the frier, had lately strooke out, because Dauid, like an unmannerly knaue, presumed to piss in the holy waterpot.

There Gotfrey Grouthead begins to fume, and fometh at the mouth like a sauage bore; hee falls at variance with Mistris Merigodowne, and hales her along by the hair of the head; in so much, that (thou knave) was as common among them as cartway, or probo in the schooles; and (thou whore) as vsuall a terme, as hait Hary in the mouth of a

carter.

Whiles thus they lay on heapes, one on the neck of another, some sparning others with their heeles, some scratching their heads where they itched not; some sprauling vnderneath most glad to rise vp againe; some wiping the blood away from their faces; some rubbing. their shinnes, which they burst on the frames; some gaping for winde, almost choked with flies; while these, I say, did lie in this so great disorder, the gods aboue were constrained to winke at their follies, and the diuels below reioiced at the viewe of this our mortalf wretchedness.

Thus Bacchvs arose with the rest of his barons, and dismissed euery man very borntifully; who, after long stumbling, at the last returned from whence they came. And Bacchvs himselfe retired to Archadie, where, at this day, for his singular liberalitie and bounteous behaviour towards all inhabitants, trauellers, and passengers, he is of power to make a greater companie of able men than any inan of his degree.

Et largas epulas & bona vina dedit.

THE

LORD-TREASURER BURLEIGH'S ADVICE

TO

QUEEN ELISABETH,

IN MATTERS OF RELIGION AND STATE. MS.

Most gracious Sovereign,

CARE (one of the true-bred children of my unfeigned affection)

awaked, with the late wicked and barbarous attempts, would needs exercise my pen to your sacred Majesty, not only encouraging me, that it would take the whole fault of boldness upon its self, but also, that even the words should not doubt to appear in your highness's presence in their kindly rudeness: for that, if your Majesty, with your

voice, did but read them, your very reading would grace them with eloquence.

Therefore, laying aside all self-guilty conceits of ignorance (knowing that the sign is not angry with the well meaning astronomer, though he happen to miss his course) I will, with the same sincerity, display my humble conceits, wherewith my life shall be amongst the foremost to defend the blessings, which God, in you, hath bestowed upon us.

So far then, as can be perceived by any human judgment, dread sovereign, you may judge, that the happiness of your present estate can no way be encumbered, but by one of these two means, viz.

1st, Either by your factious subjects.

2dly, Or by your foreign enemies.

Your strong and factious subjects are the papists. Strong I accourt them both in number and nature: For, by number, they are able to raise a great army, and, by their natural and mutual confidence and intelligence, they may soon bring to pass an uniting with foreign enemies; factious I call them, because they are discontented, of whom, in all reasons of state, your Majesty must determine, whether you will suffer them to be strong, to make them the better content? or, discontent them, by making them weaker? for, what the mixture of strength and discontent ingenders, there needs no syllogism to prove.

To suffer them to be strong with hope, that, with reason, they will be contented, carrieth with it, in my opinion, but a fair enamelling of a terrible danger,

For, first, men's natures are apt, not only to strive against a present smart, but to revenge by past injury, though they be never so well contented thereafter; which cannot be so sufficient a pledge to your Majesty, but that, when opportunity shall flatter them, they will remember, not the after slacking, but the former binding; and so much the more, when they shall imagine this relenting to proceed from fear: For it is the poison of all government, when the subject thinks the prince doth any thing more out of fear than favour, And therefore, the Romans would rather abide the uttermost extremities, than, by their subjects, to be brought to any conditions. Again, to make them absolutely contented, I do not see how your Majesty, either in conscience will do, or, in policy, may do it; since, hereby, you cannot but thoroughly discontent your faithful subjects; and to fasten an unreconciled love, with the losing of a certain love, is to build a house with the sale of lands; so much the more, in that your Majesty is embarked in the protestant cause, which, in many respects, cannot, by your Majesty, be, with any safety, abandoned, they having been, so long time, the only instruments both of your council and power; and, to make them half content and half discontent, methinks, carries with it as deceitful a shadow of reason as can be, since there is no pain so small, but, if we can cast it off, we will; and no man loves one the better for giving him the bastinado, though with never so little a cudgel.

But the course of the most wise, most politick, and best grounded

estates hath ever been, to make an assuredness of friendship, or to take away all power of enmity.

Yea, here I must distinguish between discontent and despair; for it sufficeth to weaken the discontented, but there is no way but to kill desperates, which, in such a number as they are, were as hard and -difficult, as impious and ungodly.

And therefore, though they must be discontented, yet I would not have them desperate; for, amongst many desperate men, it is like some one will bring forth some desperate attempt.

Therefore considering, that the urging of the oath must needs, in some degree, beget despair, since, in the taking of it, he must either think he doth an unlawful act (as without the special grace of God he cannot think otherwise) or else, by refusing it, must become a traitor, which, before some hurt done, seemeth hard: I humbly submit this to your excellent consideration, whether, with as much security of your Majesty's poison and state, and more satisfaction for them, it were not better to leave the oath to this sense, that whosoever would not bear arms against all foreign princes, and namely, the Pope, that should any way invade your Majesty's dominions, he should be a traitor? for, hereof, this commodity will ensue, that those papists (as I think most papists would that should take this oath) would be divided from the great mutual confidence, which is now betwixt the Pope and them, by reason of their afflictions for him; and such priests as would refuse that oath then, no tongue could say, for shame, that they suffered for religion, if they did suffer,

But here it may be objected, they would dissemble and equivocate with this oath, and that the Pope would dispense with them in that case. Even so may they, with the present oath, both dissemble and equivocate, and also have the Pope's dispensation for the present oath, as well as for the other. But this is certain, that whomsoever the conscience, or fear of breaking an oath, doth bind, him would that oath bind,

And, that they make conscience of an oath, the troubles, losses, and disgraces that they suffer, for refusing the same, do sufficiently tes, tify; and you know that the perjury of either oath is equal.

