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A87139 Valerius and Publicola: or, The true form of a popular commonwealth extracted e puris naturalibus. By James Harrington. Harrington, James, 1611-1677. 1659 (1659) Wing H824; Thomason E1005_13; ESTC R202585 21,762 40

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Valerius and Publicola Or The true FORM OF A POPULAR COMMONWEALTH Extracted Epuris Naturalibus BY JAMES HARRINGTON Quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat prius LONDON Printed by J. C. for Henry Fletcher at the three Gilt Cups in St. Pauls Church-yard 1659. To the READER THe way of Dialogue being not faithfully managed is of all other the most fraudulent but being faithfully managed is the clearest and most effectual for the conveying a mans sense unto the understanding of his Reader There is nothing in this world next the Favour of God I so much desire as to be familiariy understood which that great men have thought below them hath proved hitherto but the ruine of themselves and the detriment of the Publick for which cause having tryed all other means I now add this My work if I be not given over unto utter blindness is the same with or nearest that of the Nation and the work of the Nation being not understood is in horrid danger of utter ruine Valerius and Publicola c. Valerius DEarest Publicola how have I longed to meet you and in the favourable silence of this long walk Publicola What has my noble Friend Valerius to command his faithful Servant Val. Why really notwithstanding the tumult of these extravagant Changes your last Discourse had so much of my attention then and hath had such digestion with me since that I feel it running in my Veins Pub. Find you in that any temptation to the buckling on of High-shoon Val. My thoughts Publicola are quite of another strain sometimes methinks I see England grasping at Empire like Rome it self Pub. Why then Valerius my Discourses are not such as they say there runneth nothing of them in your Veins that hath imbased your noble blood Val. The Heraldry of them is of as high a pitch as the Policy but I would have them be somewhat lower in some things Pub. What are those Val. The vulgar complain of you that you are too learned Pub. I thought it was not you Valerius Val. For all that I could be contented to see you raise your structure by your own strength and without the help of other Authors Pub. That I dare say you may when you please Val. I must see it then before I lose the covert of these reverent Elmes Pub. You take care that the building should be well situated and for the foundation I may presume by what hath already past between you and me that we are long since agreed Val. That the threefold Balance or Distribution of Propriety is the cause of the triple way of Government I fully consent with you as also that the Balance now in England is in the people plainly and exclusively both to a King and Lords Pub. You are not of them that grant this and then ask which way a Commonwealth should be introduced in England Val. Why truly yes seeing not onely the people are so wholly unacquainted with the means but their Leaders so averse to it Pub. Think you that a Plant grows the worse for not understanding the means Val. A Plant is not a free Agent but among men who are free Agents the Introduction of Government seemeth to be Arbitrary Pub. VVhat where there is no more then Hobsons choice this or none Val. It is true that if they can have nothing else they must at length have a Commonwealth but though they can have nothing else to be holding yet they will be trying other things Pub. There is all the mischief Val. And enough to ruine the Nation Pub. To hurt it very sore but not to ruine it nor yet to evade a Commonwealth except they expose us unto forraign invasion Val. I am glad of your confidence Pub. You may let it pass for confidence if you please but if there be no other way except that onely of Invasion whereby the present balance can receive a change suddain enough to admit of any other Form the reason why we must have a Commonwealth is coercive Val. And putting the case it be the will of God to defend us from forraign invasion how long will it be ere they see at home the coerciveness of this reason or which is all one that all power is in and from the people Pub. Good Valerius how long is it since this was both seen and declared in Parliament Val. Perhaps as they meant it might be admitted as a principle even in Monarchy Pub. This with your pardon you will revoke seeing you well remember that this their Declaration of power in the people hath been exclusive unto King and Lords and that in express terms Val. But in this they related not at all unto the Distribution of propriety Pub. VVhy then there is not such difference between the growing of a Plant and of a Commonwealth as you thought seeing a Commonwealth knowing as little doth no less Val. This of all other is unto me a consideration fullest of comfort Pub. It will in time proceed accordingly through meer necessity of nature or by feeling but your desire I suppose is to know how it should be rationally introduced or by seeing and that with more ease and better speed Val. If it might please God I would live to have my share of it though I fear I never shall Pub. You carve your self ill for by hope a man enjoys even that which he never comes to attain and by fear he is deprived even of that which he comes not to lose Val. I must confess that our Army hath it now in their power to introduce a Commonwealth Pub. And there is no other action in their power that can excuse them Val. Putting the case they would hearken unto you what course would you advise Pub. The same that I have advised over and over Val. As how Pub. As how is that yet a Question Let them divide the Territory into fifty equal parts Val. They will never make a new division Pub. Why then they shall never have an equal Common-wealth Val. VVhat ill luck is this that the first step should be so difficult Pub. You speak as if never any Territory had been divided whereas there is none that hath not and Surveyors will tell you it is a work to be perfectly performed in two months and with ease Val. Putting the case this were done what is next Pub. The next is that the Commonwealth were compleat Val. Say you so this indeed makes amends but how Pub. With no more addition then that the people in every distinct division elect annually two Knights and seven Deputies Val. I dare say the people would never stick at this Pub. Not stioking at this they of their own power have instituted the two great assemblies of which every Common-wealth consisteth Val. But in advising these things you must advise men so that they may understand them Pub. Valerius could I as easily have advised men how to understand as what to do there had been a Commonwealth ere this Val. Come I will
