upwards, and
this under the name and title of first fruits.[119]

With us also it is permitted that a sufficient man may (by dispensation
from the prince[120]) hold two livings, not distant either from other
above thirty miles; whereby it cometh to pass that, as her Majesty doth
reap some commodity by the faculty, so that the unition of two in one man
doth bring oftentimes more benefit to one of them in a month (I mean for
doctrine) than they have had before peradventure in many years.

Many exclaim against such faculties,[121] as if there were more good
preachers that want maintenance than livings to maintain them. Indeed when
a living is void there are so many suitors for it that a man would think
the report to be true, and most certain; but when it cometh to the trial
(who are sufficient and who not, who are staid men in conversation,
judgment, and learning), of that great number you shall hardly find one or
two such as they ought to be, and yet none more earnest to make suit, to
promise largely, bear a better shew, or find fault with the stage of
things than they. Nevertheless I do not think that their exclamations, if
they were wisely handled, are altogether grounded upon rumours or
ambitious minds, if you respect the state of the thing itself, and not the
necessity growing through want of able men to furnish out all the cures in
England, which both our universities are never able to perform. For if you
observe what numbers of preachers Cambridge[122] and Oxford do yearly
send forth, and how many new compositions are made in the Court of First
Fruits by the deaths of the last incumbents, you shall soon see a
difference. Wherefore, if in country towns and cities, yea even in London
itself, four or five of the little churches were brought into one, the
inconvenience would in great part be redressed and amended.

And, to say truth, one most commonly of those small livings is of so
little value that it is not able to maintain a mean scholar, much less a
learned man, as not being above ten, twelve, sixteen, seventeen, twenty,
or thirty pounds at the most, toward their charges, which now (more than
before time) do go out of the same. I say more than before, because every
small trifle, nobleman's request, or courtesy craved by the bishop, doth
impose and command a twentieth part, a three score part, or twopence in
the pound, etc., out of the livings, which hitherto hath not been usually
granted, but by the consent of a