of noble birth, were held by the Athenians worthy to be kings;
Lycurgus was of the royal blood; Romulus and Numa princes; Brutus
and Publicola patricians; the Gracchi, that lost their lives for
the people of Rome and the restitution of that commonwealth, were
the sons of a father adored with two triumphs, and of Cornelia
the daughter of Scipio, who being demanded in marriage by King
Ptolemy, disdained to become the Queen of Egypt. And the most
renowned Olphaus Megaletor, sole legislator, as you will see
anon, of the Commonwealth of Oceana, was derived from a noble
family; nor will it be any occasion of scruple in this case, that
Leviathan affirms the politics to be no ancienter than his book
"De Cive." Such also as have got any fame in the civil government
of a commonwealth, or by the leading of its armies, have been
gentlemen; for so in all other respects were those plebeian
magistrates elected by the people of Rome, being of known
descents and of equal virtues, except only that they were
excluded from the name by the usurpation of the patricians.
Holland, through this defect at home, has borrowed princes for
generals, and gentlemen of divers nations for commanders: and the
Switzers, if they have any defect in this kind, rather lend their
people to the colors of other princes, than make that noble use
of them at home which should assert the liberty of mankind. For
where there is not a nobility to hearten the people, they are
slothful, regardless of the world, and of the public interest of
liberty, as even those of Rome had been without their gentry:
wherefore let the people embrace the gentry in peace, as the
light of their eyes; and in war, as the trophy of their arms; and
if Cornelia disdained to be Queen of Egypt, if a Roman consul
looked down from his tribunal upon the greatest king, let the
nobility love and cherish the people that afford them a throne so
much higher in a commonwealth, in the acknowledgment of their
virtue, than the crowns of monarchs.
But if the equality of a commonwealth consist in the equality
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