The subject of primogeniture attracted our author's attention. He did not deem it consistent with republican forms of government. His rule was equality in inheritance among claimants in equal degree of relationship to an ancestor.1 Primogeniture was well-suited to a monarchy. He puts his arguments into the mouth of Cromwell:

A man has one son let him be called. Would he enjoy his father's estate? It is his, his son's, and his son's son's after him. A man has five sons — let them be called. Would they enjoy their father's estate? It is divided among them. . . . If a man shall dispute otherwise, he must draw his arguments from custom and from greatness, which was the interest of the monarchy, not of the family, and we are now a commonwealth. If the monarchy could not bear with such divisions, because they tended to a commonwealth, neither can a commonwealth

Finally, Cromwell being at his wit's end to know what to do with him, named a town near the sea, where he must abide. Of this direction, Feake says: 66 And he wrote an order all in his own hand to be delivered to me, enjoining me to continue at that place, and not to stir from thence till further order, which order was signed, Oliver P." (Protector). This order stirred Mr. Feake's bile beyond measure. He paid no attention to it, and went up to London. He says: "He, Cromwell, was pleased to appoint me to be my own gaoler. Such an unnatural order was never heard of before." Here he read it to the congregation, and added: "I abhorred to be a prisoner voluntarily to any power in the world. Here was an order from Oliver P., and I sought the scriptures how to relieve myself. At length came into my mind the case of Peter and John in the 4th of the Acts, who being called before the high priest Ananias [sic] and Caiaphas, were by them commanded not to preach in the name of Jesus. Now suppose that either of their Highnesses had sent Peter and John an order, enjoining them to confine themselves to such a village as Sharon or Joppa or the like, and forbear coming to preach at Jerusalem; suppose, I say, an order had come to them on that account, signed by either of their Highnesses, Ananias H. or Caiaphas H., like this with Oliver P., do you think they would have obeyed it and been confined to a village? We find the contrary, for they preached the more boldly in the city of Jerusalem. Then, having my warrant here from the scripture, I resolved for London, notwithstanding the order of Oliver P." Feake proclaimed that the churches were corrupt, and his business was to "rouse and to rattle them." Harrington's feeling towards the political action of ministers must be read in view of such discourses. Incidentally this matter sheds some light on Cromwell's mode of government, in that such a man should be allowed to rant before a large audience and for three hours, apparently in the presence of the Secretary of the commonwealth, without any interruption, except by other ministers. The sympathy of the audience was plainly with Feake. The narrator of this account found trouble in reporting Feake, as he was "far from candle light, and his shoulders were laden with a crowd of women riding over his head on the tops of the seats." —Thurloe's State Papers, by Birch, V, 755. London, 1742.

1 Oceana, p. 102.

...

conceive at such accumulations, because they tend to a monarchy. . . I confess I marvel much how it comes to pass that we should use our children as we do our puppies, take one, lay it in the lap, feed it with every good bit, and drown five; nay, yet worse, forasmuch as the puppies are once drowned, whereas the children are left perpetually drowning. Really, my Lords, it is a flinty custom; and all this for his cruel ambition that would raise himself a pillar, a golden pillar for his monument, though he has children, his own reviving flesh and a kind of immortality.1

It is a striking illustration of the correctness of his views, that while primogeniture once prevailed in eight of the American colonies, it disappeared in seven of them at the time of the Revolution. In connection with this discussion, he pours out a strain of invective and sarcasm upon the miserable custom then and since prevailing of the interference of parents to make mercenary marriages, which he holds to be pernicious to the commonwealth.

We see the gifts of God and the bounties of heaven in fruitful families through this wretched custom of marrying for money become their insupportable grief and poverty. The tallow of a chandler is soon converted into that beauty which is required for a bride. We insist that our children shall not marry without our consent, not for our tenderness over them, but lest we miss this and that thousand pounds in their fortune; and yet it is a mischief beyond any that we can do to our enemies, in that we persist in making nothing of breaking the affection of our children. . . . Let us so frame our government as to render a homage to pure and spotless love, whereupon the marriage-bed will be truly legitimate, and the race of the commonwealth not spurious.2

In all his suggestions the interest of the commonwealth is the specific point of view. To that everything must bend. Political power is an awful responsibility. Magistracy is a trust to be constantly supervised. "As an estate in trust becomes a man's own if he be not accountable for it, so the power of a magistracy not accountable to the people from whom it was received, becoming of private use, the commonwealth loses her liberty."

He is watchful over the smallest detail injurious or dishon2 Ibid., p. 110.

