n art or nature better qualified for the
result than this assembly it is noted out of Cicero by Machiavel, 'That
the people, though they are not so prone to find out truth of themselves
as to follow custom or run into error yet if they be shown truth, they
not only acknowledge and embrace it very suddenly, but are the most
constant and faithful guardians and conservators of it.' it is your
duty and office, whereto you are also qualified by the orders of this
commonwealth, to have the people as you have your hawks and greyhounds,
in leashes and slips, to range the fields and beat the bushes for them,
for they are of a nature that is never good at this sport, but when you
spring or start their proper quarry. Think not that they will stand to
ask you what it is, or less know it than your hawks and greyhounds do
theirs; but presently make such a flight or course, that a huntsman may
as well undertake to run with his dogs, or a falconer to fly with his
hawk, as an aristocracy at this game to compare with the people. The
people of Rome were possessed of no less a prey than the empire of the
world, when the nobility turned tails, and perched among daws upon the
tower of monarchy. For though they did not all of them intend the thing,
they would none of them endure the remedy, which was the agrarian.

"But the prerogative tribe has not only the result, but is the supreme
judicature, and the ultimate appeal in this commonwealth. For the
popular government that makes account to be of any standing, must make
sure in the first place of the appeal to the people. As an estate in
trust becomes a man's own if he be not answerable for it, so the
power of a magistracy not accountable to the people, from whom it was
received, becoming of private use, the commonwealth loses her liberty
Wherefore the right of supreme judicature in the people (Without which
there can be no such thing as popular government) is confirmed by the
constant practice of all commonwealths; as that of Israel in the cases
of Achan, and of the tribe of Benjamin, adjudged by the congregation.

"The dicasterian, or court called the heliaia in Athens, which (the
comitia of that commonwealth consisting of the whole people, and so
being too numerous to be a judicatory) was constituted sometimes of
500, at others of 1,000, or, according to the greatness of the cause, of
1,500, elected by the lot out of the whole body of the people, had, with
the nine Archons that were preside