called injustice or injury, because every subject is author of every act the sovereign doth; so that he never wanteth right to anything, otherwise than as he himself is the subject of God, and bound thereby to observe the laws of Nature. And therefore it may, and doth, often happen in commonwealths that a subject may be put to death by the command of the sovereign power; and yet neither do the other wrong; as when Jephtha caused his daughter to be sacrificed; in which, and the like cases, he that so dieth had liberty to do the action for which he is nevertheless without injury put to death. And the same holdeth also in a sovereign prince that putteth to death an innocent subject. For, though the action be against the law of Nature as being contrary to equity, as was the killing of Uriah by David, yet it was not an injury to Uriah, but to God. Not to Uriah, because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself; and yet to God, because David was God's subject, and prohibited all iniquity by the law of Nature; which distinction David himself, when he repented the fact, evidently confirmed, saying: "To Thee only have I sinned." In the same manner the people of Athens, when they banished the most potent of their commonwealth for ten years, thought they committed no injustice; and yet they never questioned what crime he had done, but what hurt he would do: nay, they commanded the banishment of they knew not whom; and every citizen bringing his oyster shell into the market-place written with the name of him he desired should be banished, without actually accusing him, sometimes banished an Aristides, for his reputation of justice, and sometimes a scurrilous jester, as Hyperbolus, to make a jest of it. And yet a man cannot say the sovereign people of Athens wanted right to banish them, or an Athenian the liberty to jest or to be just. The liberty whereof there is so frequent and honorable mention in the histories and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in the writings and discourse of those that from them have received all their learning in the politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the liberty of the commonwealth; which is the same with that which every man then should have, if there were no civil laws nor commonwealth at all. And the effects of it also be the same. For as amongst masterless men there is per petual war of every man against his neighbor; no inheritance, to transmit to the son, nor to expect from the father; no propriety of goods, or lands; no security; but a full and absolute liberty in every particular man: so in states and commonwealths not dependent on one another every commonwealth, not every man, has an absolute liberty to do what it shall judge, that is to say, what that man, or assembly that representeth it, shall judge most conducing to their benefit. But withal they live in the condition of a perpetual war, and upon the confines of battle, with their frontiers armed and cannons planted against their neighbors round about. The Athenians and Romans were free, that is, free commonwealths; not that any particular men had the liberty to resist their own representative, but that their representative had the liberty to resist or invade other people. There is written on the turrets of the city of Lucca, in great characters, at this day, the word “Libertas”; yet no man can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether a commonwealth be monarchial or popular the freedom is still the same. But it is an easy thing for men to be deceived by the specious name of liberty; and, for want of judgment to distinguish, mistake that for their private inheritance and birthright which is the right of the pub lic only. And, when the same error is confirmed by the authority of men in reputation for their writings on this subject, it is no wonder if it produce sedition, and change of government. In these western parts of the world we are made to receive our opinions concerning the institution and rights of commonwealths, from Aristotle, Cicero, and other men, Greeks and Romans, that, living under popular states, derived those rights not from the principles of Nature but transcribed them into their books, out of the practice of their own commonwealths, which were popular; as the grammarians describe the rules of language out of the practice of the time, or the rules of poetry out of the poems of Homer and Virgil. And, because the Athenians were taught to keep them from desire of changing their government, that they were free men, and all that lived under monarchy were slaves, therefore Aristotle put it down in his Politics (lib. 6, cap. ii): "In democracy 'liberty' is to be supposed; for it is commonly held that no man is 'free' in any other government." And as Aristotle, so Cicero and other writers have grounded their civil doctrine on the opinions of the Romans, who were taught to hate monarchy, at first, by them that having deposed their sovereign shared amongst them the sovereignty of Rome, and afterwards by their successors. And by reading of these Greek and Latin authors men from their childhood have gotten a habit, under a false show of liberty, of favoring tumults, and of licentious controlling the actions of their sovereigns, and again of controlling those controllers; with the effusion of so much blood as I think I may truly say there was never anything so dearly bought as these western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latin tongues. THE POLITICAL VERSE OF JOHN DRYDEN [From Astræa Redux, 1660] And welcome now, great monarch, to your own! Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion. Your heavenly parentage and earthly too, crown Before did ravish shall secure your own. A sight of all he could behold and live, name. Your power to justice doth submit your cause, Your goodness only is above the laws, Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you, Is softer made. So winds that tempests brew, When through Arabian groves they take their flight, Made wanton with rich odors, lose their spite. And as those lees that trouble it refine Who in their haste to welcome you to land Choked up the beach with their still growing store And made a wilder torrent on the shore: While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight, Those who had seen you, court a second sight, Preventing still your steps and making haste To meet you often whereso'er you past. How shall I speak of that triumphant day, When you renewed the expiring pomp of May! A month that owns an interest in your name; It stained the duller sun's meridian light, And now Time's whiter series is begun, Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run; Those clouds that overcast your morn shall fly, Dispelled to farthest corners of the sky. Besiege the petty monarchs of the land; And as old Time his offspring swallowed down, Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown. Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free, Our merchants shall no more adventurers be; Whose crimes before did your just cause betray; Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins, But most your life and blest example wins. Such savory deities must needs be good Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews And raked for converts even the court and stews: Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took, Because the fleece accompanies the flock. 45 Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay By guns, invented since full many a day: Our author swears it not; but who can know How far the devil and Jebusites may go? This plot, which failed for want of common sense, 50 Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence; 55 Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? 90 Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, 120 Remains of sprouting heads too long to score. Some of their chiefs were princes of the land; 160 In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, 165 Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy! 175 That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggared by fools whom still he found too late, He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laughed himself from Court; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief: For spite of him, the weight of business fell On Absalom and wise Achitophel; Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left. [From The Hind and the Panther, 1687] 180 A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged; Without unspotted, innocent within, She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds And Scythian shafts, and many wingèd wounds Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly, And doomed to death, though fated not to die. Not so her young; for their unequal line Was hero's make, half human, half divine. 10 Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate, The immortal part assumed immortal state. Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood, Extended o'er the Caledonian wood, Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose And cried for pardon on their perjured foes. Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed, 15 And wandered in the kingdoms once her own. The common hunt, though from their rage restrained By sovereign power, her company disdained, Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye 30 Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity. 'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light, They had not time to take a steady sight; For truth has such a face and such a mien As to be loved needs only to be seen. The bloody Bear, an Independent beast 35 Unlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed. Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare Professed neutrality, but would not swear. Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use, Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose; 40 His impious race their blasphemy renewed, And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed; Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye, Nor in an infant could a God descry. New swarming sects to this obliquely tend, 60 Hence they began, and here they all will end. . . . Too boastful Britain, please thyself no more That beasts of prey are banished from thy shore; The Bear, the Boar, and every savage name, Wild in effect, though in appearance tame, 65 |