which might ensue thereupon made him aware of his great error which blinded with passion he committed in that his Cause telling him That Princes did then make their Nations great and powerful when they united them to an inferior Nation as the Kings of France had done by the important acquisition of Britany and not to a more numerous and potent Kingdom For in the first case by aggrandizing her Empire men made their Nation Mistriss whereas in the other by lesning her Dominion they made her a slave Whilst King Ferdinando departed the Audience no waies appeased by this his Majesties wise answer to the great admiration of the whole Colledg a Sparrow-Hawk came flying into the Court and lighting upon the publick Chair infused wonder into all the spectators who took it for some prodigious thing which signified some great matter And the Souldiers of the Guard running to drive her out of the Pavillion his Majestie commanded them to let her alone Then the Roman Augures or Southsayers rose up and desired Apollo that they might interpret that Augury Apollo laught at the request of those vain men and told them that futurities were so hidden by immortal God from men as he was a meer fool who pretended he could foretell them by the flying of birds or any such like thing which hapned by chance and that if they would make use of their Art of Augury by their ordinary interessed ends of making ignorant men more obedient and ready in the execution of such things as they desired shewing them that the will of God concurred with mans command they should know that Parnassus was no aboad for such fools as could be whirld about by the holy and sacred pretences of malitious interessed men Apollo having said these things and great silence insuing thereupon the Hawk spake thus That Vertue which is thought to be only peculiar to man is not only known by other Animals but loved by them and greedily imbraced is clearly proved by the aptness which is seen in birds to learn several tunes which they hear sung by others and by their learning to speak like man by the corveting and dancing of four-footed beasts and by other things which they see or are taught the which they do as gracefully imitate as they do easily learn This truth most glorious Prince of the Planets is sufficient to make the wonder cease in all those that hear me why I a savage bird who live by rapine and am therefore thought to have a cruel heart and to be fiercely minded should desire the so happy and blessed aboad of Parnassus To adorn the soul with vertue the desire of good conversation is not only infused by God into men who are indued with an understanding able to know all things but into all sorts and conditions of Creatures And since I very well know that those are only admitted into Parnassus who by their words and acts either have taught or are able to teach holy precepts good doctrine and vertuous things I certainly may with much reason pretend to be thought very worthy to live in these fortunate habitations I know that all these glorious Litterati will grant me that mans subsistence that the good beginnings better progress and best end of all vertuous life depends upon the education which parents give their children this as necessary as badly known Science of breeding up children well is notwithstanding very ill practised by men and very well known by the instinct of nature to bruit animals I if it may stand with your Majesties approbation am come to instruct in Parnassus listen therefore Gentlemen and admire Amongst us birds there is no more immense love then that which children bear to their fathers but I find mans ignorance to be so gross that amongst them the greatest enemies which children have are their fathers For the unbowel'd love which they bear unto them is more prejudicial to them then is their enemies implacable hatred Love even to ones own children hath its bounds and limits which those who exceed occasion ruine to their children and that you may judge of other animals by the example which I shall shew you of us birds we do so affectionately love our young ones as to feed them upon urgent necessity with flesh torne out of our own breasts is not our utmost charity to them but we do notwithstanding as men unfortunately do love them when they are old but by the wise instinct of nature only so long as they must of necessity be fed by us for when we find their claws begin to grow sharp and their wings strong the first fit for prey the other for flying we use the last and most perfect bounds of charity in not loving them any longer not for that that paternal affection which lives in fathers even after their childrens death ceaseth to be amongst birds but because that infinite affection of parents to do what is best and most convenient for their children requires it should be so the love of fathers to their children is not only useful but necessary but only so long as they are not able of themselves to get their living and harmful and directly pernitious if they assist them when they are able by their own labours and industry to live plentifully of themselves For certainly mens children would be very industrious if their parents would only love them till that time which God hath prefixt unto us and that they would do like me who when I see my young ones can fly currantly I shew them hedges full of Sparrows that they may live plentifully So men when their children are become men like themselves should shew them Princes Courts and chief Metropolitan Cities wherein much business is transacted to the end that they might maintain themselves not like idle and unusefull lumps of flesh buried in sloathfulness and total ignorance but by their own vertuous industry Apollo having heard so necessary a lesson for men after having highly praised the Sparrow-hawk and deputed it a safe and honourable place in Parnassus he said Now at last my beloved Vertuosi we find clearly that the immortal God having infused full and perfect wisdom into bruit-beasts for what concerns their preservation and propagation the true Philosophy which makes men wise and to which by continual study and speculation they ought to attend is to observe their natural instincts and diligently to practice them in what concerns themselves for so they might lead their lives happily not by the capriciousness of several sects of Philosophers so far differing in opinion amongst themselves but by living according to holy and prudent natural precepts and as it would be a foul disorder if birds and other bruit animals should feed their children till they grow old in their nests and dens so it must be confest that parents do very ill who taking more care how to accumulate wealth and riches for their children then to leave them the pretious and alwaies permanent patrimony of
Piscara gotten by Loyalty and by fighting valiantly in their Prince his service then with the Kingdom of Naples purchast by treachery That Francisco Davalo was not so shallow-brain'd nor so little vers'd in worldly affairs as not to know that the Princes of the League who did so much covet his Rebellion aimed more at keeping Cesar from the total acquisition of the Dukedom of Millan then at the making him King of Naples And that it was known to him as it was to the whole world by so many sad examples which had happened that great Princes after they had imbarqued an ambitious personage out of their several ends in vaine hopes and wrought him into the certain danger of treachery and after having made good use of him did so totally abandon their protection not only because Graviorum Facinorum Ministri quasi exprobrantes aspiciuntur Tacit. lib. 4. Ann. but to give examples to their Subjects not to commit the like wickednesse by proving compleatly â—…famous as they were likely to be the first who would deliver them up into the power of their incensed Prince as to leave the more hatefull examples of modern times the world saw it formerly fared with Charls Duke of Burgundy towards the unfortunate and ill advised Count Saint Paul unluckily imployed by him and that though Spaniards were thought by all men to be puft up with the wind of Ambition yet was it not that vain-glory with which some Princes of Europe have of late years swoln many French Ballowns and not a few Flemmish Pilots But that those of his Nation being very hard to be imbarqued in the getting of great riches by indirect waies sinned only in their too immense desire of being honoured and respected in the places which they by their faithfull service had deserved of their Prince and that they were far from coveting by oblique and shamefull waies those greatnesses which they saw they could not arrive at with secure peace and quiet that to be a Coy-Duck for other mens ambition so to becom afterward the peoples laughing-stock or Town-talk was a thing abhorred by his Spain and that it would have been too great a folly for