Note 68 — DIALOGUE III. ON THE AGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Dr. Arbuthnot, too, has his authority. A famous politician of the last century expresseth himself to much the same purpose, after his manner: “Henceforth, says he, [that is, after the statutes against retainers in Hen. VII’s reign] the country lives, and great tables of the nobility, which no longer nourished veins that would bleed for them, were fruitless and loathsome till they changed the air, and of princes became courtiers; where their revenues, never to have been exhausted by beef and mutton, were found narrow; whence followed racking of rents, and, at length, sale of lands.” Sir James Harrington’s Oceana, p. 40. Lond. 1656.