2. Particular.

1. Envy; when the chief exceeds the mediocrity before mentioned, and so provoketh the nobility and other degrees to conspire against him; as Brutus, Cassius, &c. against Cæsar.

2. Fear; viz. of danger, when one or more despatch the prince by secret practice or force, to prevent his own danger; as Artabanus did Xerxes.

3. Lust or lechery; as Tarquinius Superbus by Brutus, Pisistratida by Armodius, Appius by Virginius.

4. Contempt, for vile quality and base behaviour; as Sardanapalus by Arbaces, Dionysius the younger by Dion.

5. Contumely; when some great disgrace is done to some great spirit, who standeth upon his honour and reputation; as Caligula by Cha

reas.

6. Hope of advancement or some great profit; as Mithridates, Ariobarsanes.

Alteration without violence.

Causes of alteration without violence are, 1. Excess of the state; when by degrees the state groweth from that temper and mediocrity wherein it was, or should have been settled, and exceedeth in power, riches, and absoluteness in his kind, by the ambition and covetousness of the chief, immoderate taxes, and impositions, &c. applying all to his own benefit, without respect of other degrees, and so in the end changeth itself into another state or form of government; as a kingdom into a tyranny, an oligarchy into an aristocracy.

2. Excess of some one or more in the commonwealth ; viz. When some one or more in a commonwealth grow to an excellency or excess above the rest, either in honour, wealth, or virtue, and so by permission and popular favour are advanced to the sovereignty; by which means popular states grow into oligarchies, and oligarchies and aristocra

cies into monarchies. For which cause the Athenians, and some other free states, made their laws of Ostracismos, to banish any for a time that should excel, though it were in virtue, to prevent the alteration of their state; which because it is an unjust law, it is better to take heed at the beginning to prevent the means, that none should grow to that height and excellency, than to use so sharp and unjust a remedy.

THE

CABINET-COUNCIL:

CONTAINING

THE CHIEF ARTS OF EMPIRE,

AND

MYSTERIES OF STATE;

DISCABINETED

IN POLITICAL AND POLEMICAL APHORISMS, GROUNDED ON AUTHORITY AND EXPERIENCE;

AND ILLUSTRATED WITH THE CHOICEST EXAMPLES AND HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS.

PUBLISHED BY JOHN MILTON.

Quis Martem tunica tectum adamantina digne scripserit ?

TO THE READER.

HAVING had the manuscript of this treatise, written by sir Walter Ralegh, many years in my hands, and finding it lately by chance among other books and papers, upon reading thereof I thought it a kind of injury to withhold longer the work of so eminent an author from the public; it being both answerable in style to other works of his already extant, as far as the subject will permit, and given me for a true copy by a learned man at his death, who had collected several such pieces.

JOHN MILTON.

THE

CABINET-COUNCIL:

CONTAINING

THE CHIEF ARTS OF EMPIRE

AND

MYSTERIES OF STATE.

CHAP. I.

The definition and division of public weals and sovereign states, according to their several species or kinds.

A COMMONWEALTH is a certain sovereign government of many families, with those things that are common among them.

All commonwealths are either monarchies, aristocracies, democracies.

A monarchy is that state where the sovereignty resteth in the person of one only prince.

An aristocracy is where some small part of the people have in them, as a body corporate, the sovereignty and supreme power of the whole state.

A democracy is where all the people have power and authority sovereign.

So doth it appear, that the place and person where the sovereignty resteth, doth cause the state to be either a monarchy, an aristocracy, or popular government.