Bacon has recorded for us the opinions and the sentiments of his contemporaries on the subject. In his essay _Of Seditions and Troubles_, written some time between 1607 and 1612, he says: “Above all things, good Policie is to be used, that the Treasure and Moneyes, in a State, be not gathered into few Hands. For otherwise, a State may have a great Stock, and yet starve.... This is done, chiefly, by suppressing, or at least, keeping a strait Hand, upon the Devouring Trades of _Usurie_, etc.” In this passage Bacon objects to usury on economic grounds. Elsewhere he sets forth objections of a totally different nature. In the essay _Of Riches_, published in 1625, he says: “Usury is the certainest Meanes of Gaine, though one of the worst; As that, whereby a Man doth eate his Bread; _In sudore vultûs alieni_; and besides, doth Plough upon Sundaies.” Aristotle’s mischievous metaphor was still quoted as an argument against usury. It is mentioned by Bacon among the many “witty invectives against usury”[129] current in his time, and it is embodied by Shakespeare in the phrase that usurers “take a breed for barren metal.”[130] At that time the question was engrossing public attention. In 1621 a Bill for the abatement of usury had been brought into Parliament, and two years later a second Bill to the same effect passed the Commons. Bacon seized the opportunity for the publication of his essay _Of Usurie_, which appeared in 1623. In a letter to Secretary Conway he states that his object in writing it was to suggest means, whereby “to grind the teeth of usury and yet to make it grind to his Majesty’s mill in good sort, without discontent or perturbation.” In consonance with this view, Bacon describes usury as an evil, indeed, but as an inevitable evil: “For since there must be Borrowing and Lending, and Men are so hard of Heart, as they will not lend freely, Usury must be permitted.” He proceeds to balance the advantages and disadvantages of the practice and comes to the conclusion that it should be recognised and controlled by the State, for “It is better to mitigate Usury by Declaration, than to suffer it to rage by Connivance.” Bacon’s advocacy was not wasted. ♦1624♦ In the following year Usury was once more sanctioned by the Legislature and interest was reduced to 8 per cent. But this measure did not obliterate the deep-seated hatred of the money-lender, nor did it weaken the popular idea that usury was the peculiar attribute of a Jew. Bacon in the same essay tells us that there were among his contemporaries men who recommended “that Usurers should have Orange-tawney Bonnets, because they doe Judaize.”