one like him to suffer himself to be perswaded that the Kingdom of Naples which was alwaies hereditary in the bloud of Spain and which would never accept of any Baron of the Kingdom though some of them had been very powerfull and ambitious and who by the effusion of their bloud had driven out Princes borne of the Royal bloud of France who would have conquered it would accept of him who was inferior to many Barons of that Kingdom and of a Nation so hatefull to the Neapolitans That in Hereditary Kingdoms as was that of Naples Kings were there borne not made or chosen And that those fools who would aspire thereunto by any other means then by lawfull succession of the bloud-Royal did climbe up a Mountain of misery to fall down headlong with the greater shame into the valley of infamy And that if any one should compasse it by fraudulent means he would be like those ridiculous Kings of Beffana who that they might afford pastime to the rabble-rout failed soon after their creation That he had alwaies kept firm to the resolution which he was born with rather to die a glorious Commander then a shamefull King That he had rather sought to deserve then that he ever coveted greater Titles then that of a Marquiss and that having observed by what he had read and in consideration of the present times that all conspiracies begin merrily with high thoughts but end basely with weeping he was contented to serve the Prince whom God had set over him with those means which he had beene pleased to bestow upon him for too immense greatnesse promised by Forreign Princes to such as he was were but breaknecks Apollo was so well pleased with Pescara's Apology as he answered Guicciardine who still affirmed that to intice the prime Princes of Europe with so much duplicity of heart to joyne with him in conspiracy of purpose that he might have the better occasion to discover it afterwards had rendered the Marquiss eternally infamous that Pescara had not inticed any Prince to joyne with him in framing any conspiracy against the Emperor that afterwards he might make advantage by revealing it In which case he would justly have incurred infamy but that much to his praise he had used requisite double dealing to discover the Complices of the Conspiracy and every other particular which for his Masters better service he was to know and that the Marquiss was the more to be praised for that by his honourable fraud he knew how to overcome the Princes so artificial deceits and that upon that occasion he had so fully done what became him to doe as he deserved to be imitated by every worthy Commander who might fall upon the like misfortune In Conspiracies which are communicated to others both he who accepted thereof and joyned therein and he who refused yet held his peace incurred the same penalty in so dangerous affairs the best counsel was to precipitate into the sudden but clear revelation of so unfortunate enterprises And that in the most mortal infirmities of Conspiracies two of the Politick Hippocrates his Aphorismes were very true That Qui deliberant desciverunt and that In ejusmodi conciliis periculosius est deprehendi quà m audere And that they that were desired to enter into a Conspiracy were fooles and self-murderers if in so miserable a case they pitcht their thoughts onely upon the sweet of revenge the accumulating wealth or preferments to Principalities and Kingdoms which might be propounded to them in reward of such wicked actions and those wise and charitable who held before their eyes the pictures of Fetters and Gibbets which are the right rewards and certain acquirements of desperate and ambitious people and of such as were giddy-headed The LV. ADVERTISEMENT Giovan Francisco Pico not being able to reconcile the differences between Plato and Aristotle Apollo commands those two great Philosophers to end the business in a publique Disputation and being therein obey'd they do not notwithstanding part friends THe task which as you heard of late the Count Giovan Francisco Pico della Mirandola that Phenix of the Vertuosi undertook by order from Apollo of reconciling the immortal differences which are discust between the two supreme Luminaries of Philosophy Plato and Aristotle hath been to so little purpose as not having given any satisfaction to his Majesty nor to his Literati it hath kindled new and much more eager argumentations in Pernassus Wherefore Apollo for the quiet of his State for the agreement between his Vertuosi and for the honour of Philosophy caused Plato and Aristotle to be sent for on the first day of the last month to appear before him to whom with an austeer look he said That there being but one truth of all Sciences they much injured Philosophy by the diversity of their
Ambassadors cannot obtain Audience from Apollo but are disgracefully driven away by his Majesty IN the Port of Pindus about two daies agone there arrived a ship which set on shore some Ambassadors from Sicily sent by those of that Island to Apollo about matters of great importance who having given his Majesty notice of their arrival demanded Audience No sooner did Apollo hear Sicilians named but he shewed open signes of extream indignation against them and commanded Luigi Pulci Provost Marshal of Campania to tell them he would not so much as see them much less hear them and that therefore they should get them aboard again For because of that insupportable wrong which he had received from the Sicilians he had of a long time firmly resolved never to have any commerce more with that Nation The Ambassadors returning to their ships obeyed his Majesties commands To whom they sent an humble Petition wherein thâ—…y declared That they were sent to give his Majesty an account of the new Drudgeries the unheard of oppressions the miserable impositions which they suffer from the Spaniards And that so calamitous were the afflictions wherein the miserable Sicilians found themselves involved that they not only deserved to be graciously listened to by his Majesty but were worthy to be pittied and bewailed by the most barbarous Scythians that ever the earth bore The Petition was presented to Apollo by the reverend Father Tâ—…maso Fazzello a very elegant Writer of the Affairs of Sicily who assured his Majesty that at this present the miserable condition of the Sicilians surpassed the utmost of all humane afflictions Apollo told Fazzello again that the Sicilians demerits were such as they had thereby made themselves most worthy of the hard usages whereof they complained so much That therefore as soon as may be he should give the Ambassadors to understand That if within two hours they did not pack out of the Haven of Pindus he would have without more ado their ship sunk with his Cannon For he was absolutely resolv'd not to see the face of any that was of that most unadvised Nation which was the first Author of those horrid scandals that had brought excessive miseries upon her self and other people of Europe For having attracted that inhumane and ambitious Spanish Nation before utterly unknown to Italy and the other Provinces of Europe when with fatal resolution they made themselves subjects to the Kings of Aragon They then likewise gave the beginning to that fatal and cruel Tragedy whereof did the Italian Princes know what the conclusion of the last Scene of the fifth Act is likely to be they would keep a perpetual Fast and upon their naked knees continually pray for the obtaining of Divine aid to free themselves from those mischiefs against which it is apparent that humane remedies are not able to do any more good Fazzello then reply'd That his Majesty was not to be offended with the Sicilians but that Queen Ioane the second by her ever to be deplored adoption of Peter of Aragon had occasioned the present evils of the Spanish Government in Italy and that with very good reason he might vent his discontents against that indiscreet and unchast Lady To this Apollo answered That indeed those who had not an exact insight into Princes secret thoughts as he for his part had laid the blame of the present slavery of Italy upon that Queen but the truth was otherwise For it was a clear case that she would never to defend her self from the French Kings have fallen into that error of adopting a Spaniard for her King had she not first seen him a powerfull one by his rule over the Kingdom of Sicily and that the Kings of Aragon were no sooner called to the Government of that Island but they began those designs upon Italy which for the Italians exceeding great torment have had but too good success And that they were all so uâ—…questionably deserv'd by the Sicilians that to seek to lessen the calamities in which they did pennance for the sins of their indiscretion was as heinous a kind of impiety as it were an act of highest charity to make them yet more severe that they may serve for a manifest example to all Nations