called Vice-comites The Court of the County that had an Earl was held by the Earl and the Bishop of the Diocesse after the manner of the Sheriffs Turns unto this Day by which means both the Ecclesiasticall and Temporal Lawes were given in charge together unto the Country the causes of Vavosors or Vavosories appertained to the Cognizance of this Court where Wills were proved Judgment and Execution given cases criminall and civill determined The Kings Thanes had like jurisdiction in their Thain-Lands as Lords in their Manours where they also kept Courts Besides these in particular both the Earls and Kings-Thanes together with the Bishops Abbots and Vavosors or Middle-Thanes had in the High Court or Parliament of the Kingdome a more publick jurisdiction consisting first of Deliberative power for advising upon and assenting unto new Lawes Secondly of giving Counsel in matters of State and thirdly of Judicature upon Suits and Complaints I shall not omit to enlighten the obscurity of these times in which there is little to be found of a Methodical constitution of this High Court by the addition of an Argument which I conceive to bear a strong testimony unto it self though taken out of a late Writing that conceals the Authour It is well known saith he that in every quarter of the Realm a great many Boroughs do yet send Burgesses unto the Parliament which neverthelesse be so anciently and so long since decayed and gone to naught that they cannot be shew'd to have been of any reputation since the Conquest much lesse to have obtained any such priviledge by the grant of any succeeding King wherefore these must have had this right by more ancient usuage and before the Conquest they being unable now to shew whence they derived it This Argument though there be more I shall pitch upon as sufficient to prove First that the lower sort of the people had right unto Session in Parliament during the time of the Teutons Secondly that they were qualify'd unto the same by election in their Boroughs and if Knights of the Shire as no doubt they are be as ancient in the Countries Thirdly if it be a good Argument to say that the Commons during the raign of the Teutons were elected into Parliament because they are so now and no man can shew when this custom began I see not which way it should be an ill one to say that the Commons during the reign of the Teutons constituted also a distinct house because they do so now unlesse any man can shew that they did ever sit in the same House with the Lords Wherefore to conclude this part I conceive for these and other reasons to be mentioned hereafter that the Parliament of the Teutons consisted of the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons of the Nation notwithstanding the style of divers Acts of Parliament which runs as that of Magna Charta in the Kings name only seeing the same was neverthelesse enacted by the King Peers and Commons of the Land as is testified in those words by a subsequent Act. The Monarchy of the Teutons had stood in this posture about two hundred and twenty years when Turbo Duke of Neustria making his claim to the Crown of one of their Kings that dyed Childlesse followed it with successeful Arms and being possessed of the Kingdom used it as conquered distributing the Earldomes Thane Lands Bishopricks and Prelacies of the whole Realm amongst his Neustrians From this time the Earl came to be called Comes Consul Dux though Consul Dux grew afterward out of use The Kings Thanes came to be called Barons and their Lands Baronies the Middle-Thane holding still of a mean Lord retained the name of Vavosor The Earl or Comes continued to have the third part of the pleas of the County paid unto him by the Sheriff or Vice-comes now a distinct Officer in every County depending upon the King saving that such Earls as had their Counties to their own use were now Counts-Palatine and had under the King Regal Jurisdiction insomuch that they constituted their own Sheriffs granted Pardons and issued Writs in their own names nor did Kings Writ of ordinary Justice run in their Dominions till a late Statute whereby much of this priviledge was taken away For Barons they came from henceforth to be in different times of three kinds Barons by their estates and Tenures Barons by writ and Barons created by Letters Pattents From Turbo the first to Adoxus the seventh King from the Conquest Barons had their Denomination from their Possessions and Tenures and these were either Spiritual or Temporal for not onely the Thane Lands but the possessions of Bishops as also of some twenty six Abbots and two Priors were now erected into Baronies whence the Lords Spiritual that had Suffrage in the Teuton Parliament as Spiritual Lords came to have it in the Neustrian Parliament as Barons and were made subject which they had not formerly been unto Knights service in chief Barony comming henceforth to signifie all honorary possessions as well of Earls as Barons and Baronage to denote all kinds of Lords as well Spiritual as Temporal having right to sit in Parliament the Baronies in this sense were sometimes more and sometimes fewer but commonly about 200 or 250 containing in them a matter of sixty thousand feuda militum or Knights fees whereof some twenty eight thousand were in the Clergy It is ill luck that no man can tell what the land of a Knights fee reckoned in some Writs at 40 l. a year and in others at 10. was certainly worth for by such an help we might have exactly demonstrated the Ballance of this Government But sayes Cook it contained twelve plough lands and that was thought to be the