SECTION V.
"I have in my possession a great number of catapultæ and balistæ of the ancient Romans, which are certainly rather worm-eaten, but would still do very well as specimens. I have many water-clocks, but half of them probably out of repair and broken, some sepulchral lamps, and an old copper model of a quinquereme. I have also togas, pretextas, and laticlaves in lead; and my predecessors established a society of tailors; who, after inspecting ancient monuments, can make up robes pretty awkwardly. For these reasons thereunto moving us, after hearing the report of our chief antiquary, we do hereby appoint and ordain, that all the said venerable usages should be observed and kept up forever; and every person, through the whole extent of our dominions, shall dress and think precisely as men dressed and thought in the time of Cnidus Rufillus, proprietor of the province devolved to us by right," etc.
It is represented to an officer belonging to the department whence this edict issued, that all the engines enumerated in it are become useless; that the understandings and the inventions of mankind are every day making new advances towards perfection; and that it would be more judicious to guide and govern men by the reins in present use, than by those by which they were formerly subjected; that no person could be found to go on board the quinquereme of his most serene highness; that his tailors might make as many laticlaves as they pleased, and that not a soul would purchase one of them; and that it would be worthy of his wisdom to condescend, in some small measure, to the manner of thinking that now prevailed among the better sort of people in his own dominions.
The officer above mentioned promised to communicate this representation to a clerk, who promised to speak about it to the referendary, who promised to mention it to his most serene highness whenever an opportunity should offer.
SECTION VI.
Picture of the English Government.
The establishment of a government is a matter of curious and interesting investigation. I shall not speak, in this place, of the great Tamerlane, or Timerling, because I am not precisely acquainted with the mystery of the Great Mogul's government. But we can see our way somewhat more clearly into the administration of affairs in England; and I had rather examine that than the administration of India; as England, we are informed, is inhabited by free men and not by slaves; and in India, according to the accounts we have of it, there are many slaves and but few free men.
Let us, in the first place, view a Norman bastard seating himself upon the throne of England. He had about as much right to it as St. Louis had, at a later period, to Grand Cairo. But St. Louis had the misfortune not to begin with obtaining a judicial decision in favor of his right to Egypt from the court of Rome; and William the Bastard failed not to render his cause legitimate and sacred, by obtaining in confirmation of the rightfulness of his claim, a decree of Pope Alexander II. issued without the opposite party having obtained a hearing, and simply in virtue of the words, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven." His competitor, Harold, a perfectly legitimate monarch, being thus bound by a decree of heaven, William united to this virtue of the holy see another of far more powerful efficacy still, which was the victory of Hastings. He reigned, therefore, by the right of the strongest, just as Pepin and Clovis had reigned in France; the Goths and Lombards in Italy; the Visigoths, and afterwards the Arabs in Spain; the Vandals in Africa, and all the kings of the world in succession.
It must be nevertheless admitted, that our Bastard possessed as just a title as the Saxons and the Danes, whose title, again, was quite as good as that of the Romans. And the title of all these heroes in succession was precisely that of "robbers on the highway," or, if you like it better, that of foxes and pole-cats when they commit their depredations on the farm-yard.
All these great men were so completely highway robbers, that from the time of Romulus down to the buccaneers, the only question and concern were about the "spolia opima," the pillage and plunder, the cows and oxen carried off by the hand of violence. Mercury, in the fable, steals the cows of Apollo; and in the Old Testament, Isaiah assigns the name of robber to the son whom his wife was to bring into the world, and who was to be an important and sacred type. That name was Mahershalalhashbaz, "divide speedily the soil." We have already observed, that the names of soldier and robber were often synonymous.