THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 297, 24 August 1860, Page 4

THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES.

THEMisTocLBSi on being desired at a feast to touch a lute, said " he could not fiddle, but yet he could make a small town a great city." Walled towns, stored arsenals, and armories, goodly-races of horses, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery» and the like: all this is but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warjike. Nay, number itselt in armies importeth not much where the people is of weak courage ,* for, as Virgil saith, " It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be," When Tigranes, the.Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with 400,000. men, discovered the army of the Romans being, not above 14,000, , marching towards him, he made himself merry with it, and said, k{ Yonder men are too many for an ambassage, and too few for a_ fight," but before the sun set he found them enow to give him the , chase, with.infinite slaughter. , Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said) where the sinews of men's arms in base I and effeminate people are failing; for Solon said well to Croesus (when in ostentation he shewed . liim his gold) " Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold. The blessing of Judah and Issachar will never meet; that the same people or nation should | be both the lion's whelp, and the ass between bur- ' dens; neither will it be, that a people,overladen with taxes should ever become (or remain) valiant and martial. So that you may conclude that no people overcharged with tribute is fit for empire. Let states that aim at greatness, take care how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast; for that maketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and'base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's laborer. Even as you may see in coppice woods; if you leave your stad« dies too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes; so in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the commons will be base; and you will bringit to that, that not the hun-

dredth poll will be fit for a helmet) and so there will be great population and little strength. And herein the device of King Heavy the 7th (where I have spoken largely in the history of his life) was profound and admirable; in making, farms and nouses of husbandry of a standard, that is main* tamed with such a proportion of land unto them as may breed a subject to live in conyenient.plenty and no servile condition, and to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings; and thus indeed you shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives to Ancient Italy:-' terra potent arrnis atque uteroe glebe.' ■ " ' <.' By all means it is to be procured that the trunk of Nebuchadnezzar's tree of monarchy be great enough to bear the branches and the boughs; that is, that the natural subjects of the Crown or state bear a sufficient proportion to the stranger subjects that they govern. Therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers are fit for empire; for to think that an handful of people can, with the greatest courage and policy in the world, embrace too large an extent of dominion, it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. At that time (viz., when King Henry the 7th enacted this device) inclosures of land had begun' to be more frequent, whereby arable land, which could not be manured without people's families, was turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen; and tenancies for years, lives, and at will, had been turned into dentsnes. This bred a decay of people, and by consequence a decay of towns, churches, and the like. The king likewise knew full well, and in no wise forgot, that there ensued withal upon this a decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes; for the more gentlemen ever the lower book of subsidies.

This ordinance did • wonderfully concern the might and manhood of the kingdom, to have farms as it were of a sfandard,;sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury, and did in effect amortise a great part of the land of the kingdom, into the hold and occupation of the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between gentlemen and peasants. The ordinance was " that all houses of husbandry that were used with twenty acres of ground should be maintained and kept up for ever; together with a competent proportion of land (unenclosed) to. be used and occupied with them."-" Bacon.