William Harrison

“ Neither is it possible to frame a whole monarchy after the pattern of one town or city, or to stir up such an exquisite face of the church as we imagine or desire, sith our corruption is such that it will never yield to so great perfection; for that which is not able to be performed in a private house will be much less be brought to pass in a commonwealth and kingdom, before such a prince be found as Xenophon describeth, or such an orator as Tully hath devised. ”

“ And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costliness and the curiosity, the excess and the vanity, the pomp and the bravery, the change and the variety, and finally the fickleness and the folly, that is in all degrees, insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancy of attire. Oh, how much cost is bestowed nowadays upon our bodies, and how little upon our souls! How many suits of apparel hath the one, and how little furniture hath the other! ”

“ Certes in some men’s judgment these things are but trifles, and not worthy the regarding. Some also do grudge at the great increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such men best of all unto the pope and the devil, who practise the hindrance of the furniture of the number of the elect to their uttermost, to the end the authority of the one upon the earth, the deferring of the locking up of the other in everlasting chains, and the great gains of the first, may continue and endure the longer. ”

“ There is not almost one nobleman, gentleman, or merchant that hath not great store of these flowers, which now also do begin to wax so well acquainted with our soils that we may almost account of them as parcel of our own commodities. They have no less regard in like sort to cherish medicinable herbs fetched out of other regions nearer hand, insomuch that I have seen in some one garden to the number of three hundred or four hundred of them, if not more, of the half of whose names within forty years past we had no manner of knowledge. ”

“ We have in like sort such workmen as are not only excellent in grafting the natural fruits, but also in their artificial mixtures, whereby one tree bringeth forth sundry fruits, and one and the same fruit of divers colours and tastes, dallying as it were with nature and her course, as if her whole trade were perfectly known unto them: of hard fruits they will make tender, of sour sweet, of sweet yet more delicate, bereaving also some of their kernels, other of their cores, and finally enduing them with the savour of musk, amber, or sweet spices, at their pleasures. ”

“ I am sorry to report it, much more grieved to understand of the practice, but most sorrowful of all to understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from suffering their farmers to have any gain at all that they themselves become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, woodmen, and denique quid non, thereby to enrich themselves, and bring all the wealth of the country into their own hands, leaving the communalty weak, or as an idol with broken or feeble arms, which may in a time of peace have a plausible shew, but when necessity shall enforce have a heavy and bitter sequel. ”

“ But enough of these matters; for, if I should set down how little law poor men can have for their small fees in these days, and the great murmurings that are on all sides uttered against their excessive taking of money—for they can abide no small gain—I should extend this treatise into a far greater volume than is convenient for my purpose. Wherefore it shall suffice to have set down so much of their demeanour, and so much as is even enough to cause them to look with somewhat more conscience into their dealings, except they be dull and senseless. ”

“ Howbeit, such is the curiosity of our countrymen, that notwithstanding Almighty God hath so blessed our realm in most plentiful manner with such and so many quarries apt and meet for piles of longest continuance, yet we as loathsome of this abundance, or not liking of the plenty, do commonly leave these natural gifts to mould and cinder in the ground, and take up an artificial brick, in burning whereof a great part of the wood of this land is daily consumed and spent, to the no small decay of that commodity, and hindrance of the poor that oft perish for cold. ”

“ Nevertheless such is the fruitfulness of the aforesaid county that it far surmounteth this proportion, whereby it may be compared for batableness with Italy, which in my time is called the paradise of the world, although by reason of the wickedness of such as dwell therein it may be called the sink and drain of hell: so that whereas they were wont to say of us that our land is good but our people evil, they did but only speak it; whereas we know by experience that the soil of Italy is a noble soil, but the dwellers therein far off any virtue or goodness. ”

“ In my time there are three noble universities in England—to wit, one at Oxford, the second at Cambridge, and the third in London; of which the first two are the most famous, I mean Cambridge and Oxford, for that in them the use of the tongues, philosophy, and the liberal sciences, besides the profound [Pg 249] studies of the civil law, physic, and theology, are daily taught and had: whereas in the latter the laws of the realm are only read and learned by such as give their minds unto the knowledge of the same. ”

“ It is a world to see, moreover, how divers men being bent to building, and having a delectable vein in spending of their goods by that trade, do daily imagine new devices of their own, to guide their workmen withal, and those more curious and excellent always than the former. In the proceeding also of their works, how they set up, how they pull down, how they enlarge, how they restrain, how they add to, how they take from, whereby their heads are never idle, their purses never shut, nor their books of account never made perfect. ”

“ How many of the like providers stumble upon blind creeks at the sea coast, I wot not well; but that some have so done and yet do under other men’s wings, the case is too, too plain. But who dare find fault with them, when they have once a licence? yes, though it be but to serve a mean gentleman’s house with corn, who hath cast up all his tillage, because he boasteth how he can buy his grain in the market better cheap than he can sow his land, as the rich grazier often doth also upon the like device, because grazing requireth a smaller household and less attendance and charge. ”

