The Commonwealth of Oceana [103]
think that she came off at a cheaper rate when men had their rewards by ?,000 or ?,000 a year in land if inheritance? if you say that they will be more godly than they have been, it may be ill taken; and if you cannot promise that, it is time we find out some way of stinting at least, if not curing them of that same sacra fames. On the other side, if a poor man (as such a one may save a city) gives his sweat to the public, with what conscience can you suffer his family in the meantime to starve? but he that lays his hand to this plough shall not lose by taking it off from his own, and a commonwealth that will mend this shall be penny-wise. The Sanhedrim of Israel, being the supreme, and a constant court of judicature, could not choose but be exceeding gainful. The Senate of the Bean in Athens, because it was but annual, was moderately salaried; but that of the Areopagites, being for life, bountifully; and what advantages the senators of Lacedaemon had, where there was little money or use of it, were in honors for life. The patricians having no profit, took all. Venice being a situation where a man goes but to the door for his employment, the honor is great and the reward very little; but in Holland a councillor of state has ?,500 Flemish a year, besides other accommodations. The States-General have more. And that commonwealth looks nearer her penny than ours needs to do. "For the revenue of this nation, besides that of her industry, it -- amounts, as has been shown, to ?0,000,000; and the salaries in the whole come not to ?00,000 a year. The beauty they will add to the commonwealth will be exceeding great, and the people will delight in this beauty of their commonwealth; the encouragement they will give to the study of the public being very progitable, the accommodation they will afford to your magistrates very honorable and easy. And the sum, when it or twice as much was spent in bunting and housekeeping, was never any grievance to the people. I am ashamed to stand huckling upon this point; it is sordid. Your magistrates are rather to be provided with further accommodations. For what if there should be sickness? whither will you have them to remove? And this city in the soundest times, for the heat of the year, is no wholesome abode: have a care of their healths to whom you commit your own. I would have the Senate and the people, except they see cause to the contrary, every first of June to remove into the country air for the space of three months. You are better fitted with summer-houses for them than if you had built them to that purpose. "There is some twelve miles distant the convallium upon the river Halcionia, for the tribunes and the prerogative, a palace capable of 1,000 men; and twenty miles distant you have Mount Celia, reverend as well for the antiquity as state of a castle completely capable of the Senate, the proposers having lodgings in the convallium, and the tribunes in Celia, it holds the correspondency between the Senate and the people exactly And it is a small matter for the proposers, being attended with the coaches and officers of state, besides other conveniences of their own, to go a matter of five or ten miles (those seats are not much farther distant) to meet the people upon any heath or field that shall be appointed: where, having despatched their business, they may hunt their own venison (for I would have the great walled park upon the Halcionia to belong to the signory, and those about the convallium to the tribunes) and so go to supper. Pray, my lords, see that they do not pull down these houses to sell the lead of them; for when -- you have considered on it, they cannot be spared. The founders of the school in Hiera provided that the boys should have a summer seat. You should have as much care of these magistrates. But there is such a selling, such a Jewish humor in our republicans, that I cannot tell what to say to it; only this, any man that knows what belongs to a commonwealth, or how diligent every nation in that case has been to preserve her ornaments, and shall see the waste lately