most certain account but this again is extreamly uncertain for one Plough out of some Land that was fruitfull might work more than ten out of some other that was barren Neverthelesse seeing it appeareth by Bracton that of Earldoms and Baronies it was wont to be said that the whole Kingdome was composed as also that these consisting of 60000 Knights fees furnisht 60000 men for the Kings service being the whole Militia of this Monarchy it cannot be imagined that the Vavosories or Freeholds in the people amounted to any considerable proportion Wherefore the Ballance and Foundation of this Government was in the 60000 Knights fees and these being possest by the 250 Lords it was a Government of the Few or of the Nobility wherein the people might also assemble but could have no more than a meer name And the Clergy holding a third to the whole Nation as is plaine by the Parliament Rolle it is an absurdity seeing the Clergy of France came first through their riches to be a state of that Kingdome to acknowledge the people to have beene a state of this Realme and not to allow it unto the Clergy who were so much more weighty in
the Session house of the Sanhedrim was first in the Court of the Tabernacle and afterwards in that of the Temple where it came to be called thâ— Stone Chamber or Pavement John If this were the Ballot of Israel that of Venice is the same transposed for in Venice the competitor is chosen as it were by the lot in regard that the Electors are so made and the Magistrate is chosen by the Suffrage of the great Council or Assembly of the people But the Sanhedrim of Israel being thus constituted Moses for his time and after him his successour sate in the midst of it as Prince or Archon and at his left hand the Orator or Father of the Senate the rest of the bench coming round with either horn like a Crescent had a Scribe attending upon the tip of it The Senate in regard that the Legislator of Israel was infallible and the Lawes given by God such as were not fit to be alter'd by men is much different in the exercise of their power from all other Senates except that of the Areopagites in Athens which also was little more then a Supream Judicatory for it will hardly as I conceive be found that the Sanhedrim proposed unto the people till the return of the Children of Israel out of Captivity under Esdras at which time there was a new Law made namely for a kind of excommunication or rather banishment which had never been before in Israel neverthelesse it is not to be thought that the Sanhedrim had not alwaies that right which from the time of Esdras it more frequently exercised of proposing unto the people but that they forbare it in regard of the fulnesse and infallibility of the Law already made whereby it was needlesse Wherefore the function of this Council which is very rare in a Senate was executive and consisted in the administration of the Law made Deut. 17.9 10 11. and whereas the Council it self is often understood in Scripture by the Priest and the Levite there is no more in that save onely that the Priests and the Levites who otherwise had no power at all being in the younger years of this Common-wealth those that were best studied in the Lawes were the most frequently elected into the Sanhedrim For the Courts consisting of three and twenty Elders sitting in the gates of every City and the Triumvirates of Judges constituted almost in every village which were parts of the executive Magistracy subordinate unto rhe Sanhedrim I shall take them at better leisure and in the larger Discourse but these being that part of this Common-Wealth which was instituted by Moses upon the advice of Jethro the Priest of Midian Exo. 18. as I conceive an Heathen are unto me a sufficient warrant even from God himself who confirmed them to make farther use of humane prudence where ever I find it bearing a testimony unto it self whether in Heathen Common-Wealths or others And the rather because so it is that we who have the holy Scriptures and in them the Original of a Common-Wealth made by the same hand that made the World are either altogether blind or negligent of it while the Heathens have all written theirs as if they had had no other Copy As to be more brief in the present account of that which you shall have more at large hereafter Athens consisted of the Senate of the Bean proposing of the Church or Assembly of the people resolving and too often debating which was the ruine of it as also of the Senate of the Areopagites the 9. Archons with divers other Magistrates Executing Lacedemon consisted of the Senate proposing of the Church or Congregation of the people resolving onely and never debating which was the long life of it and of the two Kings the Court of the Effors with divers other Magistrates executing Carthage consisted of the Senate proposing and sometimes resolving too of the people resolving and sometimes debating too for which fault she was reprehended by Aristotle and she had her Suffetes and her hundred men with other Magistrates executing Rome consisted of the Senate proposing the Concio or people resolving and too often debating which caused her storms as also of the Consuls Censors Aediles Tribunes Praetors Quaestors and other Magistrates executing Venice consisteth of the Senate or Pregati proposing and sometimes resolving too of the great Council or Assembly of the people in whom the result is constitutively as also of the Doge the Signory the Censors the Dieci the Quazancies and other Magistrates executing The proceeding of the Common-wealths of Switzerland and Holland is of a like nature though