what bitter fruits the plant of wicked and cruel resolution doth in time bring forth when out of a desperate rage people run headlong into that abyss of subjecting themselves to the dominion of a forrein Nation Fazzello reply'd That all this had been very true had the Sicilians altered the rule of an Italian King to make themselves slaves to Barbarians But that having by their Vesper changed the indiscreet and hairbrain'd French into considerate and grave Spaniards it seemed that the intention of the Sicilians having been good deserved not such an odium from his Majesty At that Apollo grew extreamly incens'd againk Fazzello too and full of indignation he said to him And dost thou think that was not a very lewd ignorance of the Sicilians to remove from the insolence the prodigality the carelessness of the French Government to the cruelty to the avarice and to the insupportable strictness of the Spanish Were the Sicilians only ignorant of that which is known to every man that the Dominion of the Spanish over Countries is eternal And therefore out of all question deadly Whereas the Government of the French is just like a violent fever though it may be very dangerous yet it yields one some hope of life and there are many medicines with which it may be cured as indeed you cured it with your Sicilian Vespers A glorious Vesper certainly had you not by that Physick brought your health into an infinitely worse condition For Fazzello those people that are wise never take up the Arms of Rebellion but when they are sure to gain very well by it and to change bondage into liberty For the fish which perceives he cannot make his passage out of the boyling oyle into cold water thinks it less hurtfull for him to stay in the frying-pan than to make an escape and leap into the glowing fire Sigismondo Battori hath learned the Latine Tongue YEsterday late in the evening arrived at this Court the ordinary Post of Germany who made every one joyful with the welcom tidings he brought that the most Illustrious Sigismondo Battori late Prince of Transilvania was grown so much in love with the Latine Tongue that to his exceeding great glory he spake and wrote it with the purity and sincerity of Cesars stile Whereupon all the Vertuosi earnestly besought Apollo that for so joyful news there might be made all those demonstrations of gladness which when any Prince is become Learned were usually made to encourage great men to love Learning But because his Majesty sees into the inside of all things he denied those Vertuosi their request and told them That Pernassus then only feasted when Princes took their Learning out of the free choice of a noble mind and meer love to their
Guarina who reprehended him for his shamedenying to accept of his Majesties offer That it being usual with all men to be soon glutted with any one and to love new things the usual custom of Curtizans to put forth part of their moneys which they had got in their youth to keep themselves thereby from being necessitated to turn Bawds when they grow old was more then Platonick wisdom and therefore worthy to be admired and imitated by every one And that it became a wary man so to consider his own interest together with his charity used to his neighbour as that that love failing wherewith all men were at last cloy'd a man might live commodiously of himself without running the hazard of being forced to beg his bread when he should be old and decrepit Dispauterius was no sooner gone from the Audience but Olao Magno the curious Writer of the Gothish affairs and of the other Northern Nations and the Historian of so many famous Kingdoms of China came joyntly thither who when they had presented their writings unto his Majestie made the usual request That they might be consecrated to immortallity Then Titu Livius the Soverain Prince of Latin Historians who was appointed by Apollo to give his opinion of them did mainly oppose them accusing them for fabulous and rather written to shew their own curious capacious inventions then the solid truth which he was obliged to do who would deserve the name of a perfect Historian All the Litterati to whom Apollo also referred it joyned in this opinion with Liâ—…y for they thought it a very scandalous action to admit of the slack compositions of those vainly curious wits who had fill'd their writings with incredible things and therefore meerly fabulous amongst the strict Historical writings Onely the Polititian Tacitus differed from the opinion of Livy and of the other Historians who said That these men who had described and recounted the actions of the most remote Northern Nations and of the furthest Eastern people ought not to be proceeded with with such rigour as was exactly observed with those who wrote the Histories of known Nations and neighboring people for that with every one Omne Ignotam pro Magifico est Tacit. vita Agric. and that it was very true Majoracredi de abâ—…ntibus Tacit. lib. 2. Hist. This opinion of Tacitus though it were singular was approved of by his Majestie whereupon the Northern Histories and those of China together with the names of their Authors were with the wonted solemnities consecrated to eternity 'T is true that Apollo told Olao that by all means he must moderate the greatness of those Northern Eagles which prey'd upon Elephants and carried them up into the ayr which appeared so disproportionable to him and his Colledge of Litterato's as it would not be born withal no not in Plinies mouth And he said to the Author of the China History that he should reduce the immence Metrapolitan City of so many Kingdoms inhabited by many millions of men to some credible measure and particularly that he should bring the Palace of that King which he had affirmed to be many miles long to such a form as Vitruvius should not laugh at him for it saying that if that building were so great as he had described it to be the Halls must needs be half a mile long and the Chambers little less which if it were true the whole Academy of Architects had reason to say that to bring the meat hot to the table the servants of so great a King must ride post These two mens business being ended Thomaso Bozio entred the Court a noble Aggobine Vertuoso no less famous in the Court of Rome for his sanctity of life then for his learning wherewith he was abundantly endowed and was therefore received and looked upon by Apollo and by the whole Colledge of Vertuosi with extraordinary demonstrations of love This so famous personage presented Apollo with his learned writings De signis Ecclesiae Dei and his other noble pieces which were all of them exceedingly praised and celebrated by the Censors They onely said That in his book Deruinis Gentium adversus Machiavellum there were many things observed which deserved to be censured and corrected in that wicked writers desperate policy but that notwithstanding since they saw not that there was any the least mention made in all that book of the ruines of any Nation or people they were of opinion that those words De ruinis Gentium should be cancelled as superfluous and placed in the Frontispiece of the book onely to make the title more stately and glorious This Caveat of the Censors was so readily pursued by Apollo and the Colledge of Vertuosi as Apollo complained very much of the great abuse of many writers who to make their works seem more learned and curious to others do fraudulently give them glorious and stately Titles not minding that they were very far differing from what was contained in their Works A cheat which being only committed for the advantage of the Book-sellers to make the Books more vendible was much like the falshood of those Merchants who selling their Corn in sacks lay the worst and rotten stuff in the bottom and cover it over with very good grain which they put at the top And the Writers who were truely Vertuosi ought to think that noble matter learnedly handled in the bodies of their Books did render their Titles though not so curious as famous as a Title unlike the matter treated on did infinitely shame whatsoever elegant Composition Apollo having said these things Immortality according to the custom of this Court was graciously granted to the Name and Writings of this renowned Litterato Bozio's admittance into Parnassus being had as hath been said an Italian Poet appeared before the Pavillion where Audience was given on horseback with a guide before him who that he might come time enough to the daies solemnation of admittance of the Litterati into Parnassus had taken Post at Corinth this man as soon as he got off horseback presented himself before Apollo with his boots and spurs on to whom he delivered a Book of Songs made by himself and then desired that the glory of eternal fame might be decreed to his Name and Stanza's It is not easily to be believed with what joy this Litterato was received by the whole Senat Wherefore Apollo having received his Song-book with shew of extraordinary affection as soon as he had read certain Madrigals and Sonnets full of lascivious and obscene conceits he as if he had had a Serpent or some other perilous beast threw the Song-book into the midst of the room and afterwards growing very red in the face through anger Go said he and publish these your lascivious Ribaldries in the Stews and Bawdi-houses for in my State which is the habitation of all chaste Vertue such Ruffion pieces as this are not admitted I myself and I glory to speak it in this place have been
