that the landlord will take such order with him for the same when he reneweth his lease, which is commonly eight or six years before the old be expired (sith it is now grown almost to a custom that if he come not to his lord so long before another shall step in for a reversion, and so defeat him outright), that it shall never trouble him more than the hair of his beard when the barber hath washed and shaved it from his chin. [1] This was in the time of general idleness.--H. And as they commend these, so (beside the decay of housekeeping whereby the poor have been relieved) they speak also of three things that are grown to be very grevious unto them--to wit, the enhancing of rents, lately mentioned; the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords seek to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times increasing their fines, driving them also for every trifle to lose and forfeit their tenures (by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained), to the end they may fleece them yet more, which is a lamentable hearing. The third thing they talk of is usury, a trade brought in by the Jews, now perfectly practised almost by every Christian, and so commonly that he is accompted but for a fool that doth lend his money for nothing. In time past it was _sors pro sorte_--that is, the principal only for the principal; but now, beside that which is above the principal properly called _Usura_, we challenge _Foenus_--that is, commodity of soil and fruits of the earth, If not the ground itself. In time past also one of the hundred was much; from thence it rose unto two, called in Latin _Usura, Ex sextante_; three, to wit _Ex quadrante_; then to four, to wit, _Ex triente_; then to five, which is _Ex quincunce_; then to six, called _Ex semisse_, etc. As the accompt of the _Assis_ ariseth, and coming at the last unto _Usura ex asse_, it amounteth to twelve in the hundred, and therefore the Latins call it _Centesima_, for that in the hundred month it doubleth the principal; but more of this elsewhere. See Cicero against Verres, Demosthenes against Aphobus, and Athenaeus, lib. 13, in fine; and, when thou hast read them well, help I pray thee in lawful manner to hang up such as take _Centum pro cento_, for they are no better worthy as I do judge in conscience. Forget not also such landlords as used to value their leases at a secret estimation given of the wealth and credit of the taker, whereby they seem (as it were) to eat them up, and deal with bondmen, so that if the lessee be thought to be worth a hundred pounds he shall pay no less for his new term, or else another to enter with hard and doubtful covenants. I am sorry to report it, much more grieved to understand of the practice, but most sorrowful of all to understand that men of great port and countenance