And Although Most Of The Inhabitants Of These Parishes And Some Of Their Neighbours, As They Doe In Time Of Yeere Prouide All Things Necessary For Householde, So Especially Those Things Which Belong To Fires And Bathes:

Notwithstanding there be certaine among them of the basest sort of people, who because they want those things at home, and are not able to prouide them from other places, are constrained to vse straw for the dressing of their meat.

But when the sharpe rigor of snowy Winter commeth on, these poore people betake them to their oxe stalles, and there setting vp sheds, and doing their necessary businesse in the day time, when they are not able to make fires, they borrow heat from their oxen, as it hath beene reported to mee by others: And so they onely being verie fewe in number, doe not willingly enioye, but are constrayned to vse the same common house with their oxen. But for their liuelihoode and state it is farre otherwise with them then with their oxen, of which thing I haue entreated before. This is the lot, & pouertie of certaine men in those pettie parishes, the condition whereof is therefore made a common byworde of the people amongst vs, though somewhat iniuriously. Where I would willingly demaund with what honestie men can impute that vnto the whole nation, which is hard and skantly true of these fewe poore men? I am wearie to stay any longer in this matter: onely, because I haue to doe with Diuines, let that of Salomon suffice, Prouerbs 17, verse 5. Hee that mocketh the poore, reprocheth him that made him.

And in very deede, because this our nation is nowe, and heretofore hath been poore and needie, and as it were a begger amongest many rich men, it hath susteined so many taunts and scoffes of strangers. But let them take heede whom they vpbraide. Verely if there were nothing else common vnto vs with them, yet we both consist of the same elements, and haue all one father and God.

SECTIO QUARTA.

[Sidenote: Krantzius Munster] In simplicitate sancta vitam agunt, cum nihil amplius quarant quam natura concedit. Beata gens, cuius paupertati nullus inuidet. Sed mercatores Anglici et Dani quiescere gentem non sinunt, qui ob piscaturam vehendam terram illam frequentantes cum mercibus omnigenis vitia quoque nostra inuexerunt. Nam et fruges aqua miscere in potum didicerunt, et simplicis aqua haustus oderunt. Nunc aurum et argentum cum nostris admirantur.

Simplicitate. Equidem sancta simphcitatis laudem nobis attribui, merito gaudemus: Sed id dolemus, quod reperiatur etiam apud nos iustitia ac legum ingens deprauatio, ac magna anarchia, quam multorum scelerum myriades consequuntur, quod pij et boni omnes quotidie deplorant. Id mali autem nequaquam supremi Magistratus, hoc est, Regis nostri clementissimi, sed verius nostra culpa accidit: qui hac qua clam ipso prapostere geruntur et qua in inferiore magistratu desiderantur, ad maiestatem ipsius non deferimus.

Mercatores. Mercatores porro, non solum Angli et Dani, sed maxime Germani, vt nunc, ita olim terram nostram, non ob piscaturam sed pisces euehendos frequentantes, nequaquam artem illam, miscendarum frugum aqua, Islandos docuerunt.

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