IT is not for Protection this little Treatise presumes to present it self to your view , let its own Innocency and honest Design be its Guard ; its Errand is only to represent the most natural Causes of the Poverty of your Country , by discovering not only the grand Robbers of its Treasure , but the lesser Theeves that creep in at every window , and pilfer every House , and pick every Pocket , whereby not only the noble and wealthy , but the mean and poor are daily made poorer ; and it chuseth to make its Address to your Lordship , as the chief Concernee , of a Subject , in its Prosperity , as being Heir to the highest Honor and most noble Patrimony in this I le , and from thence will probably be in the best Capacity , after a few more years have ripened your pregnant Parts , to do it good or hurt ; and amongst the other Heroick Vertues you derive from your most noble Ancestors , it is wish'd and hop'd this may be intail'd , that you are a true Lover of your Country , that it may be said of you in after ages , as of Mordecai the noble Jew , He was next to the King great amongst his people , accepted of the multitude , seeking the Wealth of his Country : your Predecessors have sav'd you a labour as to the raising your own House , one Stone more would make that top-heavy , all you have left to do is to keep that in repair , and to finish the Structures they have begun for the Wealth and Prosperity of your Country ; for as they have been called to the highest Imploys by their Prince , so have they not disdained to stoop to the meanest Service for the Improvement of the Trade , &c. of their Country , the many chargeable Attempts made by them for the erecting and incouraging Manufactures , &c. Chappellizod , Clonmell , Carrick , and about twelve places more , where Attempts have been made by their Example and Countenance , will tell the next age of their unparallel'd Incouragements to improve the Manufactures and Trade of Ireland ; and this little Book will inform them why they succeeded no better . I am not unsensible the scornful useless Wits of this Age will insinuate to your Lordship , Mercantile and Mechanick Studies are below your Dignity ; but let me reply , they have but depraved Fancies that tell you so ; ask your most noble Grandfather why he hath admitted such free access . and spent so much time in conference with men of Mechanick and Mercantile Rank and Breeding , he will tell you , it was that he might understand the Interest and Intrigue of Trade to promote it , as the only means to improve the Wealth of his Country ; and both divine and prophane History informs us , most of the useful and beneficial Arts , wherewith the world flourisheth , were the Inventions of famous men : It is recorded to the praise of Tuball Caan , a Prince in his time , that he was the first Instructer of every Artificer to work in Brass , and Iron ; &c. and of holy Noah , the last King of the old World , that God instructed him to be his chief Ship-Carpenter , Genes. 6.14 . Bezaleele and Aboliab were Princes of their Tribes , whom God filled with wisdom , understanding and knowledge in all manner of Workmanship , to devise cunning works . to work in Gold and Silver , and in Brass , in cutting of Stones , and carving of Timber , Exod. 31.45 . So Solomon , Israels most glorious King , was the Inventer of all those curious Works he made to adorn both Gods House and his own , and the Contriver of his Ships to manage his Traffique with Ophir for Gold , whereby he became the wealthiest Prince in the world ; and so great a veneration had the antient Heathens for profitable and useful Arts , they attributed the Invention of them to their Gods ; so that most acute Wit , and compleatest States-man of his age , Sir Henry Wotton , in his Character of the Grand Duke of Tuskany , dedicated to King James , to the rest of his Qualifications , as that he was a wise and wary Prince , solidly not formally so , &c. saith , He was a great Cherisher of manual Arts , whereby he drew to him from all parts the most exquisite Artificers , gave them settled Pensions , and placed them in several compartments of his Palace , where he would come often to see them work for his own delight , being in truth the greatest Oeconomist of his age ; and as he had much of the Prince , so did he not disdain to have something of the Merchant : and our brave Prince Rupert hath increas'd not lessen'd his Fame in the Field of Mars , by sullying his Hands and smutting his Face in the Forge of Vulcan : That Glory of his Country for Wit and Learning , the Lord Bacon , did not spend his time in Philosophical Theory , but in the practical part of manual Arts , as the Incorporation and refining of Mettals and Minerals , &c. vide his Phisiologica from pag. 91. to pag. 146.

