ous.

EUPOLIS. They are the less hardy1, and the more dangerBut come and sit down with us, for we were speaking of the affairs of Christendom at this day; wherein we would be glad also to have your opinion.

POLLIO. My lords, I have journeyed this morning, and it is now the heat of the day; therefore your lordship's discourses had need content my ears very well, to make them intreat mine eyes to keep open. But yet if you will give me leave to awake you, when I think your discourses do but sleep, I will keep watch the best I can.

EUPOLIS. You cannot do us a greater favour. Only I fear you will think all our discourses to be but the better sort of dreams; for good wishes, without power to effect2, are not much more. But, Sir, when you came in, Martius had both raised our attentions and affected us with some speech he had begun; and it falleth out well to shake off your drowsiness; for it seemed to be the trumpet of a War. And therefore (Martius) if it please you to begin again; for the speech was such as deserveth to be heard twice; and I assure you, your auditory is not a little amended by the presence of Pollio.

MARTIUS. When you came in (Pollio), I was saying freely to these lords, that I had observed how by the space now of half a century of years there had been (if I may speak it) a kind of meanness in, the designs and enterprises of Christendom. Wars with subjects; like an angry suit for a man's own, that mought be better ended by accord. Some petty acquests of a town, or a spot of territory; like a farmer's purchase of a close or nook of ground that lay fit for him. And although the wars had been for a Naples, or a Milan, or a Portugal, or a Bohemia, yet these wars were but as the wars of Heathen, (of Athens, or Sparta, or Rome,) for secular interest or ambition, not worthy the warfare of Christians. The Church (indeed) maketh her missions into the extreme parts of the nations and isles; and it is well3: but this is Ecce unus gladius hic. The Christian princes and potentates are they that are wanting to the propagation of the Faith by their arms. Yet our Lord, that said on earth to the disciples, Ite et prædicate, said from heaven to Constantine, In hoc signo vince. What Christian soldier is there that will not be touched with a religious emula

1 minus animosi.

3 nobili operâ atque instituto.

2 absque spe effectûs, nedum tentandi copiâ.

tion to see an order of Jesus, or of St. Francis, or of St. Augustine, do such service for enlarging the Christian borders; and an order of St. Jago, or St. Michael, or St. George, only to robe, and feast, and perform rites and observances?1 Surely the merchants themselves shall rise in judgment against the princes and nobles of Europe. For they have made a great path in the seas unto the ends of the world; and set forth ships and forces of Spanish, English, and Dutch, enough to make China tremble 2; and all this for pearl, or stone, or spices: but for the pearl of the kingdom of heaven, or the stones of the heavenly Hierusalem, or the spices of the spouse's garden, not a mast hath been set up. Nay they can make shift to shed Christian blood so far off amongst themselves3, and not a drop for the cause of Christ. But let me recall myself; I must acknowledge that within the space of fifty years (whereof I spake) there have been three noble and memorable actions upon the infidels, wherein the Christian hath been the invader. For where it is upon the defensive, I reckon it a war of nature', and not of piety. The first was that famous and fortunate war by sea that ended in the victory of Lepanto; which hath put a hook into the nostrils of the Ottomans to this day; which was the work (chiefly) of that excellent Pope, Pius Quintus; whom I wonder his successors have not declared a saint. The second was the noble, though unfortunate, expedition of Sebastian King of Portugal upon Africk, which was atchieved by him alone; so alone, as left somewhat for others to excuse. The last was, the brave incursions of Sigismund the Transylvanian prince; the thread of whose prosperity was cut off by the Christians themselves; contrary to the worthy and paternal monitories of Pope Clement the eighth. More than these, I do not remember.

POLLIO. NO! What say you to the extirpation of the Moors of Valentia ?

At which sudden question, Martius was a little at a stop; and Gamaliel prevented him, and said:

1 nihil aliud fere perpetrare, neque majora meditari, quam ut vestes solennes induant, festa patronorum suorum anniversaria celebrent, et cæteros ritus ac cæremonias ordinis sui observent.

2 quanta Indias quidem et Chinam tremefacere et concutere possint.

3 Illud interim pro nihilo ducunt, sanguinem Christianum in partibus tam remotis inter se præliantes effundere.

Necessitatis.

GAMALIEL. I think Martius did well in omitting that action, for I, for my part, never approved it; and it seems God was not well pleased with that deed; for you see the king in whose time it passed (whom you catholics count a saint-like and immaculate prince) was taken away in the flower of his age: and the author and great counsellor of that rigour (whose fortunes seemed to be built upon the rock) is ruined: and it is thought by some that the reckonings of that business are not yet cleared with Spain; for that numbers of those supposed Moors, being tried now by their exile, continue constant in the faith, and true Christians in all points, save in the thirst of

revenge.

ZEBEDEUS. Make not hasty judgment (Gamaliel) of that great action; which was as Christ's fan in those countries; except you could show some such covenant from the crown of Spain, as Joshua made with the Gibeonites; that that cursed seed should continue in the land. And you see it was done by edict, not tumultuously; the sword was not put into the people's hand.

