at do I speak
of 1,000? There be 2,000 in every tribe, that is, 100,000 in the whole
nation, not only in the posture of an army, but in a civil capacity
sufficient to give us what laws they please. Now everybody knows that
the lower sort of people regard nothing but money; and you say it is
the duty of a legislator to presume all men to be wicked: wherefore they
must fall upon the richer, as they are an army; or, lest their minds
should misgive them in such a villany, you have given them encouragement
that they have a nearer way, seeing it may be done every whit as well as
by the overbalancing power which they have in elections. There is a fair
which is annually kept in the centre of these territories at Kiberton,
a town famous for ale, and frequented by good fellows; where there is a
solemnity of the pipers and fiddlers of this nation (I know not whether
Lacedaemon, where the Senate kept account of the stops of the flutes and
of the fiddle-strings of that commonwealth, bad any such custom) called
the bull-running, and he that catches and holds the bull, is the annual
and supreme magistrate of that comitia or congregation, called king
piper, without whose license it is not lawful for any of those citizens
to enjoy the liberty of his calling; nor is he otherwise legitimately
qualified (or civitate donatus) to lead apes or bears in any
perambulation of the same. Mine host of the Bear, in Kiberton, the
father of ale, and patron of good football and cudgel players, has any
time since I can remember been grand-chancellor of this order.

"Now, say I, seeing great things arise from small beginnings, what
should hinder the people, prone to their own advantage and loving money,
from having intelligence conveyed to them by this same king piper and
his chancellor, with their loyal subjects the minstrels and bear-wards,
masters of ceremonies, to which there is great recourse in their
respective perambulations, and which they will commission and instruct,
with directions to all the tribes, willing and commanding them, that
as they wish their own good, they choose no other into the next primum
mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as
soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of
necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and
so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows'
ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron