24
their country and its constitution ; but instead
of giving to labouring people a valuable stake in
the soil, cottages have been progressively de-
prived of the little land formerly let with them,
and all their rights of commonage have been
swallowed up in large farms by enclosures.
Thus an amazing number of people, from a com-
fortable state of partial independence, have been
reduced to the precarious state of mere hirelings,
who, when out of work, immediately come to the
parish." The same Author informs us, " that
the great Philosopher Bacon, in his History of
Henry 8th, praises an enactment, that all houses
of husbandry, with 20 acres of ground to them,
should be kept up for ever, together with a com-
petent portion of land to be occupied with them ;
and in no wise to be severed from them: this
did, of necessity, enforce, that the inhabitant is
not to be a beggar." In the 25th Henry 8th,
our kind rector informs us, that particular stress
is laid on the impropriety of permitting many
farms being accumulated into few hands. In the
31st of Elizabeth, cap. 7, an Act passed to pre-
vent any cottage being built in the country
without four acres of land being attached to it,
but after continuing for nearly two centuries,
unfortunately was repealed by the 15th Geo. 3rd,
on the principle, which in these times must
appear extraordinary, that it caused a difficulty
to the poor to find habitations, and thereby