1 Oceana, p. 108.

orable to the state. He cannot bear to see a decline in culture and refinement. He cannot go along with his compatriots in their despoiling of parks and defilement of cathedrals. The destruction of such ornaments and works of historic interest is really anti-democratic, for the people have a right to them as a means of education. He says:

There is such a selling, such a Jewish, humor in our republicans, that I cannot tell what to say to it, only this- any man that knows what belongs to a commonwealth, or how diligent every nation in that case has been to preserve her ornaments, and shall see the waste lately made in the woods adjoining to this city [London] which served for the delight and health of it, being cut down to be sold for three pence, will tell you that they who did such things would never have made a commonwealth.

Can it be that the genius of democracy is always and everywhere to be put forward as insensible to park and sylvan beauty?

But [he continues] the like may be said of the ruin or damage done upon our cathedrals - ornaments in which this nation excels all others. Nor shall this ever be excused upon the score of religion, for though it be true that God dwells not in houses made with hands, yet you cannot hold your assemblies but in such houses, and these are of the best that have been made with hands. Nor is it well argued that they are pompous and therefore profane or less proper for divine service, seeing the Christians in the primitive church chose to meet with one accord in the temple, so far were they from any inclination to pull it down.1

It was a bold thing for Harrington to put these words into the mouth of Cromwell, when he must have known that Cromwell was well aware that his soldiers had often without necessity desecrated the churches of the old established faith. It is doubtful whether even his contemporary, Milton, with his grand poetic vision, would have expressed so keen a sense of the Vandalism of the time as Harrington does in this passage.

Harrington is strongly in favor of recreations. Wit and gallantry are not to be proscribed, though care is to be taken to preserve their innocence. No curb should be placed upon the

1 Oceana, p. 168.

genius of a people in lawful recreation. He had heard "Protestant ministers in France much blamed, by men that were wise and of their own profession, in that they forbade dancing, a recreation to which the genius of that air is so inclining that they lost many who would not lose that."

Where a commonwealth was rightly "balanced" and conducted by virtuous men, our author had a glorious vision of its possibilities. He argues :

A government of the right make is a commonwealth for increase. Of those for preservation merely, the roots are narrow, such as do not run, have no fibres, their tops weak and dangerously exposed to the weather, except you chance to find one as Venice planted in a flower pot, and if she grows, she grows top-heavy and falls too. But you cannot plant an oak in a flower pot. She must have earth for her root and heaven for her branches.1 ... If your liberty be not a root that grows, it will be a branch that withers. . . . But even if there should be disaster and the hand of God be upon her for her transgressions, she shall mourn for her sins and lie in the dust for her iniquities without losing her manhood.... A commonwealth is not made for herself alone, but given as a magistrate of God to mankind for the vindication of common right and the law of nature.*

The stimulus to a citizen in a truly organized commonwealth is intense. "She drives her citizens like wedges, there is no way with them but thorough, nor end but that glory whereof man is capable by art or nature." 5

Having completed his scheme, he breaks out into a grand and triumphant strain, in which he shows his affection for England and his faith in her future greatness. Cromwell is represented as making a harangue at the head of his army, and congratulating them on the adoption of the political constitution embodying Harrington's views.

My dear Lords, Oceana [England] is as the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. As the lily among thorns, such is my love among the daughters. She is comely as the tents of Kedar and terrible as an army with banners. Her neck is as the tower of David, builded for an armory,

1 Oceana, p. 192.
2 Ibid., p. 196.

3 Ibid., p. 189.

Ibid., p. 194.

b Ibid., p. 183.

whereon there hang a thousand bucklers and shields of mighty men. . . . Arise, Queen of the earth, arise, holy spouse of Jesus, for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time for the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Arise, I say, come forth and do not tarry.

All this outburst of gladness and upspringing of a new and virgin beauty come from his own scheme of government, which, in his fine philosophic simplicity, he regards as perfect.

Excellent patriots [Cromwell is supposed to continue], if the people be sovereign, here is that which establishes their prerogative; if we be sincere, here is that which disburdens our souls and makes good all our engagements; if we be charitable, here is that which embraces all parties; if we would be settled, here is that which would stand and last for ever.

As has been already seen, Harrington's scheme demands that it should be launched by Cromwell, as sole legislator, who must voluntarily lay down his power as protector, to become at most the president of a commonwealth. To induce him to take such a step of self-abnegation, Harrington seeks to dazzle him with his prospective glory and the filial affection of his grateful fellowcitizens.

He shall walk the streets with a switch, while the people run after him and pray for him; he shall not wet his foot; they will strew flowers in his way. He shall sit higher in their hearts and in the judgment of all good men than the kings that go up stairs to their seats; he has two or three hundred thousand men, that when you say the word, shall sell themselves to their shirts for him and die at his feet.

Is this not the first note of the mighty refrain heard in our own day?

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.

The next sentence, as applied to a faithful republican ruler, is equally prophetic :

His pillow is of down and his grave shall be as soft, over which they that are alive shall wring their hands, and the eyes of the people are as the showers of autumn.