efore suffered countries now and then to be wasted
that they might get soldiers. This you will find to be the certain pulse
and temper of the people; and if they have been already proved to be the
most wise and constant order of a government, why should we think
(when no man can produce one example of the common soldiery in an army
mutinying because they had not captains' pay) that the prerogative
should jolt the heads of the Senate together because these have the
better salaries, when it must be as evident to the people in a nation,
as to the soldiery in an army, that it is no more possible their
emoluments of this kind should be afforded by any commonwealth in the
world to be made equal with those of the Senate, than that the common
soldiers should be equal with the captains? It is enough for the common
soldier that his virtue may bring him to be a captain, and more to the
prerogative, that each of them is nearer to be a senator.

"If my lord thinks our salaries too great, and that the commonwealth is
not housewife enough, whether is it better housewifery that she should
keep her family from the snow, or suffer them to burn her house that
they may warm themselves? for one of these must be. Do you think that
she came off at a cheaper rate when men had their rewards by L1,000 or
L2,000 a year in land if inheritance? if you say that they will be
more godly than they have been, it may be ill taken; and if you cannot
promise that, it is time we find out some way of stinting at least, if
not curing them of that same sacra fames. On the other side, if a poor
man (as such a one may save a city) gives his sweat to the public, with
what conscience can you suffer his family in the meantime to starve?
but he that lays his hand to this plough shall not lose by taking it
off from his own, and a commonwealth that will mend this shall be
penny-wise. The Sanhedrim of Israel, being the supreme, and a constant
court of judicature, could not choose but be exceeding gainful. The
Senate of the Bean in Athens, because it was but annual, was moderately
salaried; but that of the Areopagites, being for life, bountifully; and
what advantages the senators of Lacedaemon had, where there was little
money or use of it, were in honors for life. The patricians having no
profit, took all. Venice being a situation where a man goes but to the
door for his employment, the honor is great and the reward very little;
but in Holland a councillor of state has