“ Certes every small occasion in my time is enough to cut down a great wood, and every trifle sufficeth to lay infinite acres of ground unto pasture. As for the taking down of houses, a small fine will bear out a great many. Would to God we might once take example of the Romans, who, in restraint of superfluous grazing, made an exact limitation how many head of cattle each estate might keep, and what number of acres should suffice for that and other purposes. ”

“ And yet see the change! For, when our houses were built of willow, then had we oaken men; but, now that our houses are come to be made of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a great many through Persian delicacy crept in among us altogether of straw: which is a sore alteration. In those, the courage of the owner was a sufficient defence to keep the house in safety; but now the assurance of the timber, double doors, locks, and bolts, must defend the man from robbing. Now have we many chimneys; and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses. ”

“ Those of the nobility are likewise wrought with brick and hard stone, as provision may best be made, but so magnificent and stately as the basest house of a baron doth often match in our days with some honours of princes in old time. So that, if ever curious building did flourish in England, it is in these our years wherein our workmen excel and are in manner comparable in skill with old Vitruvius, Leo Baptista, and Serlo. ”

“ A man would imagine that the time of the execution of our laws, being little above one quarter or not fully a third part of the year, and the appointment of the same to be holden in one place only, to wit, near London in Westminster, and finally the great expenses employed upon the same, should be no small cause of the stay and hindrance of the administration of justice in this land: but, as it falleth out, they prove great occasions and the stay of much contention. ”

“ But if it should come to pass that any foreign invasion should be made—which the Lord God forbid for his mercies’ sake!—then should these men find that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and bags of money, and complain of the want when it is too late to seek remedy. The like occasion caused the Romans to devise their law Agraria: but the rich, not liking of it, and the covetous, utterly condemning it as rigorous and unprofitable, never ceased to practise disturbance till it was quite abolished. ”

“ And good reason it should be so, for coarseness with fineness hath no fellowship, but featness with neatness hath neighbourhood enough. That plausible proverb therefore versified sometime upon a tyrant—namely, that he loved his sow better than his son—may well be applied to some of this kind of people, who delight more in their dogs, that are deprived of all possibility of reason, than they do in children that are capable of wisdom and judgment. Yea, they oft feed them of the best where the poor man’s child at their doors can hardly come by the worst. ”

“ We need seek no further for a reason why the England of Elizabeth surpassed all other communities. Having all material wealth beyond any other people, at no time has the doctrine of universal labour and repudiation of the fictitious riches of metallic hordes or usurious accumulations been so invariably denounced. ”

“ Privileges and faculties also are another great cause of the ruin of a commonwealth and diminution of mankind: for, whereas law and nature doth permit all men to live in their best manner, and whatsoever trade they are exercised in, there cometh some privilege or other in the way which cutteth them off from this or that trade, whereby they must needs shift soil and seek unto other countries. ”

“ If I should say that ganders grow also to be gelded, I suppose that some will laugh me to scorn, neither have I tasted at any time of such a fowl so served, yet have I heard it more than once to be used in the country, where their geese are driven to the field like herds of cattle by a gooseherd, a toy also no less to be marvelled at than the other. For, as it is rare to hear of a gelded gander, so is it strange to me to see or hear of geese to be led to the field like sheep ”

“ If it were requisite that I should speak of the sundry kinds of mould, as the cledgy, or clay, whereof are divers sorts (red, blue, black, and white) , also the red or white sandy, the loamy, roselly, gravelly, chalky, or black, I could say that there are so many divers veins in Britain as elsewhere in any quarter of like quantity in the world. Howbeit this I must need confess, that the sand and clay do bear great sway: but clay most of all, as hath been and yet is always seen and felt through plenty and dearth of corn. ”

“ It hath been commonly reported that the ground of Wales is neither so fruitful as that of England, neither the soil of Scotland so bountiful as that of Wales, which is true for corn and for the most part; otherwise there is so good ground in some parts of Wales as is in England, albeit the best of Scotland be scarcely comparable to the mean of either of both. Howbeit, as the bounty of the Scotch doth fail in some respect, so doth it surmount in other, God and nature having not appointed all countries to yield forth like commodities. ”

“ Harrison tells us how coney warrens have increast, from the value of the creatures’ black skins and the quick sale for young rabbits in London; and what a shocking thing it is that one Lady has sold her husband’s venison to the Cooks, and another Lady has ridden to market to see her butter sold! it’s as bad as an Earl feeling his own oxen to see whether they’re ready for the butcher! ”

“ And of all in Essex, that growing in Bardfield Park is the finest for joiners’ craft; for oftentimes have I seen of their works made of that oak as fine and fair as most of the wainscot that is brought hither out of Denmark: for our wainscot is not made in England. Yet divers have essayed to deal without oaks to that end, but not with so good success as they have hoped, because the ab or juice will not so soon be removed and clean drawn out, which some attribute to want of time in the salt water. ”

“ Truly it is a rare thing with us now to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language. And to say how many gentlewomen and ladies there are that besides sound knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues are thereto no less skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not in me, sith I am persuaded that, as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalf, so these come very little or nothing at all behind them for their parts: which industry God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting! ”