immature death both bad him comfort himself in the benign Laws of Parnassus since thereby for the better encouragement of his Litterati the good mind and vertuous intention of his beloved Poets being had in more regard then the quality of the Compositions which they brought to Parnassus they gave with the same liberality the reward of intire Immortality to Poems which were but begun by the pregnant brains of the Litterati and which were interrupted not by lasiness but by death as if they had been brought to their full perfection Thus was Immortality favorably decreed to the Name and Writings of Baldo Cataneo who being with wonted solemnity placed by the Masters of the Pegasean Cerimonies amongst the demi Gods who enjoy the signal Prerogative of Immortality to their Names and Fames a Litterato appeared in the Royal Audience who by his Gown after the Grecian fashion and by the evident signe of his beard was known by the greatest part of the Senat for that famous Timotheo Greco who having gaged his beard about the dispute of a syllable with Francisco Filelfo that famous Poet of Marcha it was by the severe Victor cut off whereupon all the spectators began again to laugh and greatly to wonder how Timotheo who had never been very wise had so much to his prejudice dared to present himself in that place to demand a Residence in Parnassus which is only granted to the Litterati of highest esteem Yet Timotheo spake boldly thus to Apollo I may truely say I have been rather a lover of Learning then that by my perpetual study I may have deserved the name of a perfect Litterato though I come empty-handed before your Majesty and I dare demand a place in Parnassus amongst your Litterati yet I hope I shall not part from your Royal presence without receiving some favour from that your immense benignity which doth largely reward the bare intense desire which men have of knowledg Timotheo was upon his knees as the custom is whilst he made this his Petition to Apollo when a thing that was never at any time before observed to be done to any personage how eminent soever his Majesty beckned to him to stand up and bad him be covered And then commanded that according to the custom the Senat should give their suffrages touching Timotheus admittance The Litterati who had but an ill opinion of Timotheo and therefore were sorry to see him enter the Court firmly believed that by the extraordinary favour done to one whom Filelfo had so affronted his Majesty would try the stedfastness of his Senators opinions in giving their Votes and whether they would be diverted by his extraordinary usage towards any whosoever Wherefore they did not only all of them joyntly give him the repulse but many of them shewing themselves more zealous of the glory of Parnassus then they needed said freely that the great affront put by Filelfo upon Timotheo did not only mark him out to every one for an ignorant person but for a great babler a thing which his Majesty and the whole Senat did much detest You my faithful Litterati answered Apollo have given a very ill Judgement of this my Vertuoso one than whom and let not this be offensive to any one mine eyes never beheld a more glorious personage and to whom the glory of eternal Fame with all the most priviledged prerogatives ought rather to be given O how signal how immense how praise-worthy was the glory which thou my dear Timotheo didst get in the loss of the wager which thou didst lay with Filelfo how much ought it to be commended admired and rewarded by me and by these my Litteratio more then all the actions ever done by any whoever thirsted after glory Thou art he alone who to this day hast known how by keeping constant to thy Oath made and by making good thy word to purchase that Crown of glory of maintaining promise both to God and man which most commonly is so abusefully measured by the compass of Interest both by Princes and privat men as there can no so strict form of Oath be found no faith whereby to bind men from which they cannot tell how to acquit themselves not only by a thousand evasions but even by affronted impiety Thine then Timotheo be the chief and most honorable place of this my Senat and let all men learn by the glory which 〈◊〉 this day adjudge thee worthy of that men win so much honour by constantly keeping their word when it is once given yea though it be prejudicial to their own affairs as glory is by all men esteemed beyond comparison greater then the love of any thing that is earthly This was the end of fortunate Timotheus his business when Ferdinando of Aragon the Catholike King of Spain appeared with great gravity in the Court and attended by a great many Lords who complained grievously that it being a hundred years since he had earnestly prest to be admitted into Parnassus he could never obtain his desire and that it was not only he alone but even all those that knew him that thought it a great injury done him to be denied that abode which was easily granted to many that were inferior to him both in merit and State Apollo answered King Ferdinando That it was the antient custom of Parnassus that Princes who desired to be admitted into his State should be chosen by the Votes of the Litterati of their own Nation as those who knew best their Kings deserts and that he would by no means break those orders which by so long a concourse of time had still proved good and then his Majesty having commanded that they should again go to their votes he in a grave manner minded the Nation of Arragon how straitly she was bound both to God and man to weigh the merits of her Kings with the ballance of a soul free from all passion The Votes being given they were all found to be negative for which reiterated injury Ferdinando being highly incensed Sir said he Can then such a King as I be so ill dealt withall and scorned by his ungrateful Nation without being able to receive remedy for such injustice for so manifest injury from Apollo's self What other Nation either in antient or modern times is there in all the world which ought to acknowledg it self more obliged unto its Prince then is Arragon to me its King and so great Benefactor who from that obscurity of fame which every one knows she was in have made her to be held in high esteem by all the Nations of the earth by the glorious union which I made between the powerful Kingdom of Castiel and her by Queen Isabels Marriage Whilst King Ferdinando with strange alterations of mind said these things it was observed that some of the chief Arragon Senators shook their heads which he taking to be done to his yet greater disgrace grew so incenst as Apollo observing it to avoid some foul inconvenience
if they were sufficient to purchase a man the Title of Magnus there were so many Bellisarii Narsetti Carli Martelli Scanderbegs and other famous Captains in Parnassus who had done more memorable acts as their would be more Magni in the world then Parvi to this Gonsolvo replyed that he thought that in the Neapolitan war they ought not to reflect upon particular actions but to the whole noble work and enterprise which he had gloriously brought to an end by winning a flourishing and strong kingdom unto his King and Master Livy replyed that they had also taken into their consideration his winning of the whole Kingdom of Naples wherein he seemed to suffer much in his reputation as having therein used more fraud then true Military valor and th at therefore the History Colledge had adjudged that Neapolitan enterprise not to deserve the name of an honorable atchievement and that he was therefore to know that the glorious Title of Magnus was by a particular Prerogative onely granted to those who had atchieved valiant enterprises by their meer Military worth and vertue that therefore the Colledge could not possibly think that Gonsalva could pretend to have won the kingdom of Naples by force of Arms whereinto being called but a little before as a friend by the ill-advised Neapolitan Kings and that he might defend them afterwards when those unfortunate Kings stood in greatest need of help and just then when they had put the whole kingdom into his hands he had the heart to declare himself their Enemy which whether it was an action fitting to confer the Title of Magnus upon him that did effect it the History Colledge would make Gonsalva