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 no reason (which [614]Hippolitus
complains of) "that it should be more dishonourable for noblemen to govern
the city than the country, or unseemly to dwell there now, than of old."
[615]I will have no bogs, fens, marshes, vast woods, deserts, heaths,
commons, but all enclosed; (yet not depopulated, and therefore take heed
you mistake me not) for that which is common, and every man's, is no man's;
the richest countries are still enclosed, as Essex, Kent, with us, &c.
Spain, Italy; and where enclosures are least in quantity, they are best
[616]husbanded, as about Florence in Italy, Damascus in Syria, &c. which
are liker gardens than fields. I will not have a barren acre in all my
territories, not so much as the tops of mountains: where nature fails, it
shall be supplied by art: [617]lakes and rivers shall not be left desolate.
All common highways, bridges, banks, corrivations of waters, aqueducts,
channels, public works, buildings, &c. out of a [618]common stock,
curiously maintained and kept in repair; no depopulations, engrossings,
alterations of wood, arable, but by the consent of some supervisors that