calves too, and would have our tribes come up A.D. 1658. and worship them) that he observed the same method in making lords.

"One of the few requests the Portuguese made to Philip the Second, King of Spain, when he got that kingdom (as his late highness did this) by an army, was, that he would not make nobility contemptible by advancing such to that degree whose quality or virtue could be noways thought to deserve it. Nor have we formerly been less apprehensive of such inconveniencies ourselves. It was, in Richard the First's time, one of the Bishop of Ely's accusations, that castles and forts of great trust he did (obscuris et ignotis hominibus tradere') put in the hands of obscure and unknown men. But we, Mr. Speaker, to such a kind of men are delivering up the power of our laws, and, in that, the power of all.

"In the 17th of Edward the Fourth, there passed an act of parliament for degrading John Nevil, Marquis Montague and Duke of Bedford: the reason expressed in the act, because he had not a revenue sufficient for the maintaining of that dignity; to which was added, when men of mean birth are called to high estate, and have no livelihood to support it, it induceth briberies

A.D. 1658. and extortions, and all kinds of injustice that are followed by gain. And in the parliament of 2nd Carol. the peers, in a petition against Scottish and Irish titles, told the king, that it was a novelty without precedent that men should possess honours where they possessed nothing else, and that they should have a vote in parliament where they have not a foot of land. But if it had been added, or have no land but what is the purchase of their villanies, against how many of our new peers would this have been an important objection? To conclude: it has been a very just and reasonable care among all nations, not to render that despised and contemptible to the people which is designed for their reverence and awe; and, sir, an empty title, without quality or virtue, never procured any man this, any more than the image in the fable made the ass adored that carried it.

"After their quality, give me leave to speak a word or two of their qualifications; which certainly ought, in reason, to carry some proportion with the employment they design themselves. The house of lords are the king's great hereditary council; they are the highest court of judicature; they have their part in judging and determining

of the reasons for making new laws and abro- A.D.1658. gating old: from amongst them we take our great officers of state; they are commonly our generals at land, and our admirals at sea. In conclusion, they are both of the essence and constitution of our old government; and have, besides, the greatest and noblest share in the administration. Now, certainly, sir, to judge according to the dictates of reason, one would imagine some small faculties and endowments to be necessary for discharging such a calling; and those such as are not usually acquired in shops and warehouses, nor found by following the plough: and what other academies most of their lordships have been bred in but their shops, what other arts they have been versed in, but those which more required good arms and good shoulders than good heads, I think we are yet to be informed. Sir, we commit not the education of our children to ignorant and illiterate masters; nay, we trust not our very horses to unskilful grooms. I beseech you, let us think it belongs to us to have some care into whose hands we commit the management of the commonwealth; and if we cannot have persons of birth and fortune to be our rulers, to whose quality we would willingly submit, I beseech you,

A.D. 1658. sir, for our credit and safety's sake, let us seek

men at least of parts and education, to whose abilities we may have some reason to give way. If a patient dies under a physician's hand, the law esteems not that a felony, but a misfortune, in the physician: but it has been held by some, if one who is no physician undertakes the management of a cure, and the party miscarries, the law makes the empiric a felon; and sure, in all men's opinion, the patient a fool. To conclude, sir, for great men to govern is ordinary; for able men it is natural: knaves many times come to it by force and necessity, and fools sometimes by chance; but universal choice and election of fools and knaves for government was never yet made by any who were not themselves like those they chose.

"But methinks, Mr. Speaker, I see ready to rise after me some gentlemen that shall tell you the good services their new lordships have done the commonwealth; that shall extol their valour, their godliness, their fidelity to the cause. The scripture, too, (no doubt,) as it is to all purposes, shall be brought in to argue for them; and we shall hear of the wisdom of the poor man that saved the city;' of the not many wise, not many

mighty: attributes that I can no way deny to be A.D. 1658. due to their lordships. Mr. Speaker, I shall be as forward as any man to declare their services, and acknowledge them; though I might tell you that the same honour is not purchased by the blood of an enemy and of a citizen; that for victories in civil wars, till our armies marched through the city, I have not read that the conquerors have been so void of shame as to triumph. Cæsar, not much more indulgent to his country than our late protector, did not so much as write public letters of his victory at Pharsalia; much less had he days of thanksgiving to his gods, and anniversary feasts, for having been a prosperous rebel.

But, sir, I leave this argument; and, to be as good as my word, come to put you in mind of some of their services, and the obligations you owe them for the same. To speak nothing of one of my lords commissioners' valour at Bristol, nor of another noble lord's brave adventure at the Bear-Garden, I must tell you, sir, that most of them have had the courage to do things which, I may boldly say, few other Christians durst so have adventured their souls to have attempted: they have not only subdued their enemies, but their masters that raised and maintained them;

VOL. I.