himself judge Livy said moreover that his obscuâ—…e Catastrophe might be added to what had been said misbecoming such a one as Gonsalvo who desiring to be stiled Magnus desired to be the Protosavio of the world since after the acquisition of such a kingdom not knowing how to secure his reputation he most ignorantly suffered himself to be disarmed to have the government of Naples afterwards taken from him and to be brought back to Spain and be confined and dye there mad Gonsalva then exclaimed and said That Pompey had made a much more unfortunate end then he and yet had obtained the title of Magnus To which Livy answered that according to the institutions of Parnassus those who to compass an Empire lost their lives or came by any other unfortunate end lost no reputation nor had Pompey the great any ways done so who had always the same generous thought though he knew how to conceal it as Câ—…sar had In fine Livy said That the two inexcusable errors which Gonsalva made in his managing the taking of the kingdom of Naples did much derogate from his desire for that he did not onely exceed the bounds of a Commanders Liberality and Authority when after the conquest of so great a kingdom by rewarding so many Barons Commanders and other deserving men he had purchast unto himself an attendance of so many signal subjects not having the requisite head of leaving means unto his King to shew himself thankful to those who had served him and that with affability and behavior far differing from the austerity of his Nation he had appeared openly to affect that attendance and love of the Neapolitan Barons which ought mainly to be avoided by such a oneas he who was the Officer of a King naturally very jealous by which foolish proceeding he raised in him those jealousies which he could not free himself of without Gonzalva's ruine of reputation and that the apprehension of affecting the government of other mens kingdoms was neither given nor born withal in wise men for to be lukewarm in such cases proved always a mortal advice to them that used it Gonsalvo was much incenst to hear Livy speak thus who could not forbear saying that he had served his King with such Loyalty as became a Castilian Baron that the cunning how to betray a mans Prince was not known in Spain and that the Lords of his Nation reputed it a greater honor to receive injuries from their Kings then to betray them To this Livy replyed that if he were of so well a composed mind he might do well to desire to be stiled an honest man which should willingly be granted him and not Magnus which he should have then deserved when he should have thought it more glorious to dye King of Naples then to be confined to a poor Castle of Spain onely for having deserved such a reward as could not be countercambiated by any thing else then by the ingratitude which was used towards him Then Gonsalva without bearing any respect to the place wherein were so many eminent persons said that they proceeded unjustly with him for that blaming his constant loyalty they affirmed unto him in publike that he should have received a better reward in â—…arnassus if he had been guilty of a thousand trecheries and that King Ferdinando's ingratitude did not onely not obscure his reputation but did infinitely add unto his glory and that the reason of state which taught men that to measure their actions onely by the compass of interest not by the yard of reputation was a Doâ—…e which better became great Kings and Princes then such Captains as he was in whom Perjuries Treasons and I recherie were always accounted infamous whereas the gaining of kingdoms by supreme Potentates though by foul means were termed glorious atchievements Livy then replyed unto Gonsalva in bitter language that the Italians were not so ignorant but that they very well knew that the Title which was given him in the business of Naples was Capitano Major which in Italian or in English is General not Magnus that he put too great a value upon himself and that the History Colledge had rather bereave Bawdy-houses of the Title of Signoria where it was buryed through the vanity of Ambitious men then that they would send the so highly esteemed name of Magnus thither The XXXIX ADVERTISEMENT Many of the French Nobility intreat their Monarchy that according as the Nobility of Commonwealths do it may be lawful for them to use Marchandizing and are by her shamefully denyed MAny of the Nobility of France went some few days ago to visit the illustrious Venetian Liberty and though they did much admire the Laws of living free the excellent orders by which she maintains her self in that Liberty which is now so hard to be found amongst men yet they infinitely admire and envy the greatness of the Noble Venetians and did chiefly wonder that the prime Senators of so excelse a Commonwealth did freely exercise marchandising which their Kings of France had declared to be mechanick and they thought it very strange that the French Nobility should be made to believe that the exercise of Arms wherein men usually lose all their own estate should be more Noble then that of Marchandise which doth very much inrich men Wherefore some
against the evil which so free a Definition might occasion amongst their Subjects it was not a good remedy to cloake it over with fair words as the Author of the Book had done for mischiefs were not cured by concealing and that he and all the rest of the Princes would confess the Definition to be true which they seemed so much to dread if they would call to mind that when they did any thing which for the impiety thereof did neither agree with the Laws of God nor man if they were afterwards asked by any one why they had done so impious a thing they were ready to alleadge the Reason of State for the occasion thereof Then turning to Lewis the twelfth Apollo said The better to manifest the truth of what I say to your self and to all these Princes which are here present I will make use of one of your Actions which will make it appear clearly that the Definition of State published by my Literati and which you do now so much oppugn is very true You know your first Wife was Sister to Charles the eighth your Predecessor in the Kingdome of France and I know you likewise remember that you did adhere to the Conspiracy made by Francis Duke of Burgundy by Charles Duke of Burgundy and by many other great Lords against the Kingdome of France and that you were taken prisoner by King Charles your Sisters husband and that whilst the putting of you to death as a Rebel was in agitation your Wives efficacious Prayers was that which saved your life You know likewise that Charles being dead a little while after you succeeded him in his Kingdom and that you might marry the Queen Dowager Wife to the late Charles you got to be Divorc'd from your former Wife which you excused by pretending that your Marriage with so great a Princess was done by compulsion as if there needed violence to marry the Sister of so great a Prince to any one you your self know Lewis that this Divorce was neither answerable to the Laws of God nor Man tell me then what was the reason that moved you to banish that wife your bed to whom you confess you owe your life King Lewis freely answered Apollo that doubtless it was the Reason of State that had compelled him so to do for the Queen Dowager of France having in her the noble Dowry of the Dukedome of Britany he had marryed her to the end that that Province which was of so great importance and from which France had formerly received so much mischief should not again be disunited from his Kingdom See then said Apollo how you made that marriage which you knew did neither agree with the Laws of God nor man being forced to do so by Reason of State by which example you and all these Princes may cleerly see that the Definition made by my Literati of the Reason of State is most true now then since you are convinced of the foul impiety thereof know that the best means that you can and ought to use to keep your self and your State from being damnifyed thereby is not to use it for it is too bare-faced Hypocrisie to seem more to abhor fould words then foul deeds The LXXXVIII ADVERTISEMENT Marcantonio Moreto desires Apollo that he may have leave to make an Oration in the publike Schooles of Pernassus in the praise of the Clemency of the most glorious King of France Henry the Fourth but is denyed it MErcantonio Moreto a famous French Orator told Apollo some few days since that having exactly examined all the vertues of all the French Kings and compared them with the valor and glory of King Henry the Fourth he found that there was not any of them that might be compared to him and that to make the French adore so gallant a King and to incite all Christian Princes to heroick vertue he desired his Majesty to give him leave to declame in the praise of so glorious a King publikely in