Itch, to it, will not fail to keep up perpetual Faction, and spread Sedition, which that just Hatred of the People will be always ready to affift-By this means (as all Tyrannies of many have ever been fhort-lived) fo will this quickly fall into other Hands, and from many to one, and from one to many again; until between thefe different Ufurpations, that pull feveral ways, the whole Nation will in the end be fawed in Pieces. All the Hopes we fhall have of Liberty will be only this—That the Stock of the Commonwealth will not be long able to bear the Charges of its own Slavery; and fo Tyranny itself, as well as all other Trades, muft in the end be forced to break. mean Time we fhall not have fo much as a fettled Slavery, but be forced to change our Masters, as Chriftian Bond-flaves are in Turky, as they fhall please to dispose of us; and be conveyed from Government to Government, as Rogues are from Conftable to Constable, still to be whipt and punished according to Law, as they will outface us, until we come to the Place where we were born, a just and lawful Authority.

In the

A

SPE E CH

MADE AT THE

ROT

A

A.

MONG the excellent Orders of that glorious Senate of Rome one was, that any Senator having a Right to speak to every Business in Debate, might instead of giving his Sentence to the present Question (if he had no mind to declare himself) propofe any Thing elfe, that was in his Judgment e Republica, of

The Rota was a Club of fpeculating Politicians in thofe Times of Confufion, when almost every Man unhappily thought it his Business to make or mend Government; and to this Butler alludes in his Hudibras.

But Sidrophel, as full of Tricks
As Rota-Men of Politics.

P. 2. C. 3. V. 1107.

The Founder of it was James Harrington, Efq; who in the beginning of the civil War fided with the Prefbyterians, and in 1646, went as a Volunteer with the Commiffioners appointed by Parlia ment to go to the King at Newcastle to treat for a Peace and Settlement, and bring him nearer to London, who, taking a liking to Mr. Harrington's Converfation, admitted him a Groom of his Bedchamber, in which Attendance he continued till the King's Death. After that, thinking that Monarchy would never be restored, he

This

Concernment to the Commonwealth. Custom I humbly defire may be received into this ingenious Assembly, and that I may have the Honour to be the first Man that shall put it in Practice. For I perceive, we have not only heard all, and more than all, that can be faid to the Purpose concerning over-Balance and Propriety, but like those that are out of their Way, the further we go the further we are from our End; and I doubt, in Conclufion. fhall come to discover, that there is no fuch Thing at present in the English Nation, as either the one, or the other-Befides, Sir, as all Rotations and Wheelings caufe a kind of Giddinefs in the Brain; fo if we provide not fome wholesome Diverfion for those that we have fo often heard of, it will not be in the Power of this fober and confiderate Coffee to

followed his own Genius, which chiefly lay towards Politics and democratical Government, and writ his Oceana or Syftem of a perfect Commonwealth. In 1659 in the Beginning of Michaelmas Term he and his followers had every Night a meeting at the then Turks-Head in the new Palace Yard at Westminster called Miles's CoffeeHoufe, to contrive the Model of a Commonwealth, to be erected in England. Their Scheme was, that the third Part of the Senate fhould rote out by Ballot every Year, fo that every ninth Year the faid Senate would be wholly altered, and from hence they got the Name of the Rota-Club. See Wood's Athenæ.

Concerning over-Balance and Propriety.] Harrington's Foundation Maxim was, that Empire follows the Ballance of Property, whether lodged in one, a few, or many Hands; and obferved, "That the

keep us in our Wits. Although if it be the black Broth which the Lacedemonians us'd, as fome learned Authors are of Opinion, I grant it hath a fovereign Operation to ftrengthen politic Notions, especially fuch as concern Republics, and is the fame which Lycurgus himself drank, when he form'd his Commonwealth; and among other excellent Constitutions, hit upon that excellent Law, that enjoins Women to wear Slits in their Petticoats, and Boys to fteal Bread and Butter, as Plutarch writes in his Life; and I could wifh Mr. Harrington may be defired by this Affembly to introduce it into his Oceana-But this is not that, which I purpose to propofe at this Time, but fomething that does more immediately concern the present Government, which as yet we live under, for whofe Service I suppose these Meetings are pe

"Troubles of his Time were not to be wholly attributed to Wil"fulness or Faction, neither to the Mifgovernment of the Prince, "nor the Stubbornness of the People; but to a change in the Ba"lance of Property, which ever fince Henry the feventh's Time "was daily falling into the Scale of the Commons, from that of the

King and the Lords."All Imperfections of Government he imputes to over-Balance, which in one, fays he, creates abfolute Monarchy, in the few Ariftocracy, and in the People popular GoSee Harrington's Life and Works.

vernment,

Although if it be the black Broth, which the Lacedemonians ufed] Plutarch tells us, that this Black Broth, whatever it was, was the favourite Food of the La.edemonians, especially of the older and graver Sort.

culiarly intended-And that is, whether the late Name of Rump be fignificant, proper, and adequate to the prefent Parliament. I doubt not, but at first Sight it will appear to most Men to be nothing lefs; but if you please to truft me with your Patience for a few Minutes, I dare undertake to make it appear, not only out of all Antiquity and the Confent of all Ages, but the Teftimony of Nature herself, that it is not only the most proper, apt, and fignificant, but the most honourable Denomination, that could by the Wit of Man be given unto it.

The learned Eben Ezra and Manaffeh Ben Ifrael do write, that there is in the Rump of Man a certain Bone, which they call the Bone Luz; this, they fay, is of fo immortal and incomprehenfible a Nature, that at the Resurrection out of it all the reft of the Bones and Members shall sprout, juft as a Plant does out of a Kernel: and is there any thing that

The learned Eben Ezra, &c.] Our Author introduced this and feveral other of the Arguments which follow, into the fecond Canto of the third Part of his Hudibras, where he describes the Burning of the Rump; but, in my Opinion, not with the Propriety, in which they appear here, as it could not naturally be fuppofed, that the Statefman, into whofe Mouth they are there put, rushing