unable, they find a hospital. Their providence extends ever from the prince to the catching of flies; and, lest you lose an afternoon by fruitless mourning, by two of the clock all burials must end; wherein, to prevent the waste of ground, they pile coffin upon coffin, till the sepulchre be full.

In all their manufactures they hold a truth and constancy; for they are, as fruit from trees, the same every year, that they are at first; not apples one year, and crabs the next, and so forever after. In the sale of these they are also at a word; they will gain rather, than exact; and have not that way, whereby our citizens abuse the wise, and cozen the ignorant; and, by their infinite overasking for commodities, proclaim to the world, that they would cheat all, if it were in their power.

The deprivation of manners they punish with contempt; but the defects of nature they favor with charity. Even their Bedlam is a place so curious, that a lord might live in it. Their hospital might lodge a lady. So that safely you may conclude, among them even poverty and madness do both inhabit handsomely. And though vice makes every thing turn sordid, yet the state will have the very correction of it to be neat; as if they would show, that though obedience fail, yet government must be still itself, and decent. To prove this they, that do but view their bridewell, will think it may receive a gentleman, though a gallant. And so their prison a wealthy citizen. But for the poor it is his best policy to be laid there; for he, that cast him in, must maintain him.

Their language, though it differ from the higher Germany, yet hath it the same ground, and is as old, as Babel; and albeit harsh, yet so lofty and full of tongue, as made Goropius Becanus maintain it for the speech of Adam in Paradise. And surely, if there were not other reasons against it, the significancy of the ancient Teutonic might carry it from the primest dialect. Stevin of Bruges reckons up 2170 monosyllables, which being compounded, how richly do they grace a tongue? A tongue, that for the general profession is extended farther, than any, that I know. You may hear in

what honorable terms Tacitus mentions them, where, speaking of the several people of Germany, he says, ❝ omnium "harum gentium virtute præcipui Batavi. Nam nec tribu❤ "tis contemnuntur, nec publicanus atterit; exempti oneri"bus et collationibus, et tantùm in usum præliorum sepositi, "velut tela atque arma bellis reservantur." Of all these na

tions the principal in valiant virtue are the Batavians; for neither are they become despicable by paying of tribute, nor oppressed too much by the farmer of public revenues; but, free from taxes and contributions of servility, they are specially set apart for the fight, as armor and weapons only reserved for war,

All this even to this day they seem to make good. For of all the world they are the people, that thrive, and grow rich by war, like the Porepisce, that plays in the storm, but at other times keeps sober under water.

War, which is the world's ruin, and ravins upon the beauty of all, is to them prosperity and ditation. And surely the reason of this is their strength in shipping, the open sea, their many fortified towns, and the country, by reason of its lowness and irriguation, becoming unpassable for an army, when winter approaches. Otherwise it is hardly possible, that so small a portion of mankind should brave the most potent monarch in christendom, who in his own hands holds the mines of the war's sinews, money; and hath now got a command so wide, that out of his dominions the sun can neither rise nor set.

The whole seventeen provinces are not above a thousand English miles in circuit, and in the state's hands there is net seven of those; yet have they in the field sometimes 60,000 soldiers beside those, which they always keep in garrison, which cannot be but a considerable number, nearly 30,000 more. There being in the whole countries above two hundred walled towns and cities; so that, if they have people for the war, one would wonder, where they should get money to pay them, they being, when they have an army in the field, at a thousand pounds a day charge extraordinary.

To maintain this their excise is an unwasted mine, which, with the infiniteness of their traffic, and their united industry, is by every part of the world in something or other contributed to.

The sea yields them, by two sorts of fish only, herring and cod, sixty thousand pounds per annum; for which they go out sometimes seven or eight hundred boats at once, and for greater ships they are able to set out double the number.

Their merchandise amounted in Guicciardine's time to fourteen millions per annum; whereas England, which is in compass almost as large again, and hath the ocean, as a ring about her, made not above six millions yearly; so sedulous are these bees to labor, and enrich their hive.