after a more obscure manner for the Soveraignties whether Cantons Provinces or Cities which are the people send their Deputies Commissioned and instructed by themselves wherein they reserve the result in their own power unto the Provincial or general Convention or Senate where the Deputies debate but have no other power of result then what was conferred upon them by the people or is farther conferred by the same upon farther occasion And for the executive part they have Magistrates or Judges in every Canton Province or City besides those which are more publick and relate unto the league as for controversies between one Canton Province or City and another or the like between such persons as are not of the same Canton Province or City But that we may observe a little farther how the Heathen Polititians have written not onely out of nature but as it were out of Scripture As in the Common-wealth of Israel God is said to have been King so the Common-wealth where the Law is King is said by Aristotle to be Kingdom of God And where by the lusts or passions of men a power is set above that of the Law deriving from reason which is the dictate of God God in that sense is rejected or deposed that he should not reign over them as he was in Israel And yet Leviathan will have it that by reading of these Greek and Latine he might as well in this sense have said Hebrew Authors young men and all others that are unprovided of the antidote of solid reason receiving a strong and delightfull impression of the great exploits of War atchieved by the Conductors of their Armies receive withall a pleasing Idea of all they have done besides and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from the emulation of particular men but from the virtue of their popular form of Government not considering the frequent seditions and Civil Wars produced by the imperfection of their Policy Where first the blame he layes to the Heathen Authors is in his sense laid unto the Scripture and whereas he holds them to be young men or men of no antidote that are of like opinions it should seem that Machiavill the sole retreiver of this ancient Prudence is to his solid reason a beardlesse boy that hath newly read Livy and how solid his reason is may
that breach which being followed in every part of the Roman Empire with inundations of Vandals Huns Lombards Franks Saxons have overwhelmed ancient Languages Learning Prudence Manners Cities changing the Names of Rivers Countries Seas Mountains and Men Camillus Caesar and Pompey being come to Edmund Richard and Geoffrey To open the ground-work or ballance of these new Polititians Feudum saith Calvine the Lawyer is a Gothick word of divers significations for it is taken either for War or for a possession of conquered Lands distributed by the Victor unto such of his Captains and Souldiers as had merited in his Wars upon condition to acknowledge him to be their perpetuall Lord and themselves to be his Subjects Of these there were three kinds or orders The first of Nobility distinguished by the Titles of Dukes Marquesses Earls and these being gratify'd with Cities Castles and Villages of the Conquered Italians their Feuds participated of Royall dignity and were called Regalia by which they had right to coyn Mony create Magistrates take Tole Customs Confiscations and the like Feuds of the second order were such as with the consent of the King were bestowed by these Feudatory Princes upon men of inferiour Quality called their Barons on condition that next unto the King they should defend the Dignities and Fortunes of their Lords in Arms. The lowest order of Feuds were such as being confer'd by those of the second Order upon private men whether Noble or not Noble obliged them in the like duty unto their Superiors these were called Vauosors And this is the Gothick Ballance by which all the Kingdoms this day in Christendome were at first erected for which cause if I had time I should open in this place the Empire of Germany and the Kingdomes of France Spain and Poland but so much as hath been said being sufficient for the discovery of the principles of Modern Prudence in general I shall divide the remainder of my Discourse which is more particular into three parts The first shewing the Constitution of the late Monarchy of Oceana The second the Dissolution of the same And the third the Generation of the present Common-wealth The Constitution of the late Monarchy of Oceana is to be considered in relation unto the different Nations by whom it hath been successively subdu'd and govern'd The first of these were the Romans the second the Teutons the third the Scandians and the fourth the Neustrians The Government of the Romans who held it as a Province I shall omit because I am to speak of their Provincial Government in another place onely it is to be remembred in this that if we have given over running up and down naked and with dappled hides learn't to write and read to be instructed with good Arts for all these we are beholding to the Romans either immediately or mediately the Teutons for that the Teutons had the Arts from no other hand is plain enough by their language which hath yet no word to signifie either writing or reading but what is derived from the Latine Furthermore by the help of these arts so learn't we have been capable of that Religion which we have long since received wherefore it seemeth unto me that we ought not to detract from the Memory of the Romans by whose means we are as it were of Beasts become Men and by whose means we might yet of obscure and Ignorant men if we thought not too well