SSA rs CIVIL AND MORAL 



wood, but shrubs and bushes. So in countries, if the gentlemen be 

 too many, the commons will be base ; and you will bring it to that, 

 that not the hundred poll will be fit for an helmet ; especially as to the 

 infantry, which is the nerve of an army : and so there will be great 

 population, and little strength. This which I speak of, hath been 

 nowhere better seen, than by comparing of England and France ; 

 whereof England, though far less in territory and population, hath 

 been, nevertheless, an overmatch ; in regard the middle people of 

 England make good soldiers, which the peasants of France do not. 

 And herein the device of king Henry the seventh, whereof I have 

 spoken largely in the history of his life, was profound and admirable . 

 in making farms, and houses of husbandry, of a standard ; that is, 

 maintained with such a proportion of land unto them, as may breed a 

 subject to live in convenient plenty, and no servile condition ; and to 

 keep the plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings. 

 And thus indeed you shall attain to Virgil s character, which he gives 

 to ancient Italy : 



Terra potens armis, atque ubere glebcc. 



Neither is that state, which, for anything I know, is almost peculiar to 

 England, and hardly to be found anywhere else, except it be perhaps 

 in Poland, to be passed over ; I mean the state of free servants, and 

 attendants upon noblemen and gentlemen, which are no ways inferior 

 unto the yeomanry for arms : and therefore out of all question, the 

 splendour and magnificence, and great retinues, and hospitality of 

 noblemen and gentlemen, received into custom doth much conduce 

 unto martial greatness : whereas, contrariwise, the close and reserved 

 living of noblemen and gentlemen causeth a penury of military 

 forces. 



Jiy all means it is to be procured, that the trunk of Nebuchad 

 nezzar s tree of monarchy be great enough to bear the branches and 

 the boughs ; that is, that the natural subjects of the crown or state 

 bear a sufficient proportion to the stranger subjects that they govern. 

 Therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers, 

 arc tit for empire. For to think that an handful of people can, with 

 the greatest courage and policy in the world, embrace too large extent 

 of dominion, it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. The 

 Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalization ; whereby, while 

 they kept their compass, they stood firm ; but when they did spread, 

 and their boughs were become too great for their stem, they became a 

 windfall upon the sudden. Never any state was, in this point, so open 

 to receive strangers into their body, as were the Romans ; therefore it 

 sorted with them accordingly, for they grew to the grandest monarchy. 

 Their manner was to grant naturalization, which they called &quot;jus 

 civitatis,&quot; and to grant it in the highest degree, that is, not only &quot;jus 

 ommcrcii, jus connubii, jus hereditatis,&quot; but also &quot;jus sufiragii,&quot; and 

 lonorum : &quot; and this not to singular persons alone, but likewise 

 i families ; yea, to cities, and sometimes to nations. Add to 

 this, their custom of plantation of colonies, whereby the Roman plant 



