The Commonwealth of Oceana [151]
Pliny, as is observed by Bertius, seems to allude as well to Marpesia and Panopea, now provinces of this commonwealth, as to Oceana itself. To speak of the people in each of these countries. This of Oceana, for so soft a one, is the most martial in the whole world. "Let States that aim at greatness," says Verulamius, "take heed how their nobility and gentlemen multiply too fast, for that makes the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain driven out of heart, and in effect but a gentleman's laborer; just as you may see in coppice woods, if you leave the staddels too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes; so in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the commons will be base; and you will bring it to that at last, that not the hundreth poll will be fit for a helmet, specially as to the infantry, which is the nerve of an army, and so there will be great population and little strength. This of which I speak has been nowhere better seen than by comparing of Oceana and France, whereof Oceana, though far less in territory and population, has been nevertheless an overmatch, in regard the middle people of Oceana make good solders, which the peasants in France do not." In which words Verulamius, as Machiavel has done before him, harps much upon a string which he has not perfectly tuned, and that is, the balance of dominion or property, as it follows more plainly, in his praise "of the profound and admirable device of Panurgus, King of Oceana, in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, maintained with such a proportion of land to them as may breed a subject to live in convenient plenty, and no servile condition, and to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus, indeed," says he, "you shall attain to Virgil's character which he gives of ancient Italy." But the tillage, bringing up a good soldiery, brings up a good commonwealth; which the author in the praise of Panurgus did not mind, nor Panurgus in deserving that praise; for where the owner of the plough comes to have the sword, too, he will use it in defence of his own; whence it has happened that the people of Oceana, in proportion to their property, have been always free. And the genius of this nation has ever had some resemblance with that of ancient Italy, which was wholly addicted to commonwealths, and where Rome came to make the greatest account of her rustic tribes, and to call her consuls from the plough; for in the way of parliaments, which was the government of this realm, men of country lives have been still intrusted with the greatest affairs, and the people have constantly had an aversion to the ways of the court. Ambition, loving to be gay and to fawn, has been a gallantry looked upon as having something in it of the livery; and husbandry, or the country way of life, though of a grosser spinning, as the best stuff of a commonwealth, according to Aristotle, such a one being the most obstinate assertress of her liberty and the least subject to innovation or turbulency. Wherefore till the foundations, as will be hereafter shown, were removed, this people was observed to be the least subject to shakings and turbulency of any; whereas commonwealths, upon which the city life has had the stronger influence, as Athens, have seldom or never been quiet, but at the best are found to have injured their own business by overdoing it. Whence the urban tribes of Rome, consisting of the Turba forensis, and libertines that had received their freedom by manumission, were of no reputation in comparison of the rustics. It is true that with Venice it may seem to be otherwise, in regard the gentlemen (for so are all such called as have a right to that government) are wholly addicted to the city life; but then the Turba forensis, the secretaries, Cittadini, with the rest of the populace, are wholly excluded. Otherwise a commonwealth consisting but of one city would doubtless be stormy, in regard that ambition would be every man's trade; but where it consists of a country, the plough in the hands