And in his Speech to the Parliament , saith he , I hope , my Lords , my midnight Studies to make our Countries flourish , and out-vie European Neighbourt in mysterial and beneficial Arts , have not so ungratefully affected your Intellects , that you will delay or oppose this Affair , since your honorable Posterities may be enriched thereby p. 132.

The despising the Study of Mechanick Arts is only the product of Romantick Fancies , who more esteem the Composer of Plays than the Inventers of Works , though they are no more useful in a Commonwealth than Fidlers in a Country Parish , to incite to Idleness and Debauchery .

Titus Livius tells you , they were first designed to appease the angry Gods in a time of great Mortality ; and well they became the Worship of such beastly Deities , whose Worship consisting in Antick Gestures and Garbs , with Mimick motions directed with Musick , mixt with abominable Immoralities , especially their Bacchanalies , &c.

But saith he , The Actors were not base Comedians , or Professors of the infamous Players Craft , who are grown to this Foolery and excessive Sumptuousmess , as can hardly be defrayed by the most wealthy Kingdoms , but by the Noble Youth of the City ; Livius Supplement . pag. 205 , 206. Vertuous Heathens are the Reproach of vicious Christians , who retain a greater veneration for Moral than they for Divine Precepts ; if Christians would retain half the veneration to the Divine Precepts of St. Peter , Paul , &c. that Heathens gave to the Moral Precepts of Seneca , Socrates and Plutarch , Preciseness would not be the Reproach and Prophaneness the Applause of these last and worst times of this doting old World as it is : saith the deservedly admired Orinda , For since it s grown in fashion to be bad , And to be vain , or angry , proud or mad , While in their Vices only men agree Is thought the only modern Gallantry , How would some brave Examples check the Crimes And both reproach and yet reform the Times .

But however Romantick Fancies and Composers of Plays are now admired by a Generation of men , who are like those Boys that are fond of their play , but hate their Books : yet Inventers and Improvers of manual Arts have ever been esteemed the Patrons of the Honor and Wealth of their Country , by all that esteem publick profit before private pleasure .

Sir , it is not the Art of the Tradesman , but the Knowledge of the Statesman I recommend to your Study : For though it be not necessary your Lordship should understand when Leather is well tanned , or Wool well ordered , or Flesh and Fish with their products well saved , nor when Cloth & Stuff is true made , yet it is very convenient , your Noble Self , and others like to be concerned with you in State Affairs , should be acquainted how much the right Managing those lesser matters tends to the Credit and Wealth of your Country , and that the Labour of the poor , when rightly improved , produceth greater Wealth to a Country than the Revenue of the rich , as is evident in the Chapter of Manufactures .

And as your Lordship may be eminently serviceable herein in your publick station , when you come to be a Chief Minister of State , so at present by your leading Example in being the chief Member of that honourable Society , proposed for curing all our Mercantile maladies in the Chapter of Corporation-Trade , few sober young Gentlemen but would esteem it their Honour as well as their Interest to be ingaged with you in a work so beneficial to their Country , and convenient to themselves ; for it is the Glory of Princes and Nobles to imbarque themselves in Designs for the publick Weal of their Country , wherein your Lordship hath Royal as well as Noble examples in the members of the African and Canary Companies at London , &c. and it is recorded , to the Honor of the Lord Chancellor Cromwel , after his grateful Requital of his old Friend Francis Friscobald , a decayed Banker of Florence , that he highly importuned him to stay and erect a new Bank in London , offering to go a share with him to the value of 60000 Duckats , a considerable Sum in those times .

