple, and those religious ceremonies for which the people were at least annually obliged to repair thither, were no small ligament of the tribes, otherwise but slightly tacked together.

"Athens consisted of four tribes, taking in the whole people, both of the city and of the territory; not so gathered by Theseus into one town, as to exclude the country, but to the end that there might be some capital of the commonwealth: though true it be, that the congregation, consisting of the inhabitants within the walls, was sufficient to all intents and purposes, without those of the country. These also being exceeding numerous, became burdensome to themselves and dangerous to the commonwealth; the more for their ill education, as is observed by Xenophon and Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are perpetually disputing and swaggering one with another, and never lay their hands to the common tackling or safety till they be all endangered by some storm. Which caused Thucydides, when he saw this people through the purchase of their misery become so much wiser as to reduce their comitia or assemblies to five thousand, 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 temper both of the few [by which he means the Senate of the Bean] and of the many,' or the five thousand. And he does not only give you his judgment, but the best proof of it; for 'this,' says he, ' was the first thing that, after so many misfortunes past, made the city again to raise her head.' The place I would desire your lordships to note, as the first example that I find, or think is to be found, of a popular assembly by way of representative.

"Lacedemon consisted of thirty thousand citizens dispersed

throughout Laconia, one of the greatest provinces in all Greece, and divided, as by some authors is probable, into six tribes. Of the whole body of these, being gathered, consisted the great church or assembly, which had the legislative power; the little church, gathered sometimes for matters of concern within the city, consisted of the Spartans only. These happened, like that of Venice, to be good constitutions of a congregation, but from an ill cause the infirmity of a commonwealth, which through her paucity was oligarchical.

"Wherefore, go which way you will, it should seem that without a representative of the people, your commonwealth, consisting of a whole nation, can never avoid falling either into oligarchy or confusion.

"This was seen by the Romans, whose rustic tribes, extending themselves from the river Arno to the Vulturnus, that is, from Fesulæ 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 vocata. These gave the suffrage of the commonwealth in two meetings; the prerogative at the first assembly, and the jure vocata at a second.

"Now to make the parallel: all the inconveniences that you have observed in these assemblies are shut out, and all the conveniences taken into your prerogative. For first, it is that for which Athens, shaking off the blame of Xenophon and Polybius, came to deserve the praise of Thucydides, a representative. And, secondly, not, as I suspect in that of Athens, and is past suspicion in this of Rome, by lot, but by suffrage, as was also the late House of Commons, by which means in your prerogatives all the tribes of Oceana are jure vocata; 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 pomaria, 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 Cunæus, where speaking of the nature of the people, he says, 'that taking them apart, they are very simple, but yet in their assemblies they see and know something:' and so runs away without troubling himself with what that something is. Whereas the people, taken apart, are but so many private interests; but if you take them together, they are the public interest. The public interest of a commonwealth, as has been shown, is nearest that of mankind, and that of mankind is right reason; but with aristocracy (whose reason or interest, when they are all together, as appeared by the patricians, is but that of a party) it is quite contrary: for as, taken apart, they are far wiser than the people considered in that manner, so, being put together, they are such fools, who by deposing the people, as did those of Rome, will saw off the branch whereupon they sit, or rather destroy the root of their own greatness. Wherefore Machiavel, following Aristotle, and yet going before him, may well assert, 'that the people are wiser and more constant in their resolutions than a prince:' which is the prerogative of popular government for wisdom. And hence it is that the prerogative of your commonwealth, as for wisdom so for power, is in the people, which (though I am not ignorant that the Roman prerogative was so called à prærogando, because their suffrage was first asked) gives the denomination to your prerogative tribe."

The elections, whether annual or triennial, being shown by the twenty-second, that which comes in the next place to be considered is

The twenty-third order, " Showing the power, function, and manner of proceeding of the prerogative tribe.

"The power or function of the prerogative is of two parts: the one of result, in which it is the legislative power; the other of judicature, in which regard it is the highest court, and the last appeal in this commonwealth.

"For the former part (the people by this constitution being. not obliged by any law that is not of their own making or confirmation, by the result of the prerogative, their equal representative) it shall not be lawful for the senate to require obedience from the people, nor for the people to give obedience to the senate in or by any law that has not been promulgated, or printed and published for the space of six weeks, and afterwards proposed by the authority of the senate to the prerogative tribe, and resolved by the major vote of the same in the affirmative. Nor shall the senate have any power to levy war, men, or money, otherwise than by the consent of the people so given, or by a law so enacted, except in cases of exigence, in which it is agreed that the power, both of the senate and the people, shall be in the dictator, so qualified, and for such a term of time, as is according to that constitution already prescribed. While a law is in promulgation, the censors shall animadvert upon the senate, and the tribunes upon the people, that there be no laying of heads together, no conventicles or canvassing to carry on or oppose anything; but that all may be done in a free and open way.

"For the latter part of the power of the prerogative, or that whereby they are the supreme judicatory of this nation, and of the provinces of the same, the cognizances of crimes against the majesty of the people, such as high treason, as also of peculation, that is, robbery of the treasury, or defraudation of the commonwealth, appertains to this tribe. And if any person or persons, provincials or citizens, shall appeal to the people, it belongs to the prerogative to judge and determine the case; provided that if the appeal be from any court of justice in this nation or the provinces, the appellant shall first deposit £100 in the court from which he appeals, to be forfeited to the same if he be cast in his suit by the people. But the power of the council of war being the expedition of this commonwealth, and the martial law

of the strategus in the field, are those only from which there shall lie no appeal to the people.

"The proceeding of the prerogative in case of a proposition is to be thus ordered: The magistrates, proposing by authority of the senate, shall rehearse the whole matter, and expound it to the people; which done, they shall put the whole together to the suffrage, with three boxes, the negative, the affirmative, and the non-sincere; and the suffrage being returned to the tribunes, and numbered in the presence of the proposers. If the major vote be in the non-sincere, the proposer shall desist, and the senate shall resume the debate. If the major vote be in the negative, the proposers shall desist, and the senate too. But if the major vote be in the affirmative, then the tribe is clear, and the proposers shall begin and put the whole matter, with the negative and the affirmative (leaving out the non-sincere) by clauses; and the suffrages being taken and numbered by the tribunes in the presence of the proposers, shall be written and reported by the tribunes to the senate. And that which is proposed by the authority of the senate, and confirmed by the command of the people, is the law of Oceana.

"The proceeding of the prerogative in a case of judicature is to be thus ordered: The tribunes being auditors of all causes appertaining to the cognizance of the people, shall have notice of the suit or trial, whether of appeal or otherwise, that is to be commenced; and if any one of them shall accept of the same, it appertains to him to introduce it. A cause being introduced, and the people mustered or assembled for the decision of the same, the tribunes are presidents of the court, having power to keep it to orders, and shall be seated upon a scaffold erected in the middle of the tribe. Upon the right hand shall stand a seat or large pulpit assigned to the plaintiff or the accuser; and, upon the left, another for the defendant, each if they please with his counsel. And the tribunes (being attended upon such occasions with so many ballotins, secretaries, doorkeepers, and messengers of the senate as shall be requisite) one of them shall turn up a glass of the nature of an hour-glass, but such a one as is to be of an hour and a half's running; which being turned up, the party or counsel on the right hand may begin to speak to the people. If there be papers to be read, or