means to invite monied men to lend to the merchants for the continuing and quickening of trade. This cannot be done, except you introduce two several sorts of usury, a less and a greater; for if you reduce usury to one low rate, it will ease the common borrower, but the merchant will be to seek for money and it is to be noted, that the trade of merchandize being the most lucrative, may bear usury at á good rate; other contracts not so.

To serve both intentions, the way would be briefly thus: that there be two rates of usury; the one free and general for all; the other under licence only to certain persons, and in certain places of merchandizing. First, therefore, let usury in general be reduced to five in the hundred; and let that rate be proclaimed to be free and current; and let the state shut itself out to take any penalty for the same this will preserve borrowing from any general stop or dryness; this will ease infinite borrowers in the country; this will in good part raise the price of land, because land purchased at sixteen years purchase, will yield six in the hundred and somewhat more, whereas this rate of interest yields but five: this by

like reason will encourage and edge industrious and profitable improvements, because many will rather venture in that kind, than take five in the hundred, especially having been used to greater profit. Secondly let there be certain. persons licensed to lend to known merchants upon usury at a high rate; and let it be with the cautions following; let the rate be, even with the merchant himself, somewhat more easy than that he used formerly to pay; for by that means all borrowers shall have some ease by this reformation, be he merchant or whosoever; let it be no bank, or common stock, but every man be master of his own money; not that I altogether dislike banks, but they will hardly be brooked in regard of certain suspicions. Let the state be answered some small matter for the license, and the rest left to the lender; for if the abatement be but small, it will no whit discourage the lender; for he, for example, that took before ten or nine in the hundred, will sooner descend to eight in the hundred, than give over this trade of usury, and go from certain gains to gains of hazard. Let these licensed lenders be in number indefinite, but restrained to certain prin

cipal cities and towns of merchandizing; for then they will be hardly able to colour other men's monies in the country; so as the license of nine will not suck away the current rate of five; for no man will lend his monies far off, nor put them into unknown hands.

If it be objected that this doth in a sort authorise usury, which before was in some places but permissive, the answer is, that it is better to mitigate usury by declaration, than to suffer it to rage by connivance.

OF YOUTH AND AGE.

A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time; but that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second: for there is a youth in thoughts as well as in ages; and yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely. Natures, that have much heat, and great and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for action till they have passed the

meridian of their years as it was with Julius Cæsar and Septimius Severus: of the latter of whom it is said, "juventutem egit, erroribus, "imo furoribus plenam ;" and yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list: but reposed natures may do well in youth, as it is seen in Augustus Cæsar, Cosmes, duke of Florence, Gaston de Fois, and others. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an excellent composition for business; Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects, than for settled business; for the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but, in new things abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have beeh done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme reme

dies at first; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the vir tues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession, that young men may be learners, while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for external accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favour and popularity youth: but for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the preeminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin upon the text, "Your young men shall see visions, "and your old men shall dream dreams,” inferreth, that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream: and, certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues