so many grand lawyers, decrees of emperors, princes' statutes, customs of commonwealths, churches' approbations it is permitted, etc., I will therefore allow it. But to no private persons, nor to every man that will, to orphans only, maids, widows, or such as by reason of their age, sex, education, ignorance of trading, know not otherwise how to employ it; and those so approved, not to let it out apart, but to bring their money to a common bank which shall be allowed in every city, as in Genoa, Geneva, Nuremberg, Venice, at five, six, seven, not above eight per centum, as the supervisors, or ærarii præfecti, shall think fit. And as it shall not be lawful for each man to be a usurer that will, so shall it not be lawful for all to take up money at use, not to prodigals and spendthrifts, but to merchants, young tradesmen, such as stand in need, or know honestly how to employ it, whose necessity, cause, and condition the said supervisors shall approve of.

1

I will have no private monopolies to enrich one man and beggar a multitude, multiplicity of offices, of supplying by deputies; weights and measures the same throughout, and those rectified by the Primum mobile and sun's motion, threescore miles to a degree according to observation, a thousand geometrical paces to a mile, five foot to a pace, twelve inches to a foot, etc; and from measures known it is an easy matter to rectify weights, etc., to cast up all, and resolve bodies by algebra, stereometry. I hate wars if they be not ad populi salutem, upon urgent occasion, odimus acci

1 As those Lombards beyond seas, though with some reformation, mons pietatis, or bank of charity, as Malines terms it (cap. 33, Lex Mercat, part 2) that lend money upon easy pawns, or take money upon adventure for men's lives.-(Burton's note.)

2 That proportion will make merchandise increase, land dearer and better improved, as he hath judicially proved in his tract of usury, exhibited to the Parliament of 1621.-(Burton's note.)

2

4

For

pitrem quia semper vivit in armis;1 offensive wars, except the cause be very just, I will not allow of. For I do highly magnify that saying of Hannibal to Scipio, in Livy, “It had been a blessed thing for you and us, if God had given that mind to our predecessors, that you had been content with Italy, we with Africk. For neither Sicily nor Sardinia are worth such cost and pains, so many fleets and armies, or so many famous captains' lives." Omnia prius tentanda, fair means shall first be tried. Peragit tranquilla potestas, Quod violenta nequit.3 I will have them proceed with all moderation, but hear you, Fabius my general, not Minutius, nam qui consilio nititur plus hostibus nocet, quam qui sine animi ratione, viribus. And in such wars to abstain as much as is possible from depopulations, burning of towns, massacring of infants, etc. defensive wars, I will have forces still ready at a small warning, by land and sea, a prepared navy, soldiers in procinctu, et quam Bonfinius apud Hungaros suos vult, virgam ferream,5 and money, which is nervus belli, still in a readiness, and a sufficient revenue, a third part as in old Rome and Egypt, reserved for the commonwealth; to avoid those heavy taxes and impositions as well to defray this charge of wars, as also all other public defalcations, expenses, fees, pensions, reparations, chaste sports, feasts, donaries, rewards and entertainments. All things in this nature especially I will have maturely done, and with great deliberation: ne quid temere, ne quid remisse ac timide fiat. Sed quo feror 1 We hate the hawk because he always lives in battle.—OVID, Ars Amatoria, II, 147.

2 XXX, 30.

3 Peaceful strength accomplishes what violence cannot.-CLAUDIAN, Panegyricus, Fl. Manlio Theodoro, 239.

4 For one who relies on judgment injures his foe more than one who depends on unintelligent force.-Thucydides, I, 144.

5 What Bonfinius wants for his Hungarians, an iron rod.

hospes?

2

To prosecute the rest would require a volume. Manum de tabella, I have been over tedious in this subject; I could have here willingly ranged, but these straits wherein I am included will not permit.

