re often corrected with sharp execution and whip of
justice abroad. Many there are which, notwithstanding the rigour of the
laws provided in that behalf, yield rather with this liberty (as they call
it) to be daily under the fear and terror of the whip than, by abiding
where they were born or bred, to be provided for by the devotion of the
parishes. I found not long since a note of these latter sort, the effect
whereof ensueth. Idle beggars are such either through other men's occasion
or through their own default--by other men's occasion (as one way for
example) when some covetous man (such, I mean, as have the cast or right
vein daily to make beggars enough whereby to pester the land, espying a
further commodity in their commons, holds, and tenures) doth find such
means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings and turn the same
unto his private gains.[166] Hereupon it followeth that, although the
wise and better-minded do either forsake the realm for altogether, and
seek to live in other countries, as France, Germany, Barbary, India,
Muscovia, and very Calcutta, complaining of no room to be left for them at
home, do so behave themselves that they are worthily to be accounted among
the second sort, yet the greater part, commonly having nothing to stay
upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle beggars or else
continue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which is a
lamentable case. Certes in some men's judgment these things are but
trifles, and not worthy the regarding. Some also do grudge at the great
increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far
better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such
men best of all unto the pope and the devil, who practise the hindrance of
the furniture of the number of the elect to their uttermost, to the end
the authority of the one upon the earth, the deferring of the locking up
of the other in everlasting chains, and the great gains of the first, may
continue and endure the longer. But if it should come to pass that any
foreign invasion should be made--which the Lord God forbid for his
mercies' sake!--then should these men find that a wall of men is far
better than stacks of corn and bags of money, and complain of the want
when it is too late to seek remedy. The like occasion caused the Romans to
devise their law _Agraria_: but the rich, not liking of it, and the
covetous, utterly condemning it as rigorous and u