But the revenue being now such as was able to be a yearly purchaser, gave a jealousy that by this means the balance of the commonwealth, consisting in private fortunes, might be eaten out, whence this year is famous for that law whereby the Senate and the people, forbidding any further purchase of lands to the public within the dominions of Oceana and the adjacent provinces, put the agrarian upon the commonwealth herself. These increases are things which men addicted to monarchy deride as impossible, whereby they unwarily urge a strong argument against that which they would defend. For having their eyes fixed upon the pomp and expense, by which not only every child of a king, being a prince, exhausts his father's coffers, but favorites and servile spirits, devoted to the flattery of those princes, grow insolent and profuse, returning a fit gratitude to their masters, whom, while they hold it honorable to deceive, they suck and keep eternally poor: it follows that they do not see how it should be possible for a commonwealth to clothe herself in purple, and thrive so strangely upon that which would make a prince's hair grow through his hood, and not afford him bread. As if it were a miracle that a careless and prodigal man should bring ?0,000 a year to nothing, or that an industrious and frugal man brings a little to ?0,000 a year. But the fruit of one man's industry and frugality can never be like that of a commonwealth; first, because the greatness of the increase follows the greatness of the stock or principal; and, secondly, because a frugal father is for the most part succeeded by a lavish son; whereas a commonwealth is her own heir.
This year a part was proposed by the Right Honorable Aureus de Woolsack in the tribe of Pecus, first commissioner of the Treasury, to the Council of State, which soon after passed the ballot of the Senate and the people, by which the lands of the public revenue, amounting to ?,000,000, were equally divided into ?,000 lots, entered by their names and parcels into a lot-book preserved in the Exchequer. And if any orphan, being a maid, should cast her estate into the Exchequer for ?,400, the Treasury was bound by the law to pay her quarterly ?00 a year, free from taxes, for her life, and to assign her a lot for her security; if she married, her husband was neither to take out the principal without her consent (acknowledged by herself to one of the commissioners of the Treasury, who, according as he found it to be free, or forced, was to allow or disallow of it), nor any other way engage it than to her proper use. But if the principal were taken out, the Treasury was not bound to repay any more of it than ?,000, nor might that be repaid at any time, save within the first year of her marriage: the like was to be done by a half or quarter lot respectively.
This was found to be a great charity to the weaker sex, and as some say, who are more skilful in the like affairs than myself, of good profit to the commonwealth.
Now began the native spleen of Oceana to be much purged, and men not to affect sullenness and pedantism. The elders could remember that they had been youths. Wit and gallantry were so far from being thought crimes in themselves, that care was taken to preserve their innocence. For which cause it was proposed to the Council for Religion by the Right Honorable Cadiscus de Clero, in the tribe of Stamnum, first censor, that such women as, living in gallantry and view about the town, were of evil fame, and could not show that they were maintained by their own estates or industry. or such as, having estates of their own, were yet wasteful in 'their way of life, and of ill-example to others, should be obnoxious to the animadversion of the Council of Religion, or of the censors: in which the proceeding should be after this manner. Notice should be first given of the scandal to the party offending, in private: if there were no amendment within the space of six months, she should be summoned and rebuked before the said Council or censors; and, if after other six months it were found that neither this availed, she should be censored not to appear at any public meetings, games, or recreations, upon penalty of being taken up by the doorkeepers or guards of the Senate, and by them to be detained, till for every such offence ? were duly paid for her enlargement.
Furthermore, if any common strumpet should be found or any scurrility or profaneness represented at either of the theatres, the prelates for every such offence should be fined ?0 by the said Council, and the poet, for every such offence on his part, should be whipped. This law relates to another, which was also enacted the same year upon this occasion.
The youth and wits of the Academy having put the business so home in the defence of comedies that the provosts had nothing but the consequences provided against by the foregoing law to object, prevailed so far that two of the provosts of the Council of State joined in a proposition, which after much ado came to a law, whereby ?00,000 was allotted for the building of two theatres on each side of the piazza of the halo: and two annual magistrates called prelates, chosen out of the knights, were added to the tropic, the one called the prelate of the buskin, for inspection of the tragic scene called Melpomene; and the other the prelate of the sock, for the comic called Thalia, which magistrates had each ?00 a year allowed out of the profits of the theatres; the rest, except ?00 a year to four poets, payable into the Exchequer. A poet laureate created in one of these theatres by the strategus, receives a wreath of ?00 in gold, paid out of the said profits. But no man is capable of this creation that had not two parts in three of the suffrages at the Academy, assembled after six weeks' warning and upon that occasion.
