s
themselves, and among all ranks of persons. You have also many infamous
houses, and, besides those that are known, the taverns and ale-houses are
no better; add to these dice, cards, tables, football, tennis, and
quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into
them must, in the conclusion, betake themselves to robbing for a supply.
Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so
much soil may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down or let
out their grounds to such as will do it; restrain those engrossings of
the rich, that are as bad almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to
idleness; let agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of the
wool be regulated, that so there may be work found for those companies of
idle people whom want forces to be thieves, or who now, being idle
vagabonds or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If
you do not find a remedy to these evils it is a vain thing to boast of
your severity in punishing theft, which, though it may have the
appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for
if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be
corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to
which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded
from this but that you first make thieves and then punish them?'

"While I was talking thus, the Counsellor, who was present, had prepared
an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the
formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more
faithfully than they are answered, as if the chief trial to be made were
of men's memories. 'You have talked prettily, for a stranger,' said he,
'having heard of many things among us which you have not been able to
consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you, and will
first repeat in order all that you have said; then I will show how much
your ignorance of our affairs has misled you; and will, in the last
place, answer all your arguments. And, that I may begin where I
promised, there were four things--' 'Hold your peace!' said the
Cardinal; 'this will take up too much time; therefore we will, at
present, ease you of the trouble of answering, and reserve it to our next
meeting, which shall be to-morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can
admit of it. But, Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know up