The Common-Wealth of England, by Thomas Smith

EEBO link.

Milton refers to The Common-Wealth of England in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. From the Dartmouth reading room:

Sir Thomas Smith also a Protestant and a Statesman, in his Commonwelth of England, putting the question whether it be lawfull to rise against a Tyrant, answers that the vulgar judge of it according to the event, and the lerned according to the purpose of them that do it.

Dartmouth also has this note:

 Sir Thomas Smith. Milton read and transcribed into his Commonplace Book (Complete Prose Works 1.455-56) passages from Sir Thomas Smith's De Republica Anglorum (1583).

 In the 1635 octavo version of Smith (BL shelfmark 8005.a.38.) specifically has this quote early on, between the the recto and verso of B4 (pages 7 and 8):

CHAP. V. of the queſtion of what is right and iuſt

in a Common-wealth 

 SO when the Common-wealth is
euill gouerned by an euill Ruler
and vniust (as in the three laſt named
which be rather a ſickneſſe of the po-
litick body, than perfect and good
Eſtates) if the Lawes bee made, as
moſt like they be alwayes, to main-
taine that Eſtate: the queſtion re-
mayneth, whether the obedience of
them to be iuſt, and the diſobedience
wrong? the profit and conſeruation
of that Eſtate, Right and Iuſtice, or
the diſſolution? and whether a good
and upright man, and louer of his
Country ought to maintaine and o-
bey them, or to ſeek by all meanes to [catchword abo-]
aboliſh them? which great & haugh-
tie courages haue often attempted: as
Dion to riſe vp againſt Dionyſius;
Thraſibius againſt the 30. Tyrants
Brutus and Caſſius againſt Cæſar,
which hath bin cauſe of many com-
motions in Common-wealths: wher-
of the iudgement of the common
people is according to the euent and
ſucceſſe of them which be learned ac-
cording of them to the purpoſe of the doers,
and the eſtate of the time then pre-
ſent. Certain it is, that it is alwayes
a doubtfull and hazardous matter to
meddle with the changing of Lawes
and Gouernment, or to diſobey the
orders of the Rule or Gouernment
which a man doth find alreadie eſta-
bliſhed.

It's interesting that Milton deliberately under-reads his source. He is correct to say that Smith distinguishes the common causes of rebellion, based on events, and the learned causes of rebellion, based on principle, but he leaves out the second learned cause: "the eſtate of the time when preſent." I can't say why Milton would omit this. Maybe Charles' reign could be assumed to be sufficiently tumultuous, or maybe that very assumption would be to contentious for Milton to defend. I think this is an open question.

On to the pretty pictures!

The engraved frontispiece shows a signature by William Marshall, Sculps. I remember him from Heraclitus Dream, Catholick Gamesters, etc. It features two cherubim with horns holding a portrait of Charles, framed by palms. Below are two emblematical women. On the left, a sword-carrying, scale-holding, clasically-dressed woman with the sun in her hair; on the right, a ship-holding, collared but barefoot woman with a moon in her hair. If I had to guess, I'd describe them as Justice and Commerce. Below them is a map of Britain from Cornwall to the lowlands, featuring mountains throughout. Curiously, the map of Britain is aligned with west to the north, so that the Isle of Man takes an oversized and central position. Beside Man is another, longer island of seemingly fictional origin.