Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/182

136 as great as they can make him. As, to compare great things with ſmall, it is for the honour of the city to have a magnificent lord mayor. And K. told us no news in naming his office; for this is the country, as ’s whole book ſhews us, “Where the King is appointed for the realm, and not the realm for the King.” And I can ſhew a hundred places in antiquity, where the body of this nation is called republic; as for inſtance, where Bracton ſays, laws are made communi republicæ ſponſione: though I confeſs, in relation to a King, it oftener goes by the prouder name of realm. But this conſtitution of ſtate and regal government, which is the conſtitution of England, cannot be ſo well underſtood by any other one book, as by my lord chancellor ’s, which was a book written for the nonce, and to inſtruct the prince into what ſort of government he was like to ſucceed. As directly oppoſite to this government, he has painted the French government, made up of men at arms and edicts. The prince in the concluſion of it, “Does not doubt but this diſcourſe of the chancellor’s will be profitable to the Kings of England, which hereafter ſhall be:” and I am ſatisfied