pecially if it be not mown down by wars) do not exceed the stock of the kingdom which should maintain them. Neither is the population to be reckoned only by number; for a smaller number that spend more and earn less, do wear out an estate sooner than a greater number that live lower and gather more. Therefore the multiplying of nobility and other degrees of quality[1] in an over proportion to the common people, doth speedily bring a state to necessity; and so doth likewise an overgrown clergy; for they bring nothing to the stock; and in like manner, when more are bred scholars than preferments can take off.
It is likewise to be remembered, that forasmuch as the increase of any estate must be upon the foreigner (for whatsoever is somewhere gotten is somewhere lost), there be but three things which one nation selleth unto another; the commodity as nature yieldeth it; the manufacture; and the vecture, or carriage. So that if these three wheels go, wealth will flow as in a spring tide. And it cometh many times to pass, that materiam superabit opus;[2] that the work and carriage is more worth than the material, and enricheth a state more; as is notably seen in the Low-Countrymen, who have the best mines above ground in the world.
Above all things, good policy is to be used that
- ↑ Quality. Nobility or gentry.
"The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
And gentlemen of blood and quality."
Shakspere. King Henry V. iv. 8. - ↑ The work will surpass the material. Bacon is quoting Ovid, literally for once, materiem superabit opus. P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoseon Liber II. 5.
