ght that to be necessary which was virtuous)
the nobility of Athens, having the people so much engaged in their debt
that there remained no other question among these than which of those
should be king, no sooner heard Solon speak than they quitted their
debts, and restored the commonwealth; which ever after held a solemn
and annual feast called the Sisacthia, or Recision, in memory of that
action. Nor is this example the phoenix; for at the institution by
Lycurgus, the nobility having estates (as ours here) in the lands of
Laconia, upon no other valuable consideration than the commonwealth
proposed by him, threw them up to be parcelled by his agrarian. But
now when no man is desired to throw up a farthing of his money, or a
shovelful of his earth, and that all we can do is but to make a virtue
of necessity, we are disputing whether we should have peace or war.
For peace you cannot have without some government, nor any government
without the proper balance. Wherefore if you will not fix this which you
have, the rest is blood, for without blood you can bring in no other."

By these speeches made at the institution of the agrarian you may
perceive what were the grounds of it. The next is--

The fourteenth order, "Constituting the ballot of Venice, as it is
fitted by several alterations, and appointed to every assembly, to
be the constant and only way of giving suffrage in this commonwealth,
according to the following scheme."

I shall endeavor by the following figure to demonstrate the manner of
the Venetian ballot (a thing as difficult in discourse or writing, as
facile in practice) according to the use of it in Oceana. The whole
figure represents the Senate, containing, as to the house or form
of sitting, a square and a half; the tribunal at the upper end being
ascended by four steps. On the uppermost of these sit the magistrates
that constitute the signory of the commonwealth, that is to say, A the
strategus; B the orator; C the three commissioners of the great seal; D
the three commissioners of the Treasury, whereof one, E, exercises for
the present the office of a censor at the middle urn, F To the two upper
steps of the tribunal answer G, G-G, G, the two long benches next the
wall on each side of the house; the outwardmost of which are equal in
height to the uppermost step, and the innermost equal in height to the
next. Of these four benches consists the first seal; as the second seat
consists in like manner of th