parish-rates, for every parish-church in the three kingdoms, and in all the dominions thereunto belonging. And that every family that can command ten pounds per annum, even though retrenched from less necessary expenses, will subscribe for one. He does not think of giving out above nine volumes yearly; and, considering the number requisite, he intends to print at least 100,000 for the first edition. He is to print Proposals against next Term, with a specimen, and a curious map of the capital city, with its twelve gates, from a known author, who took an exact survey of it in a dream. Considering the great care and pains of the author, and the usefulness of the work, he hopes every one will be ready, for their own good as well as his, to contribute cheerfully to it, and not grudge him the profit he may have by it, especially if it comes to a third or fourth edition, as he expects it will very

soon.

He doubts not but it will be translated into foreign languages, by most nations of Europe, as well as of Asia and Africa, being of as great use to all those nations as to his own; for this reason he designs to procure patents and privileges, for securing the whole benefit to himself, from all those different princes and states; and hopes to see many millions of this great work printed, in those different countries and languages, before his death.

After this business is pretty well established, he has promised to put a friend on another project almost as good as this; by establishing Insurance-offices every where, for securing people from shipwreck, and several other accidents in their voyage to this country; and these offices shall furnish, at a

certain

A DISCOURSE

OF THE

CONTESTS AND DISSENSIONS

BETWEEN THE

NOBLES AND THE COMMONS

IN

ATHENS AND ROME;

WITH THE CONSEQUENCES THEY HAD UPON BOTH THOSE STATES.

Si tibi vera videtur,

Dede manus, & si falsa est, accingere contra.

First printed for J. NUTT in the Year 1701.

LUCR.

VOL. II.

THE

THE following discourse is a kind of remonstrance in behalf of king William and his friends, against the proceedings of the House of Commons; and was published during the recess of parliament in the summer of 1701, with a view to engage them in milder measures, when they should meet again.

At this time Lewis XIV. was making large strides toward universal monarchy, plots were carrying on at St. Germains; the Dutch had acknowledged the duke of Anjou as king of Spain; and king William was made extremely uneasy by the violence with which many of his ministers and chief favourites were pursued by the Commons. The king, to appease their resentment, had made several changes in his ministry, and removed some of his most faithful servants from places of the highest trust and dignity: this expedient, however, had proved ineffectual, and the Commons persisted in their opposition. They began by impeaching William Bentinck, earl of Portland, groom of the stole; and proceeded to the impeachment of John Somers, baron Somers of Evesham, first lord-keeper, afterwards lord chancellor; Edward Russel, earl of Orford, lord treasurer of the navy, and one of the lords commissioners of the Admiralty; and Charles Mountague, earl of Halifax, one of the commissioners of the Treasury, and afterward chancellor of the Exchequer. Its general purport is to damp the warmth of the Commons, by showing that the measures they pursued had a direct tendency to bring on the tyranny, which they professed to oppose; and the particular cases of the impeached lords are paralleled in Athenian characters. —HAWKESWORTH.

The whole treatise is full of historical knowledge, and excellent reflections. It is not mixed with any improper sallies of wit, or any light aim at humour; and, in point of style and learning, is equal, if not supericur, to any of Swift's pitical Works.-ORRERY.

A DISCOURSE, &c.

CHAP. I.

IT is agreed, that in all government there is an absolute unlimited power, which naturally and originally seems to be placed in the whole body, whereever the executive part of it lies. This holds in the body natural; for wherever we place the beginning of motion, whether from the head, or the heart, or the animal spirits in general, the body moves and acts by a consent of all its parts. This unlimited power, placed fundamentally in the body of a people, is what the best legislators of all ages have endeavoured, in their several schemes or institutions of government, to deposite in such hands as would preserve the people from rapine and oppression within, as well as violence from without. Most of them seem to agree in this, that it was a trust too great to be committed to any one man or assembly, and therefore they left the right still in the whole body; but the administration or executive part, in the hands of the one, the few, or the many; into which three powers all independent bodies of men seem naturally to divide: for, by all I have read of those innumerable and petty commonwealths in Italy, Greece, and Sicily, as well as the great ones of Carthage and Rome, it seems to me, that a free people

U 2