The Rotation Principle:—­“But, if the ambition of such as think themselves injured that they also partake not of the Government, and are impatient till they be chosen, cannot brook the perpetuity of others chosen before them, or if it be feared that long continuance of power may corrupt sincerest men, the known expedient is, and by some lately propounded, that annually (or, if the space be longer, so much perhaps the better) the third part of Senators may go out, according to the precedence of their election, and the like number be chosen in their places, to prevent the settling of too absolute a power if it should be perpetual:  and this they call Partial Rotation.  But I could wish that this wheel or partial wheel in State, if it be possible, might be avoided, as having too much, affinity with the Wheel of Fortune.  For it appears not how this can be done without danger and mischance of putting out a great number of the best and ablest; in whose stead new elections may bring in as many raw, unexperienced, and otherwise affected, to the weakening and much altering for the worse of public transactions.  Neither do I think a Perpetual Senate, especially chosen and entrusted by the people, much in this land to be feared, where the well-affected, either in a Standing Army or in a Settled Militia, have their arms in their own hands.  Safest therefore to me it seems, and of least hazard or interruption to affairs, that none of the Grand Council be moved, unless by death or just conviction of some crime; for what can be expected firm or stedfast from a floating foundation?  However, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any temperament that can be found in things of this nature, so disputable on either side.”

Contrast of Harrington’s Model with Milton’s, and a Suggestion for the mode of Elections:—­“And this annual Rotation of a Senate to consist of 300, as is lately propounded, requires also another Popular Assembly upward of 1000, with an answerable Rotation.  Which, besides that it will be liable to all those inconveniencies found in the foresaid remedies, cannot but be troublesome and chargeable, both in their motion and their session, to the whole land,—­unwieldy with their own bulk:  unable in so great a number to mature their consultations as they ought, if any be allotted to them, and that they meet not from so many parts remote to sit a whole year leaguer in one place, only now and then to hold up a forest of fingers, or to convey each man his bean or ballot into the box, without reason shown or common deliberation; incontinent of secrets, if any be imparted to them; emulous and always jarring with the other Senate.  The much better way doubtless will be, in this wavering condition of our affairs, to defer the changing or circumscribing of our Senate, more than may be done with ease, till the Commonwealth be thoroughly settled in peace and safety and they themselves give us the occasion....  Another way will be to well