than even to their lives and fortunes; for in courts of law it was customary, even if not openly permitted, to bear false witness against your neighbour, to calumniate him in writing, and to seek his destruction or his death. Laws which touched the life ought to be written, because in capital cases no man ought to be left to an uncertain sentence, nor to the will of a Judge, but all other cases should be left to the Judges, who ought always to be chosen from Monasteries, or some other course of retired life, and selected for their religious character. This she thought, with the imposition of a heavy fine for any direct falsehood, or false representation advanced either in evidence, or in pleading, and for denying the truth, or suppressing it, would produce the desired reformation. Next she considered the condition of the agricultural labourers, a class which had greatly diminished and which it was most desirable to increase. Their condition was to be bettered by raising their wages and consequently the price of produce, and exempting their cattle, their stores and their persons from being taken in execution. She would also have them protected against their own imprudence, by preventing them from obtaining credit for wedding garments, that being one of the most prevalent and ruinous modes of extravagance in her days. In this rank of life it sometimes happened, that a shopkeeper not only seized the garments themselves, but the peasant's cattle also to make up the payment of a debt thus contracted. She thought it a strange want of policy that in a country where the corn failed for want of rain, the waters with which all brooks and rivers were filled in winter should be allowed to run to waste. Therefore she advised that great tanks and reservoirs should be formed for the purposes of irrigation, and that they should be rendered doubly profitable by stocking them with fish, such as shad, tench and trout. She advised also that the seed should frequently be changed, and crops raised in succession, because the soil loved to embrace new products: and that new plants should be introduced from the Indies; where hitherto the Spaniards had been more intent upon introducing their own, than in bringing home from thence others to enrich their own country; the cacao in particular she recommended, noticing that this nut for its excellence had even been used as money. Duels she thought the Christian Princes and the Pope might easily prevent, by erecting a Jurisdiction which should take cognizance of all affairs of honour. She would have had them also open the road to distinction for all who deserved it, so that no person should be debarred by his birth from attaining to any office or rank; this she said, was the way to have more Rolands and Cids, more Great Captains, more Hannibals and Tamerlanes.