that art whereof I have made a rough draught in these
preliminaries, had such sad reflections upon the ways and
proceedings of the Parliament as cast him upon books and all
other means of diversion, among which he happened on this place
of Machiavel: "Thrice happy is that people which chances to have
a man able to give them such a government at once, as without
alteration may secure them of their liberties; seeing it was
certain that Lacedaemon, in observing the laws of Lycurgus,
continued about 800 years without any dangerous tumult or
corruption." My lord general (as it is said of Themistocles, that
he could not sleep for the glory obtained by Miltiades at the
battle of Marathon) took so new and deep an impression at these
words of the much greater glory of Lycurgus, that, being on this
side assaulted with the emulation of his illustrious object, and
on the other with the misery of the nation, which seemed (as it
were ruined by his victory) to cast itself at his feet, he was
almost wholly deprived of his natural rest, till the debate he
had within himself came to a firm resolution, that the greatest
advantages of a commonwealth are, first, that the legislator
should be one man; and, secondly, that the government should be
made all together, or at once. For the first, it is certain, says
Machiavel, that a commonwealth is seldom or never well turned or
constituted, except it has been the work of one man; for which
cause a wise legislator, and one whose mind is firmly set, not
upon private but the public interest, not upon his posterity but
upon his country, may justly endeavor to get the sovereign power
into his own hands, nor shall any man that is master of reason
blame such extraordinary means as in that case will be necessary,
the end proving no other than the constitution of a well-ordered
commonwealth.
The reason of this is demonstrable; for the ordinary means
not failing, the commonwealth has no need of a legislator, but
the ordinary means failing, there is no recourse to be had but to
such as are extraordinary. And, whereas a book or a building has
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