of our selves become a wise and a great People The Romans having govern'd Oceana Provincially the Teutons were the first that introduced the form of the late Monarchy to these succeeded the Scandians of whom because their Raign was short as also because they made little alteration in the Government as to the Form I shall take no notice But the Teutons going to work upon the Gothick Ballance divided the whole Nation into three sorts of Feuds that of Ealdorman that of Kings-Thane and that of Middle-Thane When the Kingdom was first divided into Precincts will be as hard to shew as when it began first to be governed it being impossible that there should be any Government without some Division The Division that was in use with the Teutons was by Counties and every County had either his Ealdorman or high Reeve The title of Ealdorman came in time to Eorl or Erle and that of high Reeve to high Sheriff Earl of the Shire or County denoted the Kings Thane or Tenant by Grand Serjeantry or Knights Service in chief or in Capite his possessions were sometimes the whole Territory from whence he had his Denomination that is the whole County sometimes more then one County and sometimes lesse the remaining part being in the Crown He had also sometimes a third or some other Customary part of the profits of certain Cities Boroughs or other places within his Earldom For an Example of the possessions of Earls in ancient times Ethelred had unto him and his Heirs the whole Kingdom of Mercia containing three or four Counties and there were others that had little lesse Kings Thane was also an honorary Title unto which he was qualify'd that had five Hides of Land held immediately of the King by service of personal attendance insomuch that if a Churle or Country Man had thriven unto this proportion having a Church a Kitchin a Bell-house that is an Hall with a Bell in it to call his Family to Dinner a Borough-gate with a seat that is a Porch of his own and any distinct office in the Kings Court then was he the Kings Thane But the proportion of an Hide-Land otherwise called Caruca or a Plough-land is difficult to be understood because it was not certain neverthelesse it is generally conceived to be so much as may be managed with one Plough and would yield the Maintenance of the same with the appurtenances in all kinds The Middle-Thane was feudall but not honorary he was also call'd a Vavosor and his Lands a Vavosory which held of some Mesne Lord and not immediately of the King Possessions and their tenures being of this Nature shew the Ballance of the Teuton Monarchy wherein the riches of Earles was so vast that to arise from the Ballance of their Dominion unto their power they were not onely called Reguli or little Kings but were such indeed their jurisdiction being of two sorts either that which was exercised by them in the Court of their Counties or in the high Court of the Kingdom In the Territory denominating an Earl if it were all his own the Courts held and the profits of that Jurisdiction were to his own use and benefit But if he had but some part of his County then his Jurisdiction and Courts saving perhaps in those possessions that were his own were held by him to the Kings use and benefit that is he commnoly supply'd the Office which the Sheriffs regularly executed in Counties that had no Earls and whence they came to be
the Ballance which is that of all other whence a state or order in a Government is denominated wherefore this Monarchy consisted of the King and of the three Ordines Regni or Estates the Lords spirituall and temporall and the Commons It consisted of these I say as to the ballance though during the raigne of some of these Kings not as to the administration For the ambition of Turbo and some of those that more immediately succeeded him to be absolute Princes strove against the nature of their Foundation and in as much as he had divided almost the whole Realme among his Newstrians with some incouragement for a while But the Neustrians while they were but forraigne Plants having no security against the Natives but in growing up by their Princes sides were no sooner well rooted in their vast Dominions than they came up according to the infallible consequence of the Ballance Domesticke and contracting the Nationall interest of the Baronage grew as fierce in the Vindication of the Auncient rights and liberties of the same as if they had beene alwaies Natives Whence the Kings being as obstinate on the one side for their absolute power as these on the other for their immunities grew certaine Wars which tooke their Denomination from the Barons This fire about the middle of the raigne of Adoxus began to break out And whereas the predecessors of this King had diverse times beene forced to summon Councills resembling those of the Teutons unto which the Lords only that were Barons by Dominion and Tenure had hitherto repaired Adoxus seeing the effects of such Dominion began first not to call such as were Barons by Writs for that was according to the practice of antient times but to call such by Writes as were otherwise no Barons by which meanes striving to avoid the consequence of the Ballance in coming unwillingly to set the Government streight he was the first that set it awry For the Barons in his raigne and his successours having vindicated their antient Authority restored the Parliament with all the rights and Priviledges of the same saving that from thenceforth the Kings had found out a way whereby to help themselves against the mighty creatures of their own and such as had no other support but by their favour