over-balance, ſpeaks of the gentry as hoſtile to popular governments, and of popular governments as hoſtile to the gentry; which can never be proved by any one example, unleſs in civil war; ſeeing that, even in Switzerland, the gentry are not only ſafe, but in honour. But the balance, as I have laid it down, though unſeen by Machiavel, is that which interprets him, where he concludes, "That he who will go about to make a commonwealth where there be many gentlemen, unleſs he firſt deſtroys them, undertakes an impoſſibility. And that he who goes about to introduce monarchy, where the condition of the people is equal, ſhall never bring it to paſs, unleſs he cull out ſuch of them as are the moſt turbulent and ambitious, and make them gentlemen or noblemen, not in name, but in effect; that is, by enriching them with lands, caſtles, and treaſures, that may gain them power among the reſt, and bring in the reſt to dependence upon them; to the end that they, maintaining their ambition by the prince, the prince may maintain his power by them."
Wherefore, as in this place I agree with Machiavel, that a nobility, or gentry, over-balancing a popular government, is the utter bane and deſtruction of it, ſo I ſhall ſhew in another, that a nobility or gentry, in a popular government, not over-balancing it, is the very life and ſoul of it.
The public ſword, or right of the militia, be the government what it will, or let it change how it can, is inſeparable from the over-balance in dominion.