EUPOLIS. I think Martius did omit it, not as making any judgment of it either way, but because it sorted not aptly with actions of war, being upon subjects, and without resistance. But let us, if you think good, give Martius leave to proceed in his di-course; for methought he spake like a divine in armour.

MARTIUS. It is true (Eupolis) that the principal object which I have before mine eyes, in that whereof I speak, is piety and religion. But nevertheless, if I should speak only as a natural man, I should persuade the same thing. For there is no such enterprise, at this day, for secular greatness and terrene honour, as a war upon infidels. Neither do I in this propound a novelty, or imagination, but that which is proved by late examples of the same kind, though perhaps of less difficulty. The Castilians, the age before that wherein we live, opened the new world; and subdued and planted Mexico, Peru, Chile, and other parts of the West Indies. We see what floods of treasure have flowed into Europe by that action; so that the cense or rates of Christendom are raised since ten times, yea twenty times told. Of this treasure, it is true, the gold was accumulate and store-treasure, for the most part: but the silver is still growing. Besides, infinite is the access of territory and empire by the same enterprise. For there was never an hand drawn that did

double the rest of the habitable world, before this; for so a man may truly term it, if he shall put to account as well that that is, as that which may be hereafter by the further occupation and colonizing of those countries. And yet it cannot be affirmed (if one speak ingenuously) that it was the propagation of the Christian faith that was the adamant of that discovery, entry, and plantation; but gold and silver and temporal profit and glory: so that what was first in God's providence was but second in man's appetite and intention. The like may be said of the famous navigations and conquests of Emmanuel King of Portugal, whose arms began to circle Africk and Asia; and to acquire not only the trade of spices and stones and musk and drugs, but footing and places in those extreme parts of the east. For neither in this was religion the principal, but amplification and enlargement of riches and dominion. And the effect of these two enterprises is now such, that both the East and the West Indies being met in the crown of Spain, it is come to pass that (as one saith in a brave kind of expression) the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shines upon one part or other of them: which, to say truly, is a beam of glory, (though I cannot say it is so solid a body of glory) wherein the crown of Spain surpasseth all the former monarchies. So as to conclude, we may see that in these actions upon gentiles or infidels, only or chiefly, both the spiritual and temporal honour and good have been in one pursuit and purchase conjoined.

POLLIO. Methinks, with your favour, you should remember (Martius) that wild and savage people are like beasts and birds, which are feræ naturæ, the property of which passeth with the possession, and goeth to the occupant; but of civil people, it is not so.

MARTIUS. I know no such difference amongst reasonable souls, but that whatsoever is in order to the greatest and most general good of people may justify the action, be the people more or less civil. But (Pollio)' I shall not easily grant that the people of Peru or Mexico were such brute savages as you intend; or that there should be any such difference between them and many of the infidels which are now in other parts. In Peru, though they were unapparelled people, according to the

1 So in the Latin, and in the MSS. The printed copy has Eupolis; obviously a mistake.

clime'; and had some customs very barbarous; yet the government of the Incaes had many parts of humanity and civility. They had reduced the nations from the adoration of a multitude of idols and fancies, to the adoration of the sun. And, as I remember, the Book of Wisdom noteth degrees of idolatry; making that of worshipping petty and vile idols more gross than simply the worshipping of the creature. And some of the prophets, as I take it, do the like, in the metaphor of more ugly and bestial fornication. The Peruvians also (under the Incaes) had magnificent temples of their superstition; they had strict and regular justice; they bare great faith and obedience to their kings; they proceeded in a kind of martial justice with their enemies, offering them their law, as better for their own good, before they drew their sword. And much like was the state of Mexico, being an elective3 monarchy. As for those people of the east (Goa, Calacute, Malacca) they were a fine and dainty people; frugal and yet elegant, though not militar. So that if things be rightly weighed, the empire of the Turks may be truly affirmed to be more barbarous than any of these. A cruel tyranny, bathed in the blood of their emperors upon every succession; a heap of vassals and slaves; no nobles, no gentlemen, no freemen, no inheritance of land, no stirp of ancient families'; a people that is without natural affection, and, as the Scripture saith, that regardeth not the desires of women: and without piety or care towards their children: a nation without morality, without letters, arts, or sciences; that can scarce measure an acre of land, or an hour of the day: base and sluttish in buildings, diets, and the like; and in a word, a very reproach of human society. And yet this nation hath made the garden of the world a wilderness; for that, as it is truly said concerning the Turks, where Ottoman's horse sets his foot, people will come up very thin.

POLLIO. Yet in the midst of your invective (Martius) do the Turks this right, as to remember that they are no idolaters: for if, as you say, there be a difference between worshipping a base idol and the sun, there is a much greater difference between worshipping a creature and the Creator. For the Turks do acknowledge God the Father, creator of heaven and earth,

2

1 temperatura fortasse climatis hoc postulante.

ac si jus facialium novissent.

electiva, non hæreditariâ.

A nullæ stirpes antiquæ. I have followed the reading of the MS. here. The printed copy has "no stirp or ancient families."