By which meanes this Government being indeed the Master-piece of Moderne Prudence hath beene cry'd up to the Skyes as the only invention whereby at once to maintaine the soveraignty of a Prince and the liberty of the people whereas indeed it hath beene no other than a wrestling match wherein the Nobility as they have been stronger have thrown the King or the King if he have been stronger hath thrown the Nobility or the King where he hath had a Nobility and could bring them to his party hath thrown the people as in France and Spain or the people where they have had no Nobility or could get them to be of their party have thrown the King as in Holland and of latter times in Oceana But they came not to this strength but by such approaches and degrees as remain to be further opened For whereas the Barons by Writs as the sixty four Abbots and thirty six Priors that were so called were but pro tempore Dicotome being the twelfth King from the Conquest began to make Barons by Letters Patents with the Addition of honorary Pensions for the Maintenance of their Dignities to them and their Heirs so that they were hands in the Kings Purse and had no shoulders for his Throne Of these when the house of Peers came once to be full as will be seen hereafter there was nothing more empty But for the present the Throne having other supports they did not hurt that so much as they did the King For the old Barons taking Dicotome's prodigality to such creatures so ill that they deposed him got the trick of it and never gave over setting up and pulling down of their Kings according to their various interests and that faction of the White and Red into which they had been thenceforth divided till Panurgus the eighteenth King from the Conquest was more by their favour than his right advanced unto the Crown This King through his naturall subtilty reflecting at once upon the greatnesse of their power and the inconstancy of their favour began to find another flaw in this kind of Government which is also noted by Machiavill namely that a Throne supported by a Nobility is not so hard to be ascended as kept warm Wherefore his secret jealousie lest the Dissention of the Nobility as it brought him in might throw him out travelled in wayes undiscover'd by them unto ends as little foreseen by himself while to establish his own safety he by mixing water with their Wine first began to open those Sluces that have since overwhelmed not the King onely but the Throne For whereas a Nobility striketh not at the Throne without which they cannot subsist but at some King that they do not like Popular power striketh through the King at the Throne as that which is incompatible with it Now that Panurgus in abating the power of the Nobility was the cause whence it came to fall into the hands of the people appears by those severall Statutes that were made in his raign as that for Population those against Retainers and that for Alienations By the Statute of Population All houses of husbandry that were used with twenty Acres of ground and upwards were to be maintained and kept up for ever with a competent proportion of Land laid to them and in no wise as appears by a subsequent Statute to be severed By which means the houses being kept up did of necessity inforce dwellers and the proportion of Land to be tilled being kept up did of necessity inforce the dweller not to be a beggar or Cottager but a man of some substance that might keep friends and servants and set the Plough on going this did mightily concern saith the Historian of that Prince the might and manhood of the Kingdom and in effect amortize a great part of the Lands unto the hold and possession of the Yeomanry or middle people who living not in a servile or indigent fashion were much unlinked from dependance upon their Lords and living in a free and plentifull manner became a more excellent Infantry but such an one upon which the Lords had so little power that from henceforth they may be computed to have been disarmed And as they lost their Infantry after this manner so their Cavalry and Commanders were cut off by the Statute of Retainers for whereas it was the Custome of the Nobility to have younger Brothers of good houses metall'd fellows and such as were knowing in the feats of Arms about them they who were longer followed with so dangerous a train escaped not such punishments as made them take up Henceforth the Country-lives and great tables of the Nobility which no longer nourished
friends and in cool blood might be taken Your Army must be planted in one of the wayes mentioned To plant it in the way of absolute Monarchy that is upon feuds for life such as the Timars a Country as large and fruitfull as that of Greece would afford you but sixteen thousand Timariots for that is the most the Turk being the best husband that ever was of this kind that makes of it at this day and if Oceana which is lesse in fruitfulnesse by one half and in extent by three parts should have no greater a force whoever breaketh her in one battle may be sure she shall never rise for such as was noted by Machiavill is the Nature of the Turkish Monarchy if you break her in two battles you have destroyed her whole Militia and the rest being all slaves you hold her without any further resistance Wherefore the erection of an absolute Monarchy in Oceana or in any other Country that is no larger without making it a certain prey unto the first invader is altogether impossible To plant by halves as the Roman Emperours did their Beneficiaries or military Colonies it must be either for life and this an Army of Oceaners in their