the Rhetorick school and because to speak of all the vertues which did abound in so great a King would require more then a months space to do it to the end that his Oration might not exceed the usual time of one hour he would onely celebrate that admirable vertue of Clemency which was so peculiar to his Henry as that he cleerly found by the use thereof he had so far exceeded all humane mansuetude as that he bordered upon heavenly mercy for he had pardoned such injuries in his most implacable enemies as would never have been forgotten by any one save by a King of France a vertue which appeared to be so much the more eminent in that great Monarch for that in these so corrupt present times to pardon injuries vvas not thought to be an heroick and vertuous action but base and abject covvardise The same Moreto told every one that contrary to vvhat he could ever have believed Apollo vvas highly incensed at that his request and that with an angry countenance he said he was grosly ignorant in going about to celebrate the most revengeful and implacable K. that did ever live for his mercifulness and that if he would praise the infinite valor of Henry the fourth his invincible constancy in adverse fortune moderation in prosperity his excellent knowledge in military affairs wherin he had far exceeded all Kings and Commanders who had ever purchased the glorious name of warlike the more then humane vivacity of his spirit the vigilancy of his indefatigable minde or his dexterous government of that great Kingdom he nor his Literati who were partially addicted to so puissant a King could not hear any more melodious Harmony but that since that noble acquisition which he made of France he had revenged himself much more cruelly upon his enemies then merciless Augustus had done by his execrable Proscription that Pernassus was no place to exaggerate falshoods in Notwithstanding this so resolute answer Moreto was not discouraged but with great observancy replyed that having exactly considered all the vertues of his King he did again affirm unto his Majesty that he found not that any one of them did shine more brightly in him then his clemency Then Apollo looking with a very pleasant countenance upon Moreto said t is plainly seen thou honest French man that thou art onely a meer Grammarian for thou seemest not to know that that King onely ought not to be vindicative who as did Augustus kills his enemies when he hath conquered them for to take an evil wishers life away to the end that he may not see his enemies Triumphs and prosperity to the end that he may not suffer a thousand torments and deaths hourly is a kind of pitty He is to be accounted revengeful and infinitely cruel who suffers him to live who confounds him with pardon and who doth continually martyrise and torment him by his worthy actions and perpetual prosperity as yours and my beloved Henry hath been observed to do more then
all the Kings that ever were on earth who still growing more and more cruel by his perpetual felicity by shewing to the world his Justice liberality advisedness and great piety did still the more afflict those his enemies who that they might render him odious to his people of France did openly affirm that if ever he should come to be King of that powerful Monarchy he would surely prove the utter and final ruine thereof And how much did it grieve the enemies of so great a King thinkest thou Moreto when they saw his victory compleated and his fortune confirmed by his own worth and valor and with what an eye thinkest thou they did behold him conqueror triumphing and not onely adored but reverenced by his people according to the ancient custom of France so glorious as the very first day that he mounted the Throne he became the absolute Arbitrator of the world Dost not thou believe it did much more grieve these mens hearts to see the King of Navar whose suppression they had so much indeavoured become the most glorious King of France then when they thought themselves surest of his down-fall and then confirmed in his Kingdom by so plentiful an issue as they are forced to confess they were sent him by Heaven Dost not thou believe Moreto that these his malevolents esteem so great happiness such prosperity given by God to this our King to be their shame and misery They are perpetually tortured who for their greater confusion are suffered to live being forced to see the Halcyon days of this powerful Kingdom of France The LXXXIX ADVERTISEMENT A Literato presents Apollo with an Oration made by him in praise of the present Age Which is laid aside byish Majesty as not grounded upon any truth SOme few daies since a famous Literato presented Apollo with an eloquent Oration composed by him in praise of the present age wherein he clearly shewed how much of latter times goodness godliness and all sorts of vertue are increased in the world and concluded that from such excellent beginnings mankind might securely hope that that happy Golden Age so cry'd up by the Poets was now very nigh at hand This Literato and his Oration found but cold acceptance at Apollo's hands and being asked whether he had so well considered the Age which he had so highly praised as he ought to have done and with what spectacles he had viewed and contemplated it he answered that he had not only viewed the Courts of a great many famous Princes the most accurately that he could but had travailed over the greatest part of Europe in all which Courts and Countries he had diligently observed the lives of those who commanded in chief and their fashions who obeyed and that he had observed nothing in them which was not highly to be praised and that then in passing his judgement upon all the particulars of the present Age which appeared to him to deserve praise he not aiding himself by any spectacles made only use of the eyes of his judgement which he thought were not dim sighted Apollo reply'd That surely he had written that his Oration in the dark for that the true state of the present age the true intimate intentions of those that govern in it and the real meanings of those that live in it could not be seen no not by Linceus's eyes unless a man did put the purest Politick Spectacles upon his nose whereby he might see the truth of passions which lay deeply hid in the breasts of modern men who were so mysterious in all their proceedings as their inward meanings appeared least outwardly Which being said Apollo caused a pair of excellent spectacles to be given to that Literato which were lately made in Tacitus his Forge and bad him view the present age through them and then tell him whether it appeared to be the same which he had so exalted in his Oration The other obey'd and after having well contemplated and considered the Age through those spectacles Sir said he That which I now see wiâ—…h these spectacles is not the age wherein we now live but a world full of ostentation and outward appearance with very little substance of true vertue where an infinite number of men are lined with feigned simplicity clad with the false Alchumy of appearing goodness but full fraught with cosenage tricks and plots where nothing is more studied then how to over-reach ones companion and to hurl his neighbour into the hell of wicked enterprises by false pretence of sanctified meanings I see a world full of Interest in which I cannot discern charity and candid love between the Father and the Son and by these miraculous spectacles I plainly see that the World is nothing but a large Shop where all things under the Moon are bought and sold so as the true meaning of men that live therein is meer gain and how to heap up monies and in fine the world is so ugly as it is hateful to me to keep these spectacles on my nose for certainly mankind might be truely termed miserable if our present age which I have deservedly praised in my Oration were in any the least degree like this which I behold Truely said Apollo the world which you now have seen with these politickspectacles is the very same which you glory so much in having praised where those who will pass their judgement without making use of these penetrating spectacles are like those unfortunate wretches who putting their hands into a hole to find a Creafish pluck out a Toad The XC ADVERTISEMENT Christopher Columbus and other famous discoverers of the new world desire Apollo that Immortality may be decreed them for their noble daring but are denied it CHristophano Colombo Ferrante Cortese Magelin Pizzaro Gama Americo Vespuchi and many other famous discoverers of the new World appeared two daies since in this Court Never was there seen a more signal pleasing spectacle in Pernassus nor fuller of curiosity then the entrata made by these Gentlemen who were met accompanied visited welcomed and lodg'd by the Princely Poets with as much affection and honour as men deserve who by their incessant labour and numberless hazards have inriched the Universe with a new World Nor is it to be believed what consolation the Vertuosi received for having at last come to the clear and distinct knowledg of the quantity and quality of that great Machine of the earth which immortal God hath created to be an habitation for men In so much as Ptolomy Varro and other Cosmographers did very often visit these Gentlemens houses not being able to satisfie their curiosity of seeing those parts of Asia Africa and whole America together with the Cape of good Hope and the Straits of Magelen which for so many thousand years were unknown to Antiquity Astrologers have hardly satisfied their desires by the purchast knowledg which they had of the Stars of the other Pole Aristotle was greatly amazed when these Gentlemen told him that
