“Every one strives to be a Diogenes in his house and an emperor in the streets; not caring if they sleep in a tub, so they may be hurried in a coach; giving that allowance to horses and mares that formerly maintained houses full of men; pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, and burying all the treasures of the kingdom into a few citizens’ coffers.

“There are now,” the writer adds, “twenty thousand masterless men turned off, who know not this night where to lodge, where to eat to-morrow, and ready to undertake any desperate course.”

Yet there was still a more turbulent and dangerous race of idlers, in

“A number of younger brothers, of ancient houses, who, nursed up in fulness, pampered in their minority, and left in charge to their elder brothers, who were to be fathers to them, followed them in despair to London, where these untimely-born youths are left so bare, that their whole life’s allowance was consumed in one year.”

The same manuscript exhibits a full and spirited picture of manners in this long period of peace.

“The gentry are like owls, all feathers and no flesh; all show, and no substance; all fashion, and no feeding; and fit for no service but masks and May-games.  The citizens have dealt with them as it is said the Indians are dealt with; they have given them counterfeit brooches and bugle-bracelets for gold and silver;[A] pins and peacock feathers for lands and tenements; gilded coaches and outlandish hobby-horses for goodly castles and ancient mansions; their woods are turned into wardrobes, their leases into laces; and their goods and chattels into guarded coats and gaudy toys.  Should your Majesty fly to them for relief, you would fare like those birds that peek at painted fruits; all outside.”  The writer then describes the affected penurious habits of the grave citizens, who were then preying on the country gentlemen:—­“When those big swoln leeches, that have thus sucked them, wear rags, eat roots, speak like jugglers that have reeds in their mouths; look like spittle-men, especially when your Majesty hath occasion to use them; their fat lies in their hearts, their substance is buried in their bowels, and he that will have it must first take their lives.  Their study is to get, and their chiefest care to conceal; and most from yourself, gracious sir; not a commodity comes from their hand, but you pay a noble in the pound for booking, which they call forbearing[B] They think it lost time if they double not their principal in two years.  They have attractive powders to draw these flies into their claws; they will entice men with honey into their hives, and with wax entangle them;[C] they pack the cards, and their confederates, the lords, deal, by which means no other men have ever good game.  They have in a few years laid up riches for many, and yet can never be content to say—­Soul, take thy rest, or hand receive no more; do no more wrong: but still they labour to join house to house,