Yet such hath been the iniquity of all ages, as it seems to small purpose. Nemo in nostrâ civitate mendicus esto, saith Plato, he will have them purged from a Common-wealth, as a bad humor from the body, that are like so many Ulcers and Boils, and must be cured before the Melancholy body can be eased.

What Carolus Magnus, the Chinese, the Spaniards, the Duke of Saxony, and many other states have decreed in this case, reade Arniseus cap. 19. Boterus libro 8. cap. 2. Osorius de Rebus gest. Eman. lib. 11. When a countrey is over-stored with people, as a pasture is oft overlaid with cattle, they had wont in former times to disburden themselves, by sending out colonies, or by wars, as those old Romans, or by employing them at home about some publike buildings, as Bridges, Rode-waies, for which those Romans were famous in this Iland:

As Augustus Cæsar did in Rome, the Spaniards in their Indian Mines, as at Potosa in Peru, where some 30000 men are still at work, 6000 Furnaces ever boyling, &c. Aqueducts, Bridges, Havens, those stupend works of Trajan, Claudius at Ostium, Dioclesiani Thermæ, Fucinus Lacus, that Pireum in Athens, made by Themistocles, Ampitheatrums of curious Marble, as at Verona, Civitas Philippi, and Heraclea in Thrace, those Appian and Flaminian wayes, prodigious works all may witnesse;

And rather then they should be idle, as those Ægyptian Pharaohs, Mæris and Sesostris did, to task their subjects to build unnecessary Pyramides, Obelisks, Labyrinths, Chanels, Lakes, Gigantian works all, to divert them from Rebellion, Riot, Drunkennesse, Quo scilicet alantur, & ne vagando laborare desuescant.

Another eye-sore is that want of conduct and navigable rivers, a great blemish as Boterus, Hippolitus a Collibus, and other Politicians hold, if it be neglected in a Common wealth. Admirable cost and charge is bestowed in the Low-Countries on this behalf, in the Dutchy of Millan, Territory of Padua in France, Italy, China, and so likewise about corrivations of Waters to moisten and refresh barren Grounds, to drean Fens, Bogs, and Moors.

Massinissa made many inward parts of Barbarie, and Numidia in Africk before his time incult and horrid, fruitful and bearable by this means. Great industry is generally used all over the Eastern Countries in this kinde, especially in Ægypt, about Babylon and Damascus, as Vertomannus and Gotardus Arthus relate; about Barcelona, Segovia, Murtia, and many other places of Spain, Millan in Italy, by reason of which, their Soil is much impoverished, and infinite commodities arise to the Inhabitants.

The Turks of late attempted to cut that Istmos betwixt Africk and Asia, which Sesostris and Darius, and some Pharaohs of Ægypt had formerly undertaken, but with ill successe, as Diodorus Siculus records, and Pliny, for that Red-sea being three cubits higher then Ægypt, would have drowned all the country, cœpto destiterant, they left off; yet as the same Diodorus writes, Ptolomy renewed the work many years after, and absolved it in a more opportune place.

That Istmos of Corinth was likewise undertaken to be made navigable by Demetrius, by Julius Cæsar, Nero, Domitian, Herodes Atticus, to make a speedy passage, and lesse dangerous, from the Ionian and Ægean seas; but because it could not be so well effected, the Peloponesians built a wall like our Pict’s wall about Schænute, where Neptunes Temple stood, and in the shortest cut over the Istmos, of which Diodorus lib. 11. Herodotus lib. 8. Vran.

Our latter writers call it Hexamilium, which Amurath the Turk demolished, the Venetians anno 1453. repaired in 15 daies with 30000 men. Some, saith Acosta, would have a passage cut from Panama to Nombre de Dios in America, but Thuanus & Serres the French historians speak of a famous Aqueduct in France, intended in Henry the fourths time, from the Loyr to the Seine, and from Rodanus to Loyr.

The like to which, was formerly assayed by Domitian the Emperor, from Arar to Mosella, which Cornelius Tacitus speaks of in the 13 of his Annals, after by Charls the great and others.

Much cost hath in former times been bestowed in either new making or mending chanels of rivers, and their passages, (as Aurelianus did by Tybur to make it navigable to Rome, to convey corn from Ægypt to the city, vadum alvei tumentis effodit saith Vopiscus, & Tyburis ripas extruxit, he cut fords, made banks, &c.) decayed havens, which Claudius the Emperor with infinite pains and charges attempted at Ostia, as I have said, The Venetians at this day to preserve their City;

many excellent means to enrich their Territories, have been fostered, invented in most Provinces of Europe, as planting some Indian plants amongst us, Silk-worms, the very Mulberry leaves in the Plaines of Granado, yeeld 30000 crowns per annum to the King of Spains coffers, besides those many trades and artificers that are busied about them in the kingdom of Granado, Murcia, and all over Spain. In France a great benefit is raised by salt, &c.

whether these things might not be as happily attempted with us, and with like successe, it may be controverted, Silk-worms (I mean) Vines, Fir trees, &c. Cardan exhorts Edward the sixth to plant Olives, and is fully perswaded they would prosper in this Iland.