The Commonwealth of Oceana [100]
held till now, found it midsummer moon, and broke out of bedlam in this manner.
"MY LORD ARCHON: "I have a singing in my head like that of a cart-wheel, my brains are upon a rotation; and some are so merry, that a man cannot speak his griefs, but if your high-shod prerogative, and those same slouching fellows your tribunes, do not take my lord strategus's and my lord orator's heads, and jolt them together under the canopy, then let me be ridiculous to all posterity. For here is a commonwealth, to which if a man should take that of the 'prentices in their ancient administration of justice at Shrovetide, it were an aristocracy. You have set the very rabble with truncheons in their hands, and the gentry of this nation, like cocks with scarlet gills, and the golden combs of their salaries to boot, lest they should not be thrown at. "Not a night can I sleep for some horrid apparition or other; one while these myrmidons are measuring silks by their quarterstaves, another stuffing their greasy pouches with my lord high treasurer's jacobuses. For they are above 1,000 in arms to 300, which, their gowns being pulled over their ears, are but in their doublets and hose. But what do I speak of 1,000? There be 2,000 in every tribe, that is, 100,000 in the whole nation, not only in the posture of an army, but in a civil capacity sufficient to give us what laws they please. Now everybody knows that the lower sort of people regard nothing but money; and you say it is the duty of a legislator to presume all men to be wicked: wherefore they must fall upon the richer, as they are an army; or, lest their minds should misgive them in such a villany, you have given them encouragement that they have a nearer way, seeing it may be done every whit as well as by the overbalancing power which they have in elections. There is a fair which is annually kept in the centre of these territories at Kiberton, a town famous for ale, and frequented by good fellows; where there is a solemnity of the pipers and fiddlers of this nation (I know not whether Lacedaemon, where the Senate kept account of the stops of the flutes and of the fiddle-strings of that commonwealth, bad any such custom) called the bull-running, and he that catches and holds the bull, is the annual and supreme magistrate of that comitia or congregation, called king piper, without whose license it is not lawful for any of those citizens to enjoy the liberty of his calling; nor is he otherwise legitimately qualified (or civitate donatus) to lead apes or bears in any perambulation of the same. Mine host of the Bear, in Kiberton, the father of ale, and patron of good football and cudgel players, has any time since I can remember been grand-chancellor of this order. "Now, say I, seeing great things arise from small beginnings, what should hinder the people, prone to their own advantage and loving money, from having intelligence conveyed to them by this same king piper and his chancellor, with their loyal subjects the minstrels and bear-wards, masters of ceremonies, to which there is great recourse in their respective perambulations, and which they will commission and instruct, with directions to all the tribes, willing and commanding them, that as they wish their own good, they choose no other into the next primum mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows' ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being strategus, and king piper lord orator. Well, my lords, it might have been otherwise expressed, but this is well enough a-conscience. In your way, the wit of man shall not prevent this or the like inconvenience; but if this (for I have conferred with artists) be a mathematical demonstration, I could kneel to you, that ere it be too late we might return to some
"MY LORD ARCHON: "I have a singing in my head like that of a cart-wheel, my brains are upon a rotation; and some are so merry, that a man cannot speak his griefs, but if your high-shod prerogative, and those same slouching fellows your tribunes, do not take my lord strategus's and my lord orator's heads, and jolt them together under the canopy, then let me be ridiculous to all posterity. For here is a commonwealth, to which if a man should take that of the 'prentices in their ancient administration of justice at Shrovetide, it were an aristocracy. You have set the very rabble with truncheons in their hands, and the gentry of this nation, like cocks with scarlet gills, and the golden combs of their salaries to boot, lest they should not be thrown at. "Not a night can I sleep for some horrid apparition or other; one while these myrmidons are measuring silks by their quarterstaves, another stuffing their greasy pouches with my lord high treasurer's jacobuses. For they are above 1,000 in arms to 300, which, their gowns being pulled over their ears, are but in their doublets and hose. But what do I speak of 1,000? There be 2,000 in every tribe, that is, 100,000 in the whole nation, not only in the posture of an army, but in a civil capacity sufficient to give us what laws they please. Now everybody knows that the lower sort of people regard nothing but money; and you say it is the duty of a legislator to presume all men to be wicked: wherefore they must fall upon the richer, as they are an army; or, lest their minds should misgive them in such a villany, you have given them encouragement that they have a nearer way, seeing it may be done every whit as well as by the overbalancing power which they have in elections. There is a fair which is annually kept in the centre of these territories at Kiberton, a town famous for ale, and frequented by good fellows; where there is a solemnity of the pipers and fiddlers of this nation (I know not whether Lacedaemon, where the Senate kept account of the stops of the flutes and of the fiddle-strings of that commonwealth, bad any such custom) called the bull-running, and he that catches and holds the bull, is the annual and supreme magistrate of that comitia or congregation, called king piper, without whose license it is not lawful for any of those citizens to enjoy the liberty of his calling; nor is he otherwise legitimately qualified (or civitate donatus) to lead apes or bears in any perambulation of the same. Mine host of the Bear, in Kiberton, the father of ale, and patron of good football and cudgel players, has any time since I can remember been grand-chancellor of this order. "Now, say I, seeing great things arise from small beginnings, what should hinder the people, prone to their own advantage and loving money, from having intelligence conveyed to them by this same king piper and his chancellor, with their loyal subjects the minstrels and bear-wards, masters of ceremonies, to which there is great recourse in their respective perambulations, and which they will commission and instruct, with directions to all the tribes, willing and commanding them, that as they wish their own good, they choose no other into the next primum mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows' ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being strategus, and king piper lord orator. Well, my lords, it might have been otherwise expressed, but this is well enough a-conscience. In your way, the wit of man shall not prevent this or the like inconvenience; but if this (for I have conferred with artists) be a mathematical demonstration, I could kneel to you, that ere it be too late we might return to some