ported by him; for from his youth he had been all along
practised in affairs; and having passed through many traverses
of fortune, he had with great cost acquired a vast stock of
wisdom, which is not soon lost when it is purchased so dear.

   "One day when I was dining with him there happened to
be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to
run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of
justice upon thieves, who, as he said, were then hanged so fast
that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon
that he said he could not wonder enough how it came to pass,
that since so few escaped, there were yet so many thieves left
who were still robbing in all places.  Upon this, I who took
the boldness to speak freely before the cardinal, said there was
no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing
thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for
as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual;
simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a
man his life, no punishment how severe soever being able to
restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of
livelihood.  'In this,' said I, 'not only you in England, but a
great part of the world imitate some ill masters that are readier
to chastise their scholars than to teach them.  There are dread-
ful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much bet-
ter to make such good provisions by which every man might
be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the
fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.'

   "'There has been care enough taken for that,' said he, 'there
are many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they
may make a shift to live unless they have a greater mind to
follow ill courses.'

   "'That will not serve your turn,' said I, 'for many lose their
limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion,
and some time ago in your wars with France, who being thus
mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no more
follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones: but
since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let
us consider those things that fall out every day.  There is a
great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as
idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labor, on the labor
of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to
the quick.  This indeed is the only instance of their frugality,
for in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring
of themselves: but besides this, they carry about with them a
great number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by
which they may gain their living; and these, as soon as either
their lord dies or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of
doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to
take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep
together so great a family as his predecessor did.  Now when
the stomachs of those that are thus turned out of doors grow
keen, they rob no less keenly; and what else can they do? for
when, by wandering about, they have worn out both their
health and their clothes, and are tattered, and look ghastly,
men of quality will not entertain them, and poor men dare not
do it, knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and
pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword and
buckler, despising all the neighborhood with an insolent scorn
as far below him, is not fit for the spade and mattock: nor will
he serve a poor man for so small a hire, and in so low a diet
as he can afford to give him.'

   "To this he answered: 'This sort of men ought to be par-
ticularly cherished, for in them consists the force of the armies
for which we have occasion; since their birth inspires them
with a nobler sense of honor than is to be found among trades-
men or ploughmen.'

   "'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that you must cherish
thieves on the account of wars, for you will never want the one
as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes
gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers; so near
an alliance there is between those two sorts of life.  But this
bad custom, so common among you, of keeping many servants,
is not peculiar to this nation.  In France there is yet a more
pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of
soldiers, still kept up in time of peace, if such a state of a 
nation can be called a peace: and these are kept in pay upon the 
same account that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen;
this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen that it is
necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran
soldiers ever in readiness.  They think raw men are not to be
depended on, and they sometimes seek occasions for making
war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting
throats; or as Sallust observed, for keeping their hands in use,
that they may not grow dull by too long an intermission.  But
France has learned to its cost how dangerous it is to feed such
beasts.

   "'The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and
many other nations and cities, which were both overturned and
quite ruined by those standing armies, should make others
wiser: and the folly of this maxim of the French appears
plainly even from this, that their trained soldiers often find your
raw men prove too hard for them; of which I will not say much,
lest you may think I flatter the English.  Every day's experi-
ence shows that the mechanics in the towns, or the clowns in
the country, are not afraid of fighting with those idle gentle-