Page:An Essay Concerning Parliaments.djvu/51

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accipere & rependere, & ſic ſecum uſque ad alium Maium permanere.

I will render the Senſe of it into Engliſh as near as I can: However the Latin lies before every Man to Tranſlate it for himſelf. From henceforward the French Kings degenerating from the Valour and Learning which they uſed to have, the Power of the Kingdom was Adminiſtred by the Matters of the Palace, the Kings themſelves being upon the Matter only Titular; whoſe Cuſtom it was to come to the Crown indeed according to their Deſcent, and neither to Act nor Order any thing, but to Eat and Drink Unconſcionably and to live at Home, and upon the Kalends of May to Preſide in an Aſſembly of the whole Nation, and there to be Addreſſed, to receive their Allegiances, and Aids or Benevolences, and to Remercie them, and ſo to retire to the ſame Life again till another May came.

This French Kalends of May, is ſo much a Picture of Ours, that I know not which is the Copy, nor which the Original. Theirs was an Aſſembly of the whole Nation; ſo was Ours. Annual and Anniverſary; ſo was Ours. It was tota. Gens Kal. Maii, in France. Our Folkmote looks extreamly like it in thoſe two Strokes. Statutum eſt enim quod ibi debent populi omnes, & gentes Univerſæ ſingulis

annis,