Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 289 



Thus, I think, I have fliown, from confiderin:^ the three 

 things I have mentioned, the morals, the health, and occupations 

 of men, upon which the population of every country mull depend, 

 that England is not well peopled. Thofe who travel in England 

 upon the high roads, from one great town to another, and who 

 think, that becaufe there are great towns in a country, it muft, there- 

 fore, be populous, will, I know, be of a very different opinion : And 

 they will think, that what Julius Gaifar has faid of the population 

 of England in his time, is true of it at prefent. If great towns mul- 

 tiply the numbers in a country, wc have the comfort of thinking 

 that our numbers are every year incrcafmg ; for it is "certain, that 

 our great towns are always growing greater. London particularly 

 is increafmg every day, and has been increafmg ever fmce the days of 

 Queen Elifabeth, when the church of St. Martin's in the Fields, which 

 may now be faid to be in the middle of the city, was truly, as the name 

 imports, in the fields ; and, accordingly, we are told that Queen Elifa- 

 beth was in ufe to ride to it behind her Lord Chamberlain. But even at 

 that time it was beginning to increafe fo much, that it was under 

 deliberation to put a flop to the growth of it ; which, I think 

 fliows the wifdom of the government that was then in England ; 

 for, as I have fhown, great towns, fo far from increafing the 

 population of a country, confumc the people in it. We are 

 therefore, in the next chapter, to inquire, whether the country, 

 which is the true mother and nurfe of men, be fo peopled in Enc>-- 

 land, that it can fupply the wafte by great towns, by trade and ma- 

 nufadures, and by the other occupations I have mentioned, which, 

 altogether, confume fo many men. 



Vol. V. O o CHAP. 



