ADVICE TO THE KING,

To sommeil le noqu TOUCHING

May it please your Majesty,

ICFIND it a positive precept of the old law, that there should be no sacrifice without salt: the moral whereof, besides the ceremony, may be, that God is not pleased with the body of a good intention, except it be seasoned with that spiritual wisdom and judg ment, as it be not easily subject to be corrupted and perverted: for salt, in the Scripture, is a figure both ofisdom and lasting. This cometh into my mind upon this act of Mr. Sutton, which seemeth to me as a sacrifice without salt; having the materials of a good intention, but not powdered with any such ordinances and institutions as may preserve the same from turning corrupt, or at least from becoming unsavory, and of little use. For though the choice of the feoffees be of the best, yet neither can they always live; and the very nature of the work itself, in the vast and unfit proportions thereof, being apt to provoke a mis-employment; it is no diligence of theirs, except there be a digression from that model, that can excuse it from running the same way that gifts of like condition have heretofore, done. For to design the Charterhouse, å building fit for a prince's habitation, for an hospital, is all one as if one should give in alms a rich embroidered cloak to a beggar. And certainly a man may see, tanquam quæ oculis cernuntur, that if such an edifice, with six thousand pounds revenue, be erected into one hospital, it will in small time degenerate to be made a preferment of some great person to be master, and he to take all the sweet, and the poor to be stinted, and take but the crumbs; as it comes to pass in divers

hospitals of this realm, which have but the names of hospitals, and are only wealthy benefices in respect of the mastership; but the poor, which is the propter quid, little relieved. And the like hath been the fortune of much of the alms of the Roman religion in their great foundations, which being begun in vainglory and ostentation, have had their judgment upon them, to end in corruption and abuse. This meditation hath made me presume to write these few lines to your majesty; being no better than good wishes, which your majesty's great wisdom may make something or nothing of.

Wherein I desire to be thus understood, that if this foundation, such as it is, be perfect and good in law, then I am too well acquainted with your majesty's disposition, to advise any course of power or profit that is not grounded upon a right: nay farther, if the defects be such as a court of equity may remedy and cure, then I wish that as St. Peter's shadow did cure diseases, so the very shadow of a good intention may cure defects of that nature. But if there be a right, and birthright planted in the heir, and not remediable by courts of equity, and that right be submitted to your majesty, whereby it is both in your power and grace what to do; then I do wish that this rude mass and chaos of a good deed were directed rather to a solid merit, and durable charity, than to a blaze of glory, that will but crackle a little in talk, and quickly extinguish.

And this may be done, observing the species of Mr. Sutton's intent, though varying in individuo: for it appears that he had in notion a triple good, an hospital, and a school, and maintaining of a preacher: which individuals refer to these three general heads; relief of poor, advancement of learning, and propagation of religion. Now then if I shall set before your majesty, in every of these three kinds, what it is that is most wanting in your kingdom; and what is like to be the most fruitful and effectual use of such a beneficence, and least like to be perverted; that, I think, shall be no ill scope of my labour, how meanly soever per

formed; for out of variety represented, election may be best grounded.

Concerning the relief of the poor; I hold some number of hospitals, with competent endowinents, will do far more good than one hospital of an exorbitant greatness: for though the one course will be the more seen, yet the other will be the more felt. For if your majesty erect many, besides the observing the ordinary maxim, Bonum, quo communius, eo melius, choice may be made of those towns and places where there is most need, and so the remedy may be distributed as the disease is dispersed. Again, greatness of relief, accumulated in one place, doth rather invite a swarm and surcharge of poor, than relieve those that are naturally bred in that place; like to ill-tempered medicines, that draw more humour to the part than they evacuate from it. But chiefly I rely upon the reason that I touched in the beginning, that in these great hospitals the revenues will draw the use, and not the use the revenues; and so, through the mass of the wealth, they will swiftly tumble down to a mis-employment. And if any man say, that in the two hospitals in London there is a precedent of greatness concurring with good employment; let him consider that those hospitals have annual governors, that they are under the superior care and policy of such a state as the city of London; and chiefly, that their revenues consist not upon certainties, but upon casualties and free gifts; which gifts would be withheld, if they appeared once to be perverted; so as it keepeth them in a continual good behaviour and awe to employ them aright; none of which points do match with the present case.

The next consideration may be, whether this intended hospital, as it hath a more ample endowment than other hospitals have, should not likewise work upon a better subject than other poor; as that it should be converted to the relief of maimed soldiers, decayed merchants, housholders aged, and destitute churchmen, and the like; whose condition, being of a better

sort than loose people and beggars, deserveth both a more liberal stipend and allowance, and some proper place of relief, not intermingled or coupled with the basest sort of poor; which project, though specious, yet in my judgment, will not answer the designment in the event, in these our times. For certainly few men in any vocation, which have been somebody, and bear a mind somewhat according to the conscience and remembrance of that they have been, will ever descend to that condition, as to profess to live upon alms, and to become a corporation of declared beggars; but rather will choose to live obscurely, and as it were to hide themselves with some private friends: so that the end of such an institution will be, that it will make the place a receptacle of the worst, idlest, and most dissolute persons of every profession, and to become a cell of loiterers, and cast serving-men, and drunkards, with scandal rather than fruit to the commonwealth. And of this kind I can find but one example with us, which is the alms-knights of Windsor; which particular would give a man small encouragement to follow that precedent.

Therefore the best effect of hospitals is, to make the kingdom, if it were possible, capable of that law, that there be no beggar in Israel: for it is that kind of people that is a burden, an eye-sore, a scandal, and a seed of peril and tumult in the state. But chiefly it were to be wished, that such a beneficence towards the relief of the poor were so bestowed, as not only the mere and naked poor should be sustained, but also, that the honest person which hath hard means to live, upon whom the poor are now charged, should be in some sort eased for that were a work generally acceptable to the kingdom, if the public hand of alms might spare the private hand of tax: and therefore, of all other employments of that kind, I commend most houses of relief and correction, which are mixt hospitals; where the impotent person is relieved, and the sturdy beggar buckled to work; and the unable person also not maintained to be idle, which is ever joined with drunkenness and impurity, but is sorted with such work as he

can manage and perform; and where the uses are not distinguished, as in other hospitals; whereof some are for aged and impotent, and some for children, and some for correction of vagabonds; but are general and promiscuous: so that they may take off poor of every sort from the country as the country breeds them: and thus the poor themselves shall find the provision, and other people the sweetness of the abatement of the tax. Now if it be objected, that houses of correction in all places have not done the good expected, as it cannot be denied, but in most places they have done much good, it must be remembered that there is a great difference between that which is done by the distracted government of justices of peace, and that which may be done by a settled ordinance, subject to a regular visitation, as this may be. And besides, the want hath been commonly in houses of correction of a competent and certain stock, for the materials of the labour, which in this case may be likewise supplied.

Concerning the advancement of learning, I do subscribe to the opinion of one of the wisest and greatest men of your kingdom: That for grammar schools there are already too many, and therefore no providence to add where there is excess: for the great number of schools which are in your highness's realm, doth cause a want, and doth cause likewise an overflow; both of them inconvenient, and one of them dangerous. For by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry, and apprentices for trade and on the other side, there being more scholars bred, than the state can prefer and employ ; and the active part of that life not bearing a proportion to the preparative, it must needs fall out, that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations, and unprofitable for that in which they are brought up; which fills the realm full of indigent, idle, and wanton people, which are but materia rerum novarum.

Therefore, in this point, I wish Mr. Sutton's intention were exalted a degree; that that which he meant for teachers of children, your majesty should make for teachers of men; wherein it hath been my ancient