For they are above 1,000 in arms to
300, which, their gowns being pulled over their ears, are but in
their doublets and hose. But what 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.
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