[5913] The silly wren, the titmouse also,
        The little redbreast have their election,
        They fly I saw and together gone,
        Whereas hem list, about environ
        As they of kinde have inclination,
        And as nature impress and guide,
        Of everything list to provide.

        But man alone, alas the hard stond,
        Full cruelly by kinds ordinance
        Constrained is, and by statutes bound,
        And debarred from all such pleasance: 
        What meaneth this, what is this pretence
        Of laws, I wis, against all right of kinde
        Without a cause, so narrow men to binde?_

Many laymen repine still at priests’ marriages above the rest, and not at clergymen only, but of all the meaner sort and condition, they would have none marry but such as are rich and able to maintain wives, because their parish belike shall be pestered with orphans, and the world full of beggars:  but [5914]these are hard-hearted, unnatural, monsters of men, shallow politicians, they do not [5915]consider that a great part of the world is not yet inhabited as it ought, how many colonies into America, Terra Australis incognita, Africa, may be sent?  Let them consult with Sir William Alexander’s Book of Colonies, Orpheus Junior’s Golden Fleece, Captain Whitburne, Mr. Hagthorpe, &c. and they shall surely be otherwise informed.  Those politic Romans were of another mind, they thought their city and country could never be too populous. [5916]Adrian the emperor said he had rather have men than money, malle se hominum adjectione ampliare imperium, quam pecunia.  Augustus Caesar made an oration in Rome ad caelibus, to persuade them to marry; some countries compelled them to marry of old, as [5917]Jews, Turks, Indians, Chinese, amongst the rest in these days, who much wonder at our discipline to suffer so many idle persons to live in monasteries, and often marvel how they can live honest. [5918]In the isle of Maragnan, the governor and petty king there did wonder at the Frenchmen, and admire how so many friars, and the rest of their company could live without wives, they thought it a thing impossible, and would not believe it.  If these men should but survey our multitudes of religious houses, observe our numbers of monasteries all over Europe, 18 nunneries in Padua, in Venice 34 cloisters of monks, 28 of nuns, &c. ex ungue leonem, ’tis to this proportion, in all other provinces and cities, what would they think, do they live honest?  Let them dissemble as they will, I am of Tertullian’s mind, that few can continue but by compulsion. [5919]"O chastity” (saith he) “thou art a rare goddess in the world, not so easily got, seldom continuate:  thou mayst now and then be compelled, either for defect of nature, or if discipline persuade, decrees enforce:”  or for some such by-respects, sullenness, discontent, they have lost their first loves, may not have whom