the ancient parent; we have
succeeded in spreading the capital into a county, and have verified the
prediction of James the First, "that England will shortly be London, and
London England."

"I think it a great object," said Justice Best, in delivering his
sentiments in favour of the Game Laws, "that gentlemen should have a
temptation _to reside in the country, amongst their neighbours and
tenantry, whose interests must be materially advanced by such a
circumstance_. The links of society are thereby better preserved, and
_the mutual advantages and dependence of the higher and lower classes_
on one another are better maintained. The baneful effects of our present
system we have lately seen in a neighbouring country, and an ingenious
French writer has lately shown the ill consequences of it on the
continent."[238]

These sentiments of a living luminary of the law afford some reason of
policy for the dread which our government long entertained on account of
the perpetual growth of the metropolis; the nation, like a
hypochondriac, was ludicrously terrified that their head was too
monstrous for their body, and that it drew all the moisture of life from
the middle and the extremities. Proclamations warned and exhorted; but
the very interference of a royal prohibition seemed to render the
crowded city more charming. In vain the statute against new buildings
was passed by Elizabeth; in vain during the reigns of James the First
and both the Charleses we find proclamations continually issuing to
forbid new erections.

James was apt to throw out his opinions in these frequent addresses to
the people, who never attended to them: his majesty notices "those
swarms of gentry, who through the instigation of their wives, or to
new-model and fashion their daughters (who if they were unmarried,
marred their reputations, and if married, lost them), did neglect their
country hospitality, and cumber the city, a general nuisance to the
kingdom."--He addressed the Star Chamber to regulate "the exorbitancy of
the new buildings about the city, which were but a shelter for those
who, when they had spent their estates in coaches, lacqueys, and fine
clothes like Frenchmen, lived miserably in their houses like Italians;
but the honour of the English nobility and gentry is to be hospitable
among their tenants." Once conversing on this subject, the monarch threw
out that happy illustration, which has been more than once noticed, that
"Gentlemen r