To the Body of your Work.

Sir, to a man who pretends not to understand a language, it is no shame not to understand that language; but it is a shame to a man, and a scholar who pretends to sense, not to understand sense. If I shall make it plain that in this point you come short, I shall have vindicated the Greek of your authors from your ignorant application of the same, without troubling the reader with any more languages than his mother tongue. You, in pretending to have sound Oceana light, weigh only Sparta, nor that truly.

First, Because the senate of Sparta was instituted by Lycurgus, you argue, That it was not instituted eligible by the people; whereas all authors, particularly Aristotle, lib. 4. cap. 9. affirm, That the magistrates in Sparta were all chosen by the people, as that of senator; or chosen, and also born by the people, as that of ephori.

For the mistakes you lay unto Mr. Harrington in the Greek, as, That the tribes in Lacedemon were pre-existent to the oracle, what maketh that to the purpose? And that the word obæ doth not signify lineages, you will harldly persuade, seeing Amyot, thought to be as good an interpreter of the Greek as Mr. Stubs, in rendring the oracle, hath these words, Aprez que tu auras divisé le peuple en ligniees. But I will not trouble the reader with foreign languages: things indisputable shall hereafter be brought for interpretation of the words you dispute at a dear rate, giving so much Greek for two-pence as you have made not worth an half-penny. Mr. Harrington states the commonwealth of Sparta thus;

Lycurgus instituted a senate eligible by the people for life, with right to debate and propose, and a popular assembly with power to resolve. To which he adds the place in Plutarch. Lycurgus having thus tempered the form of this commonwealth, it seemed nevertheless to them who came after, that the small number of thirty persons (and for life) whereof this senate consisted, was the cause of greater force and authority in the same than was convenient; for which cause to hold in this same senate, they (the people) gave them the senate, (as Plato saith) the curb, which was the power and authority of the ephori, magistrates created about one hundred and thirty years after the death of Lycurgus, in the time of king Theopompus, who to his wife reproaching him in disdain, that he must thus basely leave his kingdom less unto his successors, than he had received of his predecessors; made answer, That he should leave it greater, in regard that it would be more firm and durable.

Hereby it is apparent, when the senate upon these advantages of fewness and for life, began to propose perversely unto the people, then the people began to add, diminish, pervert, and evert what the senate proposed, that is, they began (as in like cases is unavoidable) to debate. And the people thus taking upon them to debate, Polydorus and Theopompus being kings, endeavoured to add unto the fundamental law, that if the people did not determine well, then the senators and the kings should stop the procedure. Hereupon, for the defence of their fundamental laws, the people erected the court of the ephori, consisting of annual magistrates chosen by and out of themselves, and with power to question any of their kings or senators upon their lives, that should go about to pervert those laws. Thus by this patch of the ephori, came that flaw in Sparta (wherewith Mr. Harrington for that reason proposing otherwise, is not concerned) to be amended. And this is the account he gives of that commonwealth, which you, perverting the whole story, go about to weigh otherwise.

1. Inferring that the people were guilty of those miscarriages, which it is plain proceeded from the senate, and were rectified by the people, in the institution of that curb upon the senate (as is plainly shewn by Plutarch) in the institution of the ephori.

2. You infer from you know not what, that the senate had a negative vote, and yet confess that the people had no right to debate. Whereas to leave words or canting, (for your Greek, as you use it, amounts to no more) and come as I said to the undeniable testimony of things or of sense; if the popular assembly had no right to debate, how should the senate have a negative? or if the popular assembly had right to the result only, then who but themselves could have the negative? Contra rationem nemo sobrius, contra experientiam nemo sanus. For that which you alledge out of Demosthenes, as that he calleth the senate of Sparta lords of the people, it can (considering the nature of this commonwealth, which Isocrates to the Areopagites affirms to be popular) be no otherwise understood, than as they who have the like function, I mean of debating and proposing unto the parliament in Scotland, are called lords of the articles. Lord in this sense, as you (in great letters setting a mark upon your ignorance, and not interpreting your text) would imply, doth not signify sovereign, for neither are the lords of the articles sovereign, nor doth Demosthenes affirm that of the senate of Sparta. But where the proposers are few, and for life, as in Lacedemon, and as the greater nobility or officers in Scotland, they may in some sense be called lords of the people, though not they, but the people have the result.