And this work of improving Ireland in Trade and Manufactures seems to be reserved for the Age your Lordship is to act your part on the publick Stage ; for , as I demonstrate in the first Chapter , Ireland was never capable of it until the year 1660. and since then many hopeful Attempts have miscarried for want of discerning the Defects in their Foundation , for which Experience since then hath supplied Remedies , which this little Book proposes ; that as your most Illustrious Grandfather hath had the Honor to regulate and settle the real Estates of this Kingdom , a work of that weight and difficulty , few Heads or Hands but his own could have performed so , to the general satisfaction of all the different opposite Interests ; so will it probably be your Lordships work to build upon that well laid Foundation , by improving the personal Estates of Irelands Inhabitants , which nothing but the propagating its Trade and Manufactures can do , and that is a Work will prosper in no hand but that of Interest , as is asserted in the Chapter of Irelands Interest in its own Government : and none will question but your Lordship hath the greatest Interest in Irelands Prosperity of any Subject in the Kings Dominions ; and as your Interest , so your natural Genius , if your observes mistake not , inclines you to Seriousness , a temper this frothy age needs your example in ; and it is hop'd by them that love you , it is not only the gravity of your paternal Education and Example , but the power of your own innate solid Humour , that hath preserved you to this age so spotless , wherein too many young Noblemen are ignobly vicious , to the reproach of their Dignities : titular Honour abstracted from Vertue is but the shadow of Greatness , vertuous and heroick Actions are the substance of it .

Juvenal . fol 279. Is there in Greatness so much good as will But only serve to counterpoise the ill ? Each Crime is so conspicuously base , As he that sins is great in Birth or Place . Herbert . But who will honour him that 's Honours shame , Noble in nothing but a noble Name ? Honour consists in Worth , not Blood , The Great weigh nothing if not good : The men whose Vertue is thir Birth Have been the greatest men on Earth . Which Campion in his Epistle to Robert Earl of Leicester , the Darling of his Princess , and Glory of his Country in his time , affirms ; having enumerated the excellent Qualifications of his Mind , and loveliness of his Deportment , saith ; these are indeed the Kernels that shine through the Shell of your Nobility , this is the Sap that preserves the Bark of your noble Tree , these are the Substance that make you worthy of those Ornaments wherewith you are attir'd , &c. therein placing the worth of this great Statesman , not in his high Birth or glittering Titles , which were even of the highest Dignities at Court , but in his noble and vertuous Qualities shining through the glass of titular Dignities : vitious great ones are apt to measure their own Fame by their own Shadows , and by the Flatteries of Sicovants about them , when the better such speak of them , the worse the vertuous think of them ; as a good man once said ; Lord what evil have I done that this wicked man praiseth me ? the judicious will not judge of others so much by their personal Carriage , as by their Company ; when we observe the Ravens and Crows are gathered together croaking we conclude there is Carrion neer that place , it is the unhappiness of vicious Potentates to have all the Beasts & Birds of prey following them by their ill scent , and to have swarms of Flesh-flies buzzing their praise , as if every vice were a vertue ; but it is determined by a more unchangeable decree than that of the Medes and Persians , that the Name of the wicked shall rot . Prov. 10.7 .

Histories acquaint after ages with their Vices as well as Vertues , and tell the world what cruel Tyrants , the Nimrods , Pharaohs , Herods , &c.

What gross Idolaters , Ahab , Manasses , &c.

Nay prophane Histories penned by Heathens record to posterity what beastly Drunkards , &c. Great Alexander and his valiant Captains were , that his Darling Ephestion , and soon after himself drunk themselves dead whilst young .

What effeminate leacherous Sots , Sardanapalis , Galba , &c.

What traitorous Villains to their Country , the Catalines , &c.

What lascivious Goats , the Tarquins , Caligula , &c.

What bloody Persecutors , Domitian , Nero , &c.

What vile Apostates , Julian , &c.

Though the most vicious of Popes in their life time usually enjoy the flattering Titles of Sacred and Holiness , &c. who tho' Devils incarnate are worship'd as Gods , yet after they are dead that irrevokable divine Sentence Matt. 10.27 . is executed , What they do in secret shall be published on the House-tops : Genebr . Onusoph . Platina , &c. Histories of their own tell us who were Atheists , who Blasphemers , , who Conjurers , who Sodomites , who usurping Tyrants , Murtherers , infallible Hereticks , and who sensual lascivious Adulterers . Now the Wise man , who tells us , A good Name is better than great Riches , intends it not only whilst we live but after death , the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance : present Applauses are the fading Garlands of all Potentates , good and bad , but future Fame is only the Crown of the vertuous : which your famous Father now wears , and will do , to the shame of his Successors that shall degenerate from his Character , as is declared in the ensuing Poems , pick'd out of the several Prints upon his greatly lamented Death .