"The Senate of Rome (whose fame has been heard to thunder in
the eloquence of my Lord Dolabella d'Enyo) consisting of 300,
was, in regard of the number, less oligarchical than that of
Lacedaemon; but more in regard of the patricians, who, having an
hereditary capacity of the same, were not elected to that honor
by the people; but, being conscribed by the censors, enjoyed it
for life. Wherefore these, if they had their wills, would have
resolved as well as debated; which set the people at such
variance with them as dissolved the commonwealth; whereas if the
people had enjoyed the result, that about the agrarian, as well
as all other strife, must of necessity have ceased.
"The Senates of Switzerland and Holland (as I have learnt of
my Lords Alpester and Glaucus), being bound up (like the sheaf of
arrows which the latter gives) by leagues, lie like those in
their quivers; but arrows, when they come to be drawn, fly from
this way and from that; and I am contented that these concerned
us not.
"That of Venice (by the faithful testimony of my most
excellent Lord Linceus de Stella) has obliged a world,
sufficiently punished by its own blindness and ingratitude, to
repent and be wiser: for whereas a commonwealth in which there is
no senate, or where the senate is corrupt, cannot stand, the
great Council of Venice, like the statue of Nilus, leans upon an
urn or waterpot, which pours forth the Senate in so pure and
perpetual a stream, as being unable to stagnate, is forever
incapable of corruption.
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