own Country especially having states of inheritance will never bear because such an Army so planted is as well confiscated as the people nor had the Mamalines been contented with such usage in Aegypt but that they were Forraigners and daring nor to mix with the Natives it was of absolute necessity to their Being Or planting them upon inheritance whether Aristocratically as the Neustrians or Democratically as the Israelites they grow up by certaine consequence into the Nationall interest and this if they be planted popularly comes unto a Common-wealth if by way of Nobility unto a mixed Monarchy which of all other will be found to be the only kind of Monarchy whereof this Nation or any other that is of no greater extent hath beene or can be capable for if the Israelites through their Democraticall Ballance being fixed by their Agrarian stood firme be yet found to have elected Kings it was because their Territory lying open they were perpetually invaded and being perpetually invaded turned themselves to any thing which through the want of experience they thought might be a remedy whence their mistake in election of their Kings under whom they gain'd nothing but to the contrary lost all they had acquired by their Common-wealth both Estates and Liberties is not only apparent but without parallell And if there have beene as was shewne a Kingdom of the Goths in Spain and of the Vandalls in Asia consisting of a single person and a Parliament taking a Parliament to be a Councill of the people only without a Nobility it is expressely said of those Councills that they deposed their Kings as often as them pleased nor can there be other consequence of such a Government seeing where there is a Councill of the people they do never receive Lawes but give them and a Councill giving Lawes unto a single person he hath no meanes in the World whereby to be any more than a subordinate Magistrate but force in which case he is not a single person and a Parliament but a single person and an Army which Army again must be planted as hath been shewn or can be of no long Continuance It is true that the Provincial Ballance being in Nature quite contrary unto the National you are no wayes to plant a Provinciall Army upon Dominion But then you must have a native Territory in strength Situation or Government able to overballance the forreign or you can never hold it That an Army should in any other case be long supported by a meer Tax is a meer Phansie as void of all reason and Experience as if a man should think to maintain such an one by robbing of Orchards for a meer Tax is but pulling of Plumbtrees the roots whereof are in other mens grounds who suffering perpetuall violence come to hate the Author of it And it is a Maxime that no Prince that is hated by his people can be safe Arms planted upon Dominion extirpate enemies and make friends but maintained by a meer Tax have enemies that have roots and friends that have none To conclude Oceana or any other Nation of no greater extent must have a competent Nobility or is altogether incapable of Monarchy for where there is equality of estates there must be equality of power and where there is equality of power there can be no Monarchy To come then to the generation of the Common-wealth it hath been shewn how through the wayes and means used by Panurgus to abase the Nobility and so to mend that flaw which we have asserted to be incurable in this kind of Constitution he suffered the Ballance to fall into the power of the people and so broke the Government but the Ballance being in the people the Common-wealth though they do not see it is already in the Nature of them Cornua nota prius Vitulo quà m frontibus extant there wanteth nothing else but time which is slow and dangerous or art which would be more quick and secure for the bringing those native Arms wherewithall they are found already to resist they know not how every thing that opposeth them unto such maturity as may fix them upon their own strength and Bottom But whereas this Art is Prudence and that part of Prudence which regards the present work is nothing else but the skill of raising such Superstructures of Government as are natural to the known Foundations they never mind the Foundation but through certain animosities wherewith by striving one against another they are infected or through freaks by which not regarding the course of things nor how they conduce unto their purpose they are given to building in the Air come to be divided and subdivided into endlesse parties and factions both Civill and Ecclesiastical which briefly to open I shall first speak of the people in generall and then of their divisions A people saith Machiavill that is corrupt is not capable of a Common-wealth but in shewing what a corrupt people is he hath either involved himself or me nor can I otherwise come out of the Labyrinth than by saying that the Ballance altering a people as to the foregoing Government must of necessity be corrupt but corruption in this sense signifieth no more then that the corruption of one Government as in natural bodies is the generation of another wherefore if the Ballance alter from Monarchy the corruption of the people in this case is that which maketh them capable of a Common-wealth But whereas I am not ignorant that the corruption which he meaneth is in Manners this also is from the Ballance For the Ballance swaying from Monarchical into Popular abateth the Luxury of the Nobility and inriching the people bringeth the Government from a more private unto a more publick interest which coming nearer as hath been shewn unto