[161] He alludes to the bad policy of Henry the Third of France, who espoused the part of “The League,” which was formed by the Duke of Guise and other Catholics for the extirpation of the Protestant faith. When too late he discovered his error, and finding his own authority entirely superseded, he caused the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal De Lorraine, his brother, to be assassinated. [162] “The primary motive power.” He alludes to an imaginary centre of gravitation, or central body, which was supposed to set all the other heavenly bodies in motion. [163] “Too freely to remember their own rulers.” [164] “I will unloose the girdles of kings.” He probably alludes here to the first verse of the 45th chapter of Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates.” [165] “Hence devouring usury, and interest accumulating in lapse of time; hence shaken credit, and warfare, profitable to the many.”—_Lucan. Phars._ i. 181. [166] “Warfare profitable to the many.” [167] “To grief there is a limit, not so to fear.” [168] “Check,” or “daunt.” [169] This is similar to the proverb now in common use: “’Tis the last feather that breaks the back of the camel.” [170] The state. [171] Though sumptuary laws are probably just in theory, they have been found impracticable in any other than infant states. Their principle, however, is certainly recognized in such countries as by statutory enactment discountenance gaming. Those who are opposed to such laws upon principle, would do well to look into Bernard Mandeville’s “Fable of the Bees,” or “Private Vices Public Benefits.” The Romans had numerous sumptuary laws, and in the Middle Ages there were many enactments in this country against excess of expenditure upon wearing apparel and the pleasures of the table. [172] He means that they do not add to the capital of the country. [173] At the expense of foreign countries. [174] “The workmanship will surpass the material.”—_Ovid, Met._ B. ii. l. 5. [175] He alludes to the manufactures of the Low Countries. [176] Like manure. [177] Sometimes printed _engrossing, great pasturages_. By _engrossing_, is meant the trade of _engrossers_—men who buy up all that can be got of a particular commodity, then raise the price. By _great pasturages_ is meant turning corn land into pasture. Of this practice great complaints had been made for near a century before Bacon’s time, and a law passed to prevent it.—See _Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s History of Henry VIII._