So then, the farthest point to be sought, for their contentment, is but to avoid their despair, How to weaken their contentment, is the next consideration.

Weakened they may be by two means: First, by lessening their number, Secondly, by taking away from their force. Their number will be easily lessened, by the means of careful, diligent preachers in each parish, to that end appointed; and especially by good schoolmasters, and bringers up of their youth; the former, by converting them after their fall; and the latter, by preventing them from falling into their errors.

For preachers, because thereon groweth a great question, I am provoked to lay at your Highness's feet my opinion touching the preciser sort.

First, protesting to God Almighty, and your sacred Majesty, that I

am not given over, no, nor so much as addicted to their preciseness; therefore, till I believe that you think otherwise, I am bold to think that the bishops, in these dangerous times, take a very ill and unadvis ed course in driving them from their cures; and this I think for two

reasons:

First, because it doth discredit the reputation and estimation of your power, when foreign princes shall perceive and know, that even amongst your protestant subjects, in whom consisteth all your force, strength, and power, there is so great a heart-burning and division; and how much reputation swayeth in these, and all other worldly actions, there is none so simple, as to be ignorant: and the papists themselves (though there be most manifest and apparent discord between the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, and other orders of religious persons, especially the Benedictines) yet will they shake off none of them, because, in the main points of popery, they all agree and hold together: And so far they may freely brag and vaunt of their unity.

The other reason is, because, in truth, though they are over squeamish and nice in their opinions, and more scrupulous han they need; yet with their careful catechising, and diligent preaching, they bring forth that fruit which your most excellent Majesty is to desire and wish, namely, the lessening and diminishing the papistical

numbers.

And therefore, at this time, your Majesty hath especial cause to use and employ them, if it were but as Frederick the Second, that excellent emperor, did use to employ the Saracen soldiers against the Pope, because he was well assured, and certainly knew, that they only would not spare his sanetity.

And, for those objections, what they would do if once they got a full and intire authority in the church: methinks they are inter remota & incerta mala, and therefore, vicina & certa, to be first considered.

As for schoolmasters, they may be a principal means of diminishing their number; the lamentable and pitiful abuses in this way are easy to be seen, since the greatest number of papists is of very young men: but your Majesty may prevent that bud, and may use, therein, not only a pious and godly means, in making the parents, in every shire, to send their children to be virtuously brought up at a certain place for that end appointed; but you shall also, if it please your Majesty, put in practice a notable stratagem, used by Sertorius in Spain, by choosing such fit and convenient places for the same, as may surely be at your devotion; and, by this means, you shall, under colour of education, have them as hostages of the parents fidelities, that have any power in England, and, by this way, their number will quickly be lessened; for Jaccount, that putting to death doth no ways lessen them, since we find by experience, that it worketh no such effect, but, like Hydra's heads, upon cutting off one, seven grow up, persecution being accounted as the badge of the church; and, therefore, they should never have the honour to take any pretence of martyrdom in England, where the fulness of blood, and greatness of heart, is such, that they will even, for shameful things, go bravely to death; much more, when they

think themselves to climb heaven; and this vice of obstinacy seems, to the common people, a divine constancy; so that, for my part, I wish no lessening of their numbers, but by preaching, and by education of the younger, under good schoolmasters.

The weakening and taking away of their force is as well of peace's authority, as of war's provision their peace authority standeth either in offices, or tenantries. For their offices and credit, it will be available, if order be taken, that, from the highest counsellor to the lowest constable, none shall have any charge or office, but such as will really pray and communicate in their congregation, according to the doctrine received generally into this realm.

For their tenantries, this conceit I have thought upon (which I submit to your farther piercing judgment) that your Majesty, in every shire, should give strict order to some, that are, indeed, trusty and religious gentlemen; that, whereas your Majesty is given to understand, that divers popish landlords do hardly use some of your people and subjects, as, being their tenants, do embrace and live after the authorised and true religion; that, therefore, you do constitute and appoint them, to deal both with intreaty and authority, that such tenants, paying as others do, be not thrust out of their living, nor otherwise unreasonably molested.

This would greatly bind the commons hearts unto you (on whom, indeed, consisteth the power and strength of your realm) and it will make them much less, or nothing at all, depend upon their landlords. And although there may hereby grow some wrong, which the tenants, upon that confidence, may offer to their landlords; yet, those wrongs are very easily, even with one wink of your Majesty, redressed; and are nothing comparable to the danger of having many thousands depending on the adverse party,

Their war's provision I account men and ammunition, of whom, in sum, I could wish no man, either great or small, should so much as be trained up in any musters, except his parishioners would answer for him, that he orderly and duly receiveth the communion; and for ammunition, that not one should keep in his house, or have at command, so much as a halberd, without he were conformable to the church, and of the condition aforesaid,

And if order was taken, that, considering they were not put to the Jabour and charge of mustering, and training, therefore their contributions should be more and more narrowly looked into; this would reed a chilness to their fervour of superstition; especially in popular resolutions, who, if they love Egypt, it is chiefly for the flesh-pots; so that, methinks, this temper should well agree with your wisdom, and the mercifulness of your nature.

For to compel them you would not; kill them you would not; so, to trust them you should not: trust being in no case to be used, but where the trusted is of one mind with the trusting person; which commandeth every wise man to fly, and avoid that shamefacedness of the Greeks, not to seem to doubt them which give just occasion of doubt.

This ruined Hercules, the son of great Alexander; for, although he