se was to take that which they held the safest, in
which, with his humble thanks for their great bounty, he was resolved to
serve them with all duty and obedience.

A very short time after the royalists, now equal citizens, made good
the Archon's judgment, there being no other that found anything near so
great a sweet in the government. For he who has not been acquainted with
affliction, says Seneca, knows but half the things of this world.

Moreover they saw plainly, that to restore the ancient government they
must cast up their estates into the hands of 300 men; wherefore in case
the Senate and the prerogative, consisting of 1,300 men, had been all
royalists, there must of necessity have been, and be forever, 1,000
against this or any such vote. But the Senate, being informed by the
signory that the Archon had accepted of his dignity and office, caused
a third chair to be set for his Highness, between those of the strategus
and the orator in the house, the like at every council; to which he
repaired, not of necessity, but at his pleasure, being the best, and as
Argus not vainly said, the greatest prince in the world; for in the
pomp of his court he was not inferior to any, and in the field he was
followed with a force that was formidable to all. Nor was there a cause
in the nature of this constitution to put him to the charge of guards,
to spoil his stomach or his sleep: insomuch, as being handsomely
disputed by the wits of the academy, whether my Lord Archon, if he had
been ambitious, could have made himself so great, it was carried
clear in the negative; not only for the reasons drawn from the present
balance, which was popular, but putting the case the balance had been
monarchical. For there be some nations, whereof this is one, that will
bear a prince in a commonwealth far higher than it is possible for them
to bear a monarch. Spain looked upon the Prince of Orange as her most
formidable enemy; but if ever there be a monarch in Holland, he will
be the Spaniard's best friend. For whereas a prince in a commonwealth
derives his greatness from the root of the people, a monarch derives his
from one of those balances which nip them in the root; by which means
the Low Countries under a monarch were poor and inconsiderable, but in
bearing a prince could grow to a miraculous height, and give the
glory of his actions by far the upper hand of the greatest king in
Christendom. There are kings in Europe, to whom a king of Ocea