of their private gain than yield themselves to be guided by the
same for a commonwealth and profit to their country. So that in the end,
whatsoever the law saith, we will have our wills, whereby the wholesome
ordinances of the prince are contemned, the travel of the nobility and
councillors (as it were) derided, the commonwealth impoverished, and a few
only enriched by this perverse dealing. Thus many thousand persons do
suffer hindrance by this their lewd behaviour. Hereby the wholesome laws
of the prince are oft defrauded, and the good-meaning magistrate in
consultation about the commonwealth utterly neglected. I would wish that I
might live no longer than to see four things in this land reformed, that
is, the want of discipline in the church, the covetous dealing of most of
our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other countries and
hindrance of their own, the holding of fairs[194] and markets upon the
Sundays be abolished and referred to the Wednesdays, and that every man in
whatsoever part of the champaign soil enjoyeth forty acres of land and
upwards (after that rate, either by free deed, copyhold, or free farm)
might plant one acre of wood or sow the same with oak mast, hazel, beech,
and sufficient provision be made that it may be cherished and kept. But I
fear me that I should then live too long, and so long that I should either
be weary of the world, or the world of me; and yet they are not such
things but that they may easily be brought to pass.

Certes every small occasion in my time is enough to cut down a great wood,
and every trifle sufficeth to lay infinite acres of ground unto pasture.
As for the taking down of houses, a small fine will bear out a great many.
Would to God we might once take example of the Romans, who, in restraint
of superfluous grazing, made an exact limitation how many head of cattle
each estate might keep, and what number of acres should suffice for that
and other purposes. Neither was wood ever better cherished, or mansion
houses maintained, than by their laws and statutes. Such also was their
care in the maintenance of navigation that it was a great part of the
charge of their consuls yearly to view and look unto the hills whereon
great timber did grow, lest their unnecessary faults for the satisfaction
of the private owner and his covetous mind might prove a prejudice unto
the commonwealth in the hindrance of sufficient stuff for the furniture of
their navy. Certes the