"Who much do crave, of much have need; But well is he whom God indeed, Though with a sparing hand, doth feed."
Or again, speaking of "the commodities this country yields":
"England hath store of bridges, hills, and wool, Of churches, wells, and women beautiful."
He is no mere antiquarian, however, and quotes Chaucer and Robert of Gloucester as well as Theocritus and Horace; he is seriously perturbed at the decline of agriculture in Devonshire; in spite of the fertility of the soil, he says, it yields insufficience of bread, beer, and victual, to feed itself, for which the country has to have recourse to Wales or Ireland, so much so that in 1610 there was 60,000 pounds of corn brought into one harbour alone. The reason for this is the increase in trades, so that . . . "the meanest sort of people will now rather place their children to some of these mechanical trades than to husbandry"; in spite, also, of the almost sacred character of husbandry, which was clearly recognized in "elder times," so that even the rudest and most savage peoples respected ploughmen and tillers of the soil in time of war. He then quotes some melancholy verses of Virgil, and gives the whole chapter a twist of humour by ending up with--"But not a word of this in any case, especially that I told you so; and we will proceed to the next and speak of mines."
I will also "proceed to the next," and speak of Bishop Jewel, a fellow-countryman of Westcote's, and one about whom he speaks in the highest praise: "a perfect rich gem and true jewel indeed . . . so that if anywhere the observation of Chrysostom be true, that there lies a great hidden treasure in names, surely it may rightly be said to be here: grace in John, and eminent perfection in jewel."
John Jewel was born at Berrynarbor, near Ilfracombe, in 1522; he went to Merton College, Oxford, where he had for tutor John Parkhurst, under whom he early acquired a bent towards Protestantism. After the accession of Mary he allowed himself, in a moment of weakness, to sign an adherence to the Romish faith, but his recantation weighed upon his conscience, he fled to the Continent, and there publicly withdrew it. In the reign of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was one of the Protestant doctors chosen to dispute before her at Westminster with a like number of Catholic divines. He became Bishop of Salisbury in 1560, and held that office till his death in 1571. His chief work was an "Apology for the Anglican Church"; and his chief opponent was Thomas Harding, who was born at Comb Martin, the next parish, and who, like Jewel, went to the grammar-school at Barnstaple in his early boyhood, so that they were near neighbours and dear enemies. "As I cannot well take a hair from your lying beard, so I wish I could pluck malice from your blasphemous heart," says Harding to Jewel, in that savage personal invective that religious controversialists have permitted themselves in all ages. Jewel does not seem ever to have answered in this unworthy strain, and the singular purity of his life, the sincerity of his opinions, and a certain lovable quality to which all his contemporaries bear witness, gave even his political adversaries a personal attachment to him. "I should love thee, Jewel, wert thou not a Zwinglian," cries one. "In thy faith thou art a heretic, but sure in the life thou art an angel"--surely the most splendid tribute that a man can have, when we consider the bitterness and animosity bred by a difference of religious belief. To all who loved him--and it seems to have been his whole generation--his name gave the opportunity of affectionate puns, quips, and little epigrams; to Queen Elizabeth he was "my Jewel," and the epitaph Westcote makes upon him is that of St. Gregory upon St. Basil: "His words were thunder, and his life lightning," and his memory "a fragrant sweet-smelling odour, blown abroad . . . throughout the whole kingdom."