a good part of the Lake antiently called Lucrine into the Sea Val. VVhat will you infer from hence Pub. VVhy that the new and extraordinary generation of a Star or of a Mountain no more causeth a Star or a Mountain to be a new thing in nature then the new and extraordinary generation of a Commonwealth causeth a Commonwealth to be a new thing in nature Aristole reports that the Nobility of Tarantum being cut off in a Battel that Commonwealth became popular And if the Powder-Plot in England had destroyed the King and the Nobility it is possible that popular Government might have risen up in England as the Mountain did at Putzuoli Yet for all these would there not have been any new thing in nature Val. Some new thing through the blending of unseen causes there may seem to be in shuffling but nature will have her course there is no other then the old game Pub. Valerius let it rain or be fair weather the Sun to the dissolution of nature shall ever rise but it is now set and I apprehend the mist Val. Dear Publicola your health is mine own I bid you goodnight Pub. Goodnight to you Valerius Val. One word more Publicola pray make me a present of those same Papers and with your leave and license I will make use of my memory to commit the rest of this Discourse unto writing and Print it Pub. They are at your disposing Val. I will not do it as hath been done but with your name to it Pub. VVhether way you like best most noble Valerius Octob. 22. 1659. A sufficient Answer to Mr. Stubbe THere is a Book newly put forth by Mr. Stubbe intituled A Letter to an Officer c. which in brief comes to this That he would have a select Senate for Life consisting of Independents Anabaptists Fifth Monarchy-men and Quakers for which he is pleased to quote Deut. 23. that he would have all such as adhered unto the Parliament against Sir G. Booth to be inrolled as the people of England That he would have all the rest of the people of England to be Holo●● Gibe●niter or Paysams This Book I have read and I have heard a Tale of one who to get something pretended the shewing of a strange Bea●● an Horse and no Horse with the Tayl standing where the Head should stand which when all came to all was a Mare with her Tayl ty'd to the Manger the lively Emblem of an Oligarchy Mr. Stubbe pretending to shew his Learning takes those things as it were changing the sex of them which I have written and in his writings turns their tails unto the Manger Now this as to the unlearned Reader is that upon which it is to no purpose to move any controversie and as to the learned I need no more then appeal whether in their proper stables or in the best Authors the heads of them stand as I have set them or the tails as Mr. Stubbe hath set them Only let me say That as to a select Senate understanding thereby a Senate not elected by the people there is no more of this in all story then the Senate of Rome only Whence it is undeniable by any man of common understanding that a select Senate bringeth in a select interest that a select interest causeth feud between that select interest and the common interest and so between the Senate and the popular Assembly which coal in England it is fitter for such as Mr. Stubbe and his Patrons to blow then for such as understand story Government or common honesty But their Reasons who decry the possibility or plausibility of such Acts or Orders as these it pleaseth him to call high Rodomontado's Now which are the higher Rodomontado's these or those which he useth in flourishing the Justitia of Anagon a patch in a Monarchy which his design is to translate by a select Senate into a Commonwealth I leave any man to judge even by the testimony of his own Authour Blanca and in a place cited by himself though not so well rendered Our ancestors saith Blanca have three ways secured our liberties by the Justitia by the great POWER of the Ricos hombres now he speaks and by the priviledge of the union The first was a civil and forensick curb a gown the second was a domestick and more restraining one I think so the purse and thence the power the third popular and warlike an excellent Militia Now let any man say even after Blanca if without the Nobility in whom was the balance of this Monarchy and their retainers and dependants of which consisted the Militia this Court of the poor Gown-man called Justitia must not have been a very likely thing to restrain a Prince or consider whether without this same Mummery of the Arragonians Houses of Peers and of Commons in other Monarchies have not every whit as much restrained their Kings and more seeing this toy as at every election of the Magistrate called Justitia it received not breath but from a King was blown away by a King His other instances as the thirty six Curators of the Publick appointed unto Lewis the eleventh of France by the three Estates and the twenty five select Peers given unto King John of England were like shifts and had less effect Security in Government must be from entireness of form and entireness of form must be from soundness or rightness of foundation But Mr. Stubbe founding himself upon the Authority of Aristotle That the Western parts are not capable of a right Commonwealth is declaredly for a wrong Commonwealth in England He minds not that Venice for the capacity is a righter Commonwealth then was ever any in Greece nor that the present State of England is of a far different if not a quite contrary nature to that of the Western parts in the time of Aristotle FINIS