government without the proper balance. Wherefore if you will not
fix this which you have, the rest is blood, for without blood you
can bring in no other."

By these speeches made at the institution of the agrarian you
may perceive what were the grounds of it. The next is --

The fourteenth order, "Constituting the ballot of Venice, as
it is fitted by several alterations, and appointed to every
assembly, to be the constant and only way of giving suffrage in
this commonwealth, according to the following scheme."

I shall endeavor by the following figure to demonstrate the
manner of the Venetian ballot (a thing as difficult in discourse
or writing, as facile in practice) according to the use of it in
Oceana. The whole figure represents the Senate, containing, as to
the house or form of sitting, a square and a half; the tribunal
at the upper end being ascended by four steps. On the uppermost
of these sit the magistrates that constitute the signory of the
commonwealth, that is to say, A the strategus; B the orator; C
the three commissioners of the great seal; D the three
commissioners of the Treasury, whereof one, E, exercises for the
present the office of a censor at the middle urn, F To the two
upper steps of the tribunal answer G, G-G, G, the two long
benches next the wall on each side of the house; the outwardmost
of which are equal in height to the uppermost step, and the
innermost equal in height to the next. Of these four benches
consists the first seal; as the second seat consists in like
manner of those four benches H, H-H, H, which being next the
floor, are equal in height to the two nethermost steps of the