not to be committed to the people in a well-ordered
government, it may be said that the order specified is but a slight
bar in a matter of like danger; for so much as an oath, if there be no
recourse upon the breach of it, is a weak tie for such hands as have
the sword in them, wherefore what should hinder the people of Oceana,
if they happen not to regard an oath from assuming debate, and making
themselves as much an anarchy as those of Athens? To which I answer,
Take the common sort in a private capacity, and, except they be injured,
you shall find them to have a bashfulness in the presence of the better
sort, or wiser men, acknowledging their abilities by attention, and
accounting it no mean honor to receive respect from them; but if they be
injured by them, they hate them, and the more for being wise or great,
because that makes it the greater injury. Nor refrain they in this
case from any kind of intemperance of speech, if of action. It is no
otherwise with a people in their political capacity; you shall never
find that they have assumed debate for itself, but for something else.
Wherefore in Lacedaemon where there was, and in Venice where there is,
nothing else for which they should assume it, they have never shown so
much as an inclination to it.

"Nor was there any appearance of such a desire in the people of Rome
(who from the time of Romulus had been very well contented with the
power of result either in the parochial assemblies, as it was settled
upon them by him, or in the meetings of the hundreds, as it was altered
in their regard for the worse by Servius Tullius) till news was brought,
some fifteen years after the exile of Tarquin, their late King (during
which time the Senate had governed pretty well), that he was dead at the
Court of Aristodemus the tyrant of Cumae. Whereupon the patricians,
or nobility, began to let out the hitherto dissembled venom which is
inherent in the root of oligarchy and fell immediately upon injuring
the people beyond all moderation. For whereas the people had served both
gallantly and contentedly in arms upon their own charges, and, though
joint purchasers by their swords of the conquered lands, had not
participated in the same to above two acres a man (the rest being
secretly usurped by the patricians), they, through the meanness of their
support and the greatness of their expense, being generally indebted, no
sooner returned home with victory to lay down their arms, than the