ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 389 



the minds, and not of the wealth of the people: for tributes 

 by consent, though the same thing with tributes imposed, as 

 to exhausting the riches of a kingdom, yet very differently 

 affect the minds of the subject. So that this also must be 

 a maxim of state, &quot;That a people oppressed with taxes is 

 unfit to rule.&quot; 



States and kingdoms that aspire to greatness, must be 

 very careful that their nobles and gentry increase not too 

 much; otherwise, the common people will be dispirited, 

 reduced to an abject state, and become little better than 

 slaves to the nobility: as we see in coppices, if the staddles 

 are left too numerous, there will never be clean underwood; 

 but the greatest part degenerates into shrubs and bushes. 

 So in nations, where the nobility is too numerous, the com 

 monalty will be base and cowardly; and, at length, not one 

 head in a hundred among them prove fit for a helmet, espe 

 cially with regard to the infantry, which is generally the 

 prime strength of an army. Whence, though a nation be 

 full-peopled, its force may be small. We need no clearer 

 proof of this than by comparing England and France. For 

 though England be far inferior in extent and number of 

 inhabitants, yet it has almost constantly got the better 

 of France in war: for this reason, that the rustics, and 

 lower sort of people in England, make better soldiers than 

 the peasants of France. And in this respect it was a very 

 political and deep foresight of Henry the Seventh of Eng 

 land, to constitute lesser settled farms, and houses of hus 

 bandry, with a certain fixed and inseparable proportion of 

 land annexed, sufficient for a life of plenty: so that the 

 proprietors themselves, or at least the renters, and not hire 

 lings, might occupy them. For thus a nation may acquire 

 that character which Virgil gives of ancient Italy: &quot;A 

 country strong in arms, and rich of soil&quot; 



&quot;Terra potens armis, atque ubere glebse. &quot; 9 



We must not here pass over a sort of people, almost pecul 

 iar to England, viz., the servants of our nobles and gentry; 



9 ^Eneid, i. 531. 



