dwell there now, than of old.” [615]I will have
no bogs, fens, marshes, vast woods, deserts, heaths,
commons, but all enclosed; (yet not depopulated, and
therefore take heed you mistake me not) for that which
is common, and every man’s, is no man’s;
the richest countries are still enclosed, as Essex,
Kent, with us, &c. Spain, Italy; and where enclosures
are least in quantity, they are best [616]husbanded,
as about Florence in Italy, Damascus in Syria, &c.
which are liker gardens than fields. I will not
have a barren acre in all my territories, not so much
as the tops of mountains: where nature fails,
it shall be supplied by art: [617]lakes and rivers
shall not be left desolate. All common highways,
bridges, banks, corrivations of waters, aqueducts,
channels, public works, buildings, &c. out of a [618]common
stock, curiously maintained and kept in repair; no
depopulations, engrossings, alterations of wood, arable,
but by the consent of some supervisors that shall
be appointed for that purpose, to see what reformation
ought to be had in all places, what is amiss, how
to help it,
et quid quaeque ferat regio, et quid
quaeque recuset, what ground is aptest for wood,
what for corn, what for cattle, gardens, orchards,
fishponds, &c. with a charitable division in every
village, (not one domineering house greedily to swallow
up all, which is too common with us) what for lords,
[619]what for tenants; and because they shall be better
encouraged to improve such lands they hold, manure,
plant trees, drain, fence, &c. they shall have long
leases, a known rent, and known fine to free them
from those intolerable exactions of tyrannizing landlords.
These supervisors shall likewise appoint what quantity
of land in each manor is fit for the lord’s demesnes,
[620]what for holding of tenants, how it ought to
be husbanded,
ut [621]magnetis equis, Minyae gens
cognita remis, how to be manured, tilled, rectified,
[622]_hic segetes veniunt, illic felicius uvae, arborei
foetus alibi, atque injussa virescunt Gramina_, and
what proportion is fit for all callings, because private
professors are many times idiots, ill husbands, oppressors,
covetous, and know not how to improve their own, or
else wholly respect their own, and not public good.
Utopian parity is a kind of government, to be wished
for, [623]rather than effected, Respub. Christianopolitana,
Campanella’s city of the Sun, and that new Atlantis,
witty fictions, but mere chimeras; and Plato’s
community in many things is impious, absurd and ridiculous,
it takes away all splendour and magnificence.
I will have several orders, degrees of nobility, and
those hereditary, not rejecting younger brothers in
the mean time, for they shall be sufficiently provided
for by pensions, or so qualified, brought up in some
honest calling, they shall be able to live of themselves.
I will have such a proportion of ground belonging to
every barony, he that buys the land shall buy the
barony, he that by riot consumes his patrimony, and