curious as to our dogs and horses. The marriage-bed will be truly
legitimate, and the race of the commonwealth not spurious.
"But (impar magnanimis ausis, imparque dolori) I am hurled from
all my hopes by my lord's last assertion of impossibility, that
the root from whence we imagine these fruits should be planted or
thrive in this soil. And why? Because of the mixture of estates
and variety of tenures. Nevertheless, there is yet extant in the
Exchequer an old survey of the whole nation; wherefore such a
thing is not impossible. Now if a new survey were taken at the
present rates, and the law made that no man should hold hereafter
above so much land as is valued therein at œ2,000 a year, it
would amount to a good and sufficient agrarian. It is true that
there would remain some difficulty in the different kind of
rents, and that it is a matter requiring not only more leisure
than we have, but an authority which may be better able to bow
men to a more general consent than is to be wrought out of them
by such as are in our capacity. Wherefore as to the manner, it is
necessary that we refer it to the Parliament; but as to the
matter, they cannot otherwise fix their government upon the right
balance.

"I shall conclude with a few words to some parts of the
order, which my lord has omitted. As first to the consequences of
the agrarian to be settled in Marpesia, which irreparably breaks
the aristocracy of that nation; being of such a nature, as
standing, it is not possible that you should govern. For while
the people of that country are little better than the cattle of
the nobility, you must not wonder if, according as these can make
their markets with foreign princes, you find those to be driven
upon your grounds. And if you be so tender, now you have it in