As they on the sea, so the women are busy on land in weaving of nets, and helping to add to the heap. ̧ And, though a husband's long absence might tempt them to lascivious ways; yet they hate adultery, and are resolute in matrimonial chastity. I do not remember, that ever I read in story of any great lady of that nation, that hath been taxed with looseness,

It is idleness, that is cupid's nurse; but business breaks his bow, and makes his arrows useless.

They are both merchants and farmers; and there act parts, which men can but discharge with us. As if they would show, that the soul is masculine in all, and not varied into weaker sexes, as are the bodies, that they wear about them.

Whether this be from the nature of their country, in which; if they be not laborious, they cannot live; or from an innate genius of the people by a superior providence adapted to them of such a situation; from their own inclination addicted to parsimony; from custom in their way of breeding; from any transcendency of active parts more, than other nations; or from being in their country like people in a city besieged, whereby their own virtues do more compact and fortifie, I will not determine. But certainly in general they are the most painful and diligent people on earth; and of all

others the most truly of Vespasian's opinion, to think, that "ex re qualibet bonus odor lucri." Be it raised from what it will, the smell of gain is pleasant.

Yet they are in some sort gods, for they set bounds to the sea, and when they list let it pass them.

Even their dwelling is a miracle; they live lower, than the fishes, in the very lap of the floods; and, incircled in their watery arms, they are the Israelites passing through the Red Sea. The waters wall them in, and, if they set ope their sluices, shall drown up their enemies.

They have struggled long with Spain's Pharaoh, and they have at length inforced him to let them go. They are a Gideon's army upon the march again. They are the Indian rat, knawing the bowels of the Spanish crocodile, to which they got when he gaped to swallow them. They are a serpent wreathed about the legs of that elephant. They are the little sword fish pricking the belly of the whale. They are the wane of that empire, which increased in Isabella, and in Charles V was full.

They are a glass, wherein kings may see, that, though they be sovereign over lives and goods, yet, when they usurp upon God's part, and will be kings over conscience too, they are sometimes punished with loss of that, which lawfully is their own. That religion too fiercely urged is to stretch a thing, till it not only jars, but cracks; and in the breaking whips perhaps the strainer's eye out.

That ty

That an extreme taxation is to take away the honey, while the bees keep the hive; whereas he, that would take that, should first either burn them, or drive them out. rants in their government are the greatest traitors to their own estates. That a desire of being too absolute is to walk upon pinacles and the tops of pyramids, where not only the footing is full of hazards, but even the sharpness of that, they tread on, may run into their foot, and wound them. That too much to regrate on the patience of but tickle subjects is to press a thorn. That nothing makes a more desperate rebel, than a prerogative inforced too far.

That liberty in man is, as the skin to the body, not to be put off but together with life. That they, which will command more, than they ought, shall not at last command so much, as is fit.

That moderate princes sit faster in their regalities, than such, as being but men would yet have their jects, as the gods, unlimited. heat, till it burns the hand.

power over their subThat oppression is an iron That to debar some states of

ancient privileges is for a falcon to undertake to beat a flock of wild geese out of the fens. That to go about to compel a sullen reason to a wilful peremptoriness is so long to beat a chained mastiff into the kennel, till he turns, and flies at your throat. That unjust policy is to shoot, as they did at Ostend, into the mouth of a charged cannon, to have two bullets returned for one. That he doth but endanger himself, that riding with too weak a bit provokes a headstrong horse with a spur. That it is safer to meet a valiant man weaponless, than almost a coward in armor. That even a weak cause with a strong castle will boil salt blood to a rebellious itch. That it is better keeping a crasie body in an equal temper, than to anger humors by too sharp a physic.

That admonitions from a dying man are too serious to be neglected. That there is nothing certain, that is not impossible. That a cobler of Flushing was one of the greatest enemies, that the king of Spain ever had.

To conclude; the country itself is a moted castle, keeping a garnish of the richest jewels of the world in it, the queen of Bohemia and her princely children.

The people in it are Jews of the New Testament, that have exchanged nothing but the law for the gospel; and this they profess rather, than practise. Together, a man of war riding at anchor in the downs of Germany.

For foreign princes to help them is wise selfpolicy; when they have made them able to defend themselves against Spain, they are at the pale; if they enable them to offend others, they go beyond it.

For questionless, were this thorn out of the Spaniard's