NUMA. 151

Bitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent common- iilty, wishing to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty, and, by turning the people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their lands, into better order. For there is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all that kind of cour- age that makes them ready to fight in defence of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agri- culture would be a sort of charm to captivate the affec- tions of his people to peace, and viewing it rather as a means to moral than to economical profit, divided all the lands into several parcels, to which he gave the name of paffits, or parish, and over every one of them he ordained chief overseers ; and, taking a delight sometimes to inspect his colonies in person, he formed his judgment of every man's habits by the results ; of which being witness himself, he preferred those to honors and employments who had done well, and by rebukes and reproaches incited the indolent and careless to improvement. But of all his measures the most commended was his distribution ot the people by their trades into companies or guilds ; for as the city consisted, or rather did not consist of, but was divided into, two different tribes, the diversity between which could not be effaced and in the mean time pre- vented all unity and caused perpetual tumult and ill- blood, reflecting how hard substances that do not readily mix when in the lump may, by being beaten into pow- der, in that minute form be combined, he resolved to divide the whole population into a number of small divi- sions, and thus hoped, by introducing other distinctions, to obliterate the original and great distinction, which would be lost among the smaller. So, distinguishing the whole

people by the several arts and trades, he formed the com-