the Arsnick and Nax Vomica of those tortering plasters and shameful incissions which I dare not name in this place And do you think that your having brought such quantity of Gold and Silver as you speak of from the new world into the old can be termed our felicity when our greatest happiness would have been never to have been acquainted with any of those damn'd mettals which are the chief cause of all our evils But you and your companions may doubly glory first for having put the old world into such confusion with the great store of Gold which you say you have brought with you and then for having brought the new world to a final ruine by introducing the sword But what need hath Europe of so much Gold since all things necessary for human life grow daily dearer and the peoples poverty increaseth every day And not to conceal that which ought to make you odious to his Majesty and to all his Vertuosi it is not any thiâ—…st after honour nor as you have falsely affirmed the desire of that glory which eternizeth mens memories which hath eg'd you on to so dangerous and damnable an enterprise but incited by avarice spur'd on by ambition and driven on by the thirsting after that gold which your Country doth value so lightly is that which made you rashly pass those Hercules his Pillars which wise Antiquity set for bounds to the insatiable curiosity of man and for proof of what I say did not you Signor Christophano compel your Kings of Spain to pay your good deserts by making you be brought prisoner from your Judges and fettered as a publick thief of the Regal Treasure And you Marquiss Pizzaro Did not you play the trick of a special Gentleman to Antabalipa King of Peru in robbing him of the great store of Gold which you found he had And fully to compleat your infamy Did not you rebel against the Emperor your Master An action so much the more shameful for that such bruitishness is seldom seen to fall out amongst the Spanish Nobility For these reasons Sir and for the evil behaviour which these famous Argonauts of Torters have used to the Indians wrought off their legs in the Forges of Gold are so far from receiving any favour from your Majesty as they ought to be cudgeled out of Pernassus as pernitious people and fatal to mankind Molza's discourse appeared to Apollo and to the reverend Colledg of Literati to deserve better consideration then did appear at the first wherefore Colombo was answered in his Majesties name that he should take back the French Pox the Gold and Silver which he found in his Judges and that he and his companions should with all speed quit Pernassus for that he had gained enough and because mans happiness consisted in living in a little world well inhabited by men and not in being Master of many great worlds for the most part uninhabited by men and only fraught with wild beasts The XCI ADVERTISEMENT Sigismond King of Polonia prefers a Paladine to the prime dignities of his Kingdom who proving perfidious the Polack Nobility thinking the publick reputation was concerned in this privat Palatines Misdemeanour revenge themselves severely upon him SIgismund Augustus that famous King of Poland being strangely affectionate to one of the chief of his Nobility raised him to be the greatest richest and most powerful Paladine of his Kingdom but with bad success to his Family For this great Personage were it either through his particular vice of ingratitude or for that the fatal destiny of Princes will have it so and that human mischief requires it that benefits which for their immensity cannot be rewarded should be paid with the wicked coyn of ingratitude or else that it be the particular defect of great men to love like generous animals Liberty above all things and to hate being fettered by the Chain of obligation when this Paladine found that he could expect nothing more from the King nor that the King could confer no more upon him he did not only not stick to shew himself manifestly ingrateful but had the audacity to discover himself upon some important occasions his deadly enemy This man being stained with so enormous a fault was found the night preceding the 14 of this present month dead in his bed stab'd through with many daggers and a Note was left upon his head which advised the Judge not to trouble any body concerning that fault which the Paladines of Warsavia of Uratislavia and of Posna confessed to have committed with their own hands out of justifiable reasons This accident very hainous as well in consideration of him that was slain as of those that slew him was of so much greater wonder in Pernassus in that the Authors of so great a Riot were held to be the dearest and most intimate friends that the slain Paladine had wherefore the aforesaid Note was held to be fictitious but it was afterwards believed to be true by those Paladines being retired into their own Palatinates who were that very day seen in Pernassus Apollo who much loves the peace of Polonia fearing lest it might be disturbed by so sad an accident which had made the chief Lords of that Kingdom take up Arms caused peace immediately to be treated of between the murtherers and the sons of him that was slain who out of such reverence as became them signified unto his Majesty that to give him satisfaction they would readily forget the injury which they had received by their fathers death but that to wipe the tears from off their eyes and to cure their wounded hearts they desired only so much satisfaction as that their enemies might declare whether their miserable father had so much distasted those his friends as did deserve so cruel a resentment this request seemed very reasonable to Apollo who immediately gave order that the Delinquents should have notice given them thereof They returned answer That having long before observed the great ingratitude of that Paladine towards the King his Benefactor they had often severely admonished him to forbear those actions which did so much misbecome such a one as he was but that all being in vain the interest of the publick reputation of the Polack Nobility had forced them with their daggers to revenge the injury which was thereunto done by this ungrateful person When Apollo had read this Justification 't is said he confest that since many riotous excesses were committed out of good intentions and meer punctilio's of honour Judges and Princes must some times not only bear with Delinquents but punish the offended and afterwards sent the Note of Justification to the sons of the slain Paladine who being more vertuously minded then was their father came to Apollo and told him that having considerately reflected upon their fathers demeanors towards his so well deserving King and upon the occasion which had forced those Paladines to bereave him of his life they saw they were compelled to pardon
