I ragguagli di Parnasso, or, Advertisements from Parnassus in two centuries : with the politick touch-stone / written originally in Italian by that famous Roman Trajano Bocalini ; and now put into English by the Right Honourable Henry, Earl of Monmouth.

Apollo detesteth the means that are recommended to him, for getting of Monies.

Extraordinary is the want of money which at this time is in Pernas∣sus; for not only his Majesties Exchequer, and Treasures, and the greatest Princes of this Court, but likewise the Gentlemen, the Mer∣chants, and the Artisans are in great distress for it; in so much, that ma∣ny daies since the Commissioners for Apollo's Royal Patrimony, and o∣thers deputed by his Majesty over this business, did a long time consider and consult, what course was to be taken for the remedying of this dis∣order.

And it was resolved by all to be very expedient, that likewise into Pernassus should be introduced that admirable custom observed by ma∣ny Princes in Italy, of selling the publick revenues to private men, they which bought them, paying the honest Rent of six in the hundred; and that it should be lawful also for private men to put out their money to such as had need of it, at the return of eight in the hundred, by the name of Consideration.

This course which these Gentlemen so highly approved of, as soon as ever it was proposed to Apollo, was immediately rejected, as most per∣nicious to all Estates publick and private: And his Majesty then said, that he would not by any means, by the engaging to another the pub∣lick Revenues of his Estate, give an odious president to other Princes, for encumbring in their life times, those incomes, which as they had re∣ceived free, so they ought to transmit them to their successors. For by such inventions as these, there was not only a doore opened to the ruine of Estates, but the way was levelled for the avarice and malice of those Princes, who either because they Reign in States elective, or because in hereditary, they have no successor of their own race, would dismember those publick Rents, which are the true Store-houses, and the secure Magazines that preserve and aggrandize Kingdoms.

A disorder, which being by the excessive malice of some Princes in∣troduced into their States hath extreamly weakened them. And upon the very same subject his Majesty said further, that in many States, the Taxes and Imposts were now-adaies observed to be much increased, be∣cause the new-entring Princes have found the publick Revenues mort∣gaged by their Predecessors; and that they themselves, to provide for the urgent necessities of their States, and the private exigents of their Families, were enforced to invent new Taxes, and even against their wils, with odious Impositions to overload their afflicted and tired sub∣jects. Which errors men should so much the more fear that they would one day ruine their States, by how much the more Princes, not to run the manifest hazard of enkindling great commotions in their ju∣risdictions, and being no longer able to charge the people with new Taxations, should at last be constrained to grow desperate, and to seize

upon the Rents, colouring their rapacity with the pretence, that it was more then their predecessors could doe to empawn them so prodigally and maliciously, to the prejudice of the State, and of their successors.

And that States being subject to the sentence of the sword, and the tribunal of violence, if it should happen that a Kingdom, where the dis∣order of engaging the publick Revenues, was practised, should be usurp∣ed and taken on him, by any Potentates; the new Prince by relin∣quishing the ordinary payments, would have, if not a just, at least a co∣lourable reason, to commit that cruel outrage of ruining the Patrimony of infinitely many widows, orphans, and other poor creatures that had had all their estates laid out upon the purchase of the publick Revenues. And that he knew, the abuse of alienating the publick Revenues, was gone so far, that many Princes with unheard of avarice and greediness, had either ransacked their own estates, or suffered them to run to ruine; and this horrid cruelty they would have to be taken for politick wit, so to wea∣ken, in elective States, a hated successor; in hereditary a stranger. And last∣ly Apollo said, That it was most wickedly resolved upon, that private men by the purchase of the publick Revenues, and the mischievous bring∣ing in of Consideration-money, should fetch gain out of meer and bare money, without putting it forth upon any commodities; it being a most abominable thing, that men born to live by the sweat of their brows, to manure the earth, and attend upon the multiplication of cattel, should be maintained by those Usuries which are got out of a dead heap of mo∣ney. A piece of bruitishness that is good for nothing but to make In∣dustrious men lean, and Usurers Fat.