th attempt
to procure ought from the prince that may profit but few and prove
hurtful to many might be at open assizes and sessions denounced enemy
to his country and commonwealth of the land.

Glass also hath been made here in great plenty before, and in the
time of the Romans; and the said stuff also, beside fine scissors,
shears, collars of gold and silver for women's necks, cruises and
cups of amber, were a parcel of the tribute which Augustus in his
days laid upon this island. In like sort he charged the Britons with
certain implements and vessels of ivory (as Strabo saith); whereby it
appeareth that in old time our countrymen were far more industrious
and painful in the use and application of the benefits of their
country than either after the coming of the Saxons or Normans, in
which they gave themselves more to idleness and following of the
wars.

If it were requisite that I should speak of the sundry kinds of mould,
as the cledgy, or clay, whereof are divers sorts (red, blue, black,
and white), also the red or white sandy, the loamy, roselly, gravelly,
chalky, or black, I could say that there are so many divers veins in
Britain as elsewhere in any quarter of like quantity in the world.
Howbeit this I must need confess, that the sand and clay do bear great
sway: but clay most of all, as hath been and yet is always seen and
felt through plenty and dearth of corn. For if this latter (I mean the
clay) do yield her full increase (which it doth commonly in dry years
for wheat), then is there general plenty: whereas if it fail, then
have we scarcity, according to the old rude verse set down of England,
but to be understood of the whole island, as experience doth confirm--

"_When the sand doth serve the clay,
Then may we sing well-away;
But when the clay doth serve the sand,
Then is it merry with England_."

I might here intreat of the famous valleys in England, of which one
is called the Vale of White Horse, another of Evesham (commonly taken
for the granary of Worcestershire), the third of Aylesbury, that
goeth by Thame, the roots of Chiltern Hills, to Dunstable, Newport
Pagnel, Stony Stratford, Buckingham, Birstane Park, etc. Likewise of
the fourth, of Whitehart or Blackmoor in Dorsetshire. The fifth, of
Ringdale or Renidale, corruptly called Kingtaile, that lieth (as mine
author saith) upon the edge of Essex and Cambridgeshire, and also the
Marshwood Vale: but, forsomuch as I know not well their seve