ens, Switzerland, Holland,
to Lacedaemon, Rome, and Venice, plumed with their aristocracies? Your
mechanics, till they have first feathered their nests, like the fowls of
the air whose whole employment is to seek their food, are so busied in
their private concernments that they have neither leisure to study
the public, nor are safely to be trusted with it, because a man is not
faithfully embarked in this kind of ship, if he has no share in the
freight. But if his share be such as gives him leisure by his private
advantage to reflect upon that of the public, what other name is there
for this sort of men, being a leur aise, but (as Machiavel you see calls
them) nobility? Especially when their families come to be such as are
noted for their services done to the commonwealth, and so take into
their ancient riches ancient virtue, which is the second definition of
nobility, but such a one as is scarce possible in nature without the
former. 'For as the baggage,' says Verulamius, 'is to an army, so are
riches to virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, though they be
impediments, such as not only hinder the march, but sometimes through
the care of them lose or disturb the victory.' Of this latter sort is
the nobility of Oceana; the best of all others because they, having no
stamp whence to derive their price, can have it no otherwise than by
their intrinsic value. The third definition of nobility, is a title,
honor, or distinction from the people, conferred or allowed by the
prince or the commonwealth. And this may be two ways, either without
any stamp or privilege, as in Oceana; or with such privileges as are
inconsiderable, as in Athens after the battle of Plataea, whence the
nobility had no right, as such, but to religious offices, or inspection
of the public games, to which they were also to be elected by the
people; or with privileges, and those considerable ones, as the nobility
in Athens before the battle of Plataea, and the patricians in Rome
each of which had right, or claimed it, to the Senate and all the
magistracies; wherein for some time they only by their stamp were
current.

"But to begin higher, and to speak more at large of nobility in their
several capacities of the Senate. The phylarchs, or princes of the
tribes of Israel, were the most renowned, or, as the Latin, the most
noble of the congregation, whereof by hereditary right they had the
leading and judging. The patriarchs, or princes of families, acc