'The
eagle England' has a right 'to be in prey', but 'the weazel Scot'
has none 'to come sneaking to her nest', which she has left to
pounce upon others. Might was right, without equivocation or
disguise, in that heroic and chivalrous age. The substitution of
right for might, even in theory, is among the refinements and abuses
of modern philosophy.
A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the effects of
subordination in a commonwealth can hardly be conceived than the
following:
For government, though high and low and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congruing in a full and natural close,
Like music.
--Therefore heaven doth divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience; for so work the honey bees;
Creatures that by a rule in nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing mason building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
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