[SOLITARINESS A CAUSE OF MELANCHOLY] (From Part 1, Section 2, Member 2, Subsection 6)

VOLUNTARY solitariness is that which is familiar with melancholy, and gently brings on like a siren, a shoeinghorn, or some sphinx, to this irrevocable gulf, a primary cause Piso calls it; most pleasant it is at first, to such as are melancholy given, to lie in bed whole days, and keep their chambers, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect them most; amabilis insania, and mentis gratissimus error.3 A most incomparable delight it is so to melancholize, and build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose and strongly imagine they represent, or that they see acted or done. Blandum quidem ab initio, saith Lemnius, to conceive and meditate of such pleasant things sometimes, "present, past, or to come," as Rhasis speaks. So delightsome these toys are at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years alone in such contemplations and fantastical meditations, which are like unto dreams, and they will hardly be drawn from them or willingly interrupt. So pleasant their vain conceits are, that they hinder their ordinary tasks and necessary

1 That nothing be done rashly, nothing remissly or timidly. But where am I, a novice, rushing to?

2 Hands off.-CICERO, Familiar Letters, VII, 25, 1.

A most pleasing delusion of the mind.—HORACE, Odes, III, iv, 5 and Epistles, II, ii, 140.

business, they cannot address themselves to them, or almost to any study or employment, these fantastical and bewitching thoughts so covertly, so feelingly, so urgently, so continually set upon, creep in, insinuate, possess, overcome, distract, and detain them, they cannot, I say, go about their more necessary business, stave off or extricate themselves, but are ever musing, melancholizing, and carried along; as he (they say) that is led round about an heath with a Puck in the night, they run earnestly on in this labyrinth of anxious and solicitous melancholy meditations, and cannot well or willingly refrain, or easily leave off, winding and unwinding themselves, as so many clocks, and still pleasing their humors, until at last the scene is turned upon a sudden, by some bad object, and they, being now habituated to such vain meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can ruminate of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrusticus pudor,1 discontent, cares, and weariness of life surprise them in a moment, and they can think of nothing else, continually suspecting; no sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds, which now by no means, no labor, no persuasions they can avoid, hæret lateri lethalis arundo2 (the arrow of death still remains in the side), they may not be rid of it, they cannot resist. may not deny but that there is some profitable meditation, contemplation, and kind of solitariness to be embraced, which the fathers so highly commended, Hierom, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Austin, in whole tracts, which Petrarch, Erasmus, Stella, and others, so much 1 CICERO, Familiar Letters, V, 12, 1.

I

2 VIRGIL, Aeneid, IV, 73.

magnify in their books; a paradise, an heaven on earth, if it be used aright, good for the body, and better for the soul: as many of those old monks used it, to divine contemplations; as Simulus, a courtier in Adrian's time, Dioclesian the emperor, retired themselves, etc., in that sense, Vatia solus scit vivere, Vatia lives alone, which the Romans were wont to say when they commended a country life; or to the bettering of their knowledge, as Democritus, Cleanthes, and those excellent philosophers have ever done, to sequester themselves from the tumultuous world, or as in Pliny's Villa Laurentana, Tully's Tusculan, Jovius' study, that they might better vacare studiis et Deo, serve God and follow their studies. Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators were not so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious houses, promiscuously to fling down all; they might have taken away those gross abuses crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not so far to have raved and raged against those fair buildings and everlasting monuments of our forefathers' devotion, consecrated to pious uses; some monasteries and collegiate cells might have been well spared, and their revenues otherwise employed, here and there one, in good towns or cities at least, for men and women of all sorts and conditions to live in, to sequester themselves from the cares and tumults of the world, that were not desirous or fit to marry, or otherwise willing to be troubled with common affairs, and know not well where to bestow themselves, to live apart in, for more conveniency, good education, better company sake, to follow their studies (I say), to the perfection of arts and sciences, common good, and, as some truly devoted monks of old had done, freely and truly to serve God. For these men are neither solitary nor idle, as the poet made answer to the husbandman in Æsop, that