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of extra-urban magistrates to besi/varum custodes ; and 

 such were the cons u lares silvae, which the great Caesar 

 himself (even in a time when Italy did abound in 

 timber) instituted; and was one of the very first things 

 which he did, at the settling of that vast empire, after 

 the civil wars had exceedingly wasted the country : 

 Suetonius relates it in the life of Julius; and Peter 

 Crinitus in his fifth book De honesta disciplina, c. 3. 

 gives this reason for it, ut materies (saith he) non deesset, 

 qua videlicet navigiapublica possent a praefecturis fabrum 

 confici: True it is, that this office was sometimes called 

 Provincia minor ; but for the most part, annex'd and 

 joined to some of the greatest consuls themselves; that 

 facetious sarcasm of the comoedian (where Plautus 

 names it provincia caudicaria) referring only to some 

 under officer, subservient to the other : And such a 

 charge is at this day extant amongst the noble Vene- 

 tians, who have near Trivisi (besides what they nourish 

 in other places) a goodly forest of oaks, preserved as 

 a jewel, for the only use of the arsenal, called the 

 Montello, which is in length twelve miles, large five, 

 and near twenty miles in compass; carefully supervised 

 by a certain officer, whom they name il capitano: The 

 like have the Genoezes for the care of the goodly for- 

 ests of Aitonae, in the Island of Corsica, full of goodly 

 oaks and other timber ; which not only furnish that 

 state with sufficient materials to build their own gallies 

 and other vessels, but so many for sale to other nations, 

 that since the late insult the French made upon that 

 glorious city, he has haughtily forbid them to traffick 

 any more with strangers, by supplying them as here- 

 tofore, to their great detriment and loss : This timber 

 is of such a grain and quality, as though felled in the 

 new-moon, it is not at all impair'd. 



