ue fared so well, as the lord
Maior of London, with whome, when their bellies be full, they will
not often sticke to make comparison, because that of a subject there
is no publike officer of anie citie in Europe, that may compare in
port and countenance with him during the time of his office."

Chapter VII.[43] is the amusing one on the "Apparell and Atire" of English
folk already referrd to (p. xiii. above); and though it's not so bitter as
Stubbes's or Crowley's, yet it's fun, with its "dog in a doublet," and its
beard bit, if a man "be wesell becked [beakt], then much heare left on the
cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so grim as a
goose, if Cornelis of Chelmeresford saie true."

In the chapter on the Parliament the only personal bit is Harrison's
saying that he copies from Sir Thomas Smith,[44] "requiting him with the
like borrowage as he hath vsed toward me in his discourse of the sundrie
degrees of estates in the commonwealth of England." But in the next
chapter, "Of the Laws of England," after a dull account of the Trial by
Ordeal, etc., we get Harrison breaking out again against the Lawyers,
their prosperity and rascality, and taking fees (as barristers often do
still) and doing nothing for 'em, with a good bit about Welshmen's love of
law-suits. We also find a pleasant notice of John Stow, the hard-working
chronicler so shamefully neglected in his own age: "my freend _Iohn Stow_,
whose studie is the onelie store house of antiquities in my time, and he
worthie therefore to be had in reputation and honour."

The chapter "Of Prouision made for the Poore," notes the weekly collection
made in every parish for the deserving poor, and gives Harrison's opinion
on the Malthusians of his day:--

"Some also doo grudge at the great increase of people in these daies,
thinking a necessarie brood of cattell farre better than a
superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such men best of
all vnto the pope and the diuell, who practise the hinderance of the
furniture of the number of the elect to their vttermost, to the end
the authoritie of the one upon earth, the deferring of the locking vp
of the other in euerlasting chaines, and the great gaines of the
first, may continue and indure the longer. But if it should come to
passe that any forren inuasion should be made, which the Lord God
forbid for his mercies sake!--th