rdens, public walks, theatres, and spacious
fields allotted for all gymnastic sports, and honest recreations, hospitals
of all kinds, for children, orphans, old folks, sick men, mad men,
soldiers, pest-houses, &c. not built _precario_, or by gouty benefactors,
who, when by fraud and rapine they have extorted all their lives, oppressed
whole provinces, societies, &c. give something to pious uses, build a
satisfactory alms-house, school or bridge, &c. at their last end, or before
perhaps, which is no otherwise than to steal a goose, and stick down a
feather, rob a thousand to relieve ten; and those hospitals so built and
maintained, not by collections, benevolences, donaries, for a set number,
(as in ours,) just so many and no more at such a rate, but for all those
who stand in need, be they more or less, and that _ex publico aerario_, and
so still maintained, _non nobis solum nati sumus_, &c. I will have conduits
of sweet and good water, aptly disposed in each town, common [609]
granaries, as at Dresden in Misnia, Stetein in Pomerland, Noremberg, &c.
Colleges of mathematicians, musicians, and actors, as of old at Labedum in
Ionia, [610]alchemists, physicians, artists, and philosophers: that all
arts and sciences may sooner be perfected and better learned; and public
historiographers, as amongst those ancient [611]Persians, _qui in
commentarios referebant quae memoratu digna gerebantur_, informed and
appointed by the state to register all famous acts, and not by each
insufficient scribbler, partial or parasitical pedant, as in our times. I
will provide public schools of all kinds, singing, dancing, fencing, &c.
especially of grammar and languages, not to be taught by those tedious
precepts ordinarily used, but by use, example, conversation, [612]as
travellers learn abroad, and nurses teach their children: as I will have
all such places, so will I ordain [613]public governors, fit officers to
each place, treasurers, aediles, quaestors, overseers of pupils, widows'
goods, and all public houses, &c. and those once a year to make strict
accounts of all receipts, expenses, to avoid confusion, _et sic fiet ut non
absumant_ (as Pliny to Trajan,) _quad pudeat dicere_. They shall be
subordinate to those higher officers and governors of each city, which
shall not be poor tradesmen, and mean artificers, but noblemen and
gentlemen, which shall be tied to residence in those towns they dwell next,
at such set times and seasons: for I see