ling, there is no recourse to be had but to such as are
extraordinary. And, whereas a book or a building has not been known to
attain to its perfection if it has not had a sole author or architect, a
commonwealth, as to the fabric of it, is of the like nature. And thus
it may be made at once; in which there be great advantages; for a
commonwealth made at once, takes security at the same time it lends
money; and trusts not itself to the faith of men, but launches
immediately forth into the empire of laws, and, being set straight,
brings the manners of its citizens to its rule, whence followed that
uprightness which was in Lacedaemon. But manners that are rooted in men,
bow the tenderness of a commonwealth coming up by twigs to their bent,
whence followed the obliquity that was in Rome, and those perpetual
repairs by the consuls' axes, and tribunes' hammers, which could never
finish that commonwealth but in destruction.

My lord general being clear in these points, and of the necessity
of some other course than would be thought upon by the Parliament,
appointed a meeting of the army, where he spoke his sense agreeable
to these preliminaries with such success to the soldiery, that the
Parliament was soon after deposed; had he himself, in the great hall
of the Pantheon or palace of justice, situated in Emporium, the capital
city, was created by the universal suffrage of the army, Lord Archon, or
sole legislator of Oceana, upon which theatre you have, to conclude this
piece, a person introduced, whose fame shall never draw its curtain.

The Lord Archon being created, fifty select persons to assist him,
by laboring in the mines of ancient prudence, and bringing its hidden
treasures to new light, were added, with the style also of legislators,
and sat as a council, whereof he was the sole director and president.

PART II. THE COUNCIL OF LEGISLATORS

OF this piece, being the greater half of the whole work, I shall be able
at this time to give no further account, than very briefly to show at
what it aims.

My Lord Archon, in opening the Council of legislators, made it
appear how unsafe a thing it is to follow fancy in the fabric of a
commonwealth; and how necessary that the archives of ancient prudence
should be ransacked before any councillor should presume to offer any
other matter in order to the work in hand, or toward the consideration
to be had by the Council upon a model of government. Wherefore he caused
an ur