Kingdom was said to be because the King is of a forreign Nation a stranger to the Kingdom and therefore must require some time to sit fast in the saddle and to get his foot into the stirrup of that his new Kingdom The English to add to the weight of their Nation would put the Kingdom of Scotland into the scales when all the Scots Nobility appeared with their swords drawn and boldly said they would never suffer that their Kingdom should be joyned to the Kingdom of England 'T is very certain that the King of England seemed not to be any whit offended with these men who had spoken so boldly in his presence and in the presence of all the Princes of Christendom who were there present But told them in very mild words that this Union of the Scots would be of infinite commodity To which the Scots answered that the sad example of the miseries of Flanders was fresh in memory which when she saw her Counts become Kings of Spain did foolishly believe that she should master the Spaniards but it was not long ere Flanders was sackt by the Spaniards not Spain by the Flemmish And to fill their miseries up to the brim the Emperor Charls the fifth and King Philip his son who were formerly Flemmish being become Spaniards the unfortunate Flemmish for having lost their Prince from being natural subjects began to be accounted strangers and to have their loyalty suspected And therefore Flanders which was the native Countrey of Charls the fifth and Philip the seconds Patrimony in terms of modern Policy was become a conquered State and was therefore begun to be governed by forreiners with such jealousies hard dealings such grievousness of new gabels aids contributions and donatives which ingendered those ill humors and gave that bad satisfaction which was the rise of the civil war that insued which after an unspeakable profusion of Gold an infinite effusion of bloud and an incredible loss of honour to the Flemmish is turned by the Spaniards into a Merchandize That the Scots had learn'd by these deplorable miseries not to suffer their Kings to leave their Countrey and Royal abode of their antient Kingdom and carry it to a greater Kingdom whereunto he was lately called Which should they do the Scots were to expect all the calamities from their cruel enemies the English when Scotland should be united to England and the Scottish Kings were become Englishmen which inferior Nations are forced to suffer by superiors who rule over them That Scotland for misfortune would be like Flanders and the English for their pride cruelty and avarice like the Spaniards Those that were present at this dispute say that the Spaniards told the King of England that those Scots who had spoken with such arrogance in his Majesties presence ought to be punished To whom the King of England answered That the Spaniards should not give that advice to others which had proved so very pernitious to themselves But commanding that they should forbear the business of the scales assured the Scots that ere long he would give them full satisfaction The vast Ottoman Empire was next put into the scales which the last fifteen years arrived at the weight of 32 millions but was found to weigh less then 16 millions now A novelty whereat those Princes were much amazed and particularly the Venetians who could not believe so great an abatement wherefore they desired that it might be again weighed and more exactly And it was found that in the little interim of time betwixt the first and second weighing it weighed less by 822 pounds a thing which made it appear evidently to all men that the Ottoman Empire formerly the terror of the world hasted towards its ruine which all the Princes were very glad to see 'T is true that the wiser sort of men observed that the Spaniards jollity was altered fearing lest the Turks depression might turn to the exaltation of the Venetian Commonwealth The Senators of Poland brought their Kingdom next unto the scales which by reason of the seditious heresies which they have suffered to creep in amongst them by reason of the little authority which their King hath over them and the over-great power which their Paladines have arrogated to themselves did not now weigh full out six millions whereas formerly it weighed above twelve After this the wise Grandees of the Terra ferma and the dreadful Magistracy of the Councel of Ten brought the flourishing State of Venice to the scales miraculous for her greatness and for her situation she proved of good weight for she weighed eight millions which was said to be by reason of the mass of Gold gotten in so long a time of peace into her Treasury by her wise Senators Then the Swissers Grisons and other free people of Germany brought their Republick to the scales which the Princes desired might be weighed severally apart which the Germans were contented with if the poyser were able to do it But when Lorenzo had put the Commonwealth of Basil into the scales he found that the greatest part of the other free States of Germany were so link'd together as it was impossible to separate them one from another Which made sweat appear upon the brows of many ambitious Princes wherefore Lorenzo being necessitated to put them all together into the scales at once was not able to raise up the heavier scale The Duke of Savoy was brought next unto the scales by Knights of the Annuntiation who weighed as much as he had done the last fifteen years But when Lorenzo put into the scales the noble Prerogative which the same Duke Charls Emanuel enjoyes of being stiled Il primo guerriero Italiano it added a million and 420 pounds to his former weight Then with equal pomp and Majesty to that of Kings did the Duke of Lorain appear whose State though it were but small equalled the weight of great Kingdoms which hapned through his good fortune of having his Territories so seated as he can put great difficulties upon the Low countries by impeding the passage of succours which the Spaniards bring from Italy which raised him to such a height of reputation as he sold that his adhearance at the weight of Gold to him that would give most for it in such sort as after having assisted the Spaniards as much as any of the devoutest French Barons of the holy League turning to the French who won the field he faced about so fairly as so great a King as was Harry the fourth of France the great Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Mantua were glad to have alliance with him And to add to the Spaniards jealousie the very immortal State of Venice did so affectionately take one of those Princes into pay as had not that illustrious Lady vowed perpetual chastity and had not her privy parts been sown upon the very first day of her birth by Venetian Gentlemen who are very jealous of her chastity many men thought she would have married
use of the Grecian rites and the cause of this diversity is because there being no Grecian Prince who can cause jealousie to my greatness and consequently the Grecians which live in my Empire not being able to be fomented by any Prince of their own religion they do not trouble me so much as do the Latins who have many and potent Princes which is the cause I take such care to annihilate their religion But I am so watchfull that all my Mahometan Subjects should punctually observe the Religion profest in my State as it is not lawfull for any of them to prevaricate I give you for a clear example of all this That I having the Persian who is held an Heretick by my Religion no Turk that is my Subject dare upon pain of life believe much less preach the Persian Faith nor is that Heresie permitted in my States For though my last Emperors by reason of the divisions of Germany and the great jealousies which are amongst all Christian Princes might much to their advantage have made War in Hungary and so extend my Empire even to Austria the acquisition of which Province would throw open the Gates unto me to conquer Italy yet they have been wisely better advised rather to weaken the Persian Heretick then to make War upon the Christian Princes who being so far distant in poynt of belief from my Religion do not frighten me so much as the Persian Hereticks do for there is a great difference between tolerating Infidelity in a State from which the passage to true belief is so hard and the permitting of Heresie a plague which so easily infects any Kingdom how great soever as the Germans English Flemmings French and others have seen and tryed And know that I have rooted out all Sciences and Learning from out my Dominion only to the end that my Subjects may live in such simplicity as is most requisite for my Religion and to this purpose I have considerately and upon severe punishment inhibited the translation of my Alcheron which is written in the Arabick tongue into vulgar Turkish language having learnt at the cost of some Christian Kingdoms what mischief the translation of the Bible into vulgar languages hath occasioned which falling into the hands of ignorant people I hear that in those parts where this abuse is introduced even poor silly women spend more time in disputes about Religion then in spinning Wherefore to free my self from the evil of Heresie which may be introduced into my Empire by ambitious men I have commanded that whosoever shall propound any doubts in Religion be answered by the Scimiter Because the Heresies which now reigne in the Christian Religion have opened all mens eyes so as they may discern that those who have first sowed them are more moved by ambition of governing the earth then out of charity as they would make blockheads believe of sending mens souls to heaven by their new positions My Subjects sobriety who are all of them bound to drink water makes much for the keeping of my Territories from the contagion of Heresie and I say this for that I see the fire of Heresie amongst Christians breaks most forth there where they drink merriliest I very well know that all divisions in States are very dangerous but especially those which arise in point of Religion because people do not only not love honour or faithfully serve those who are not of the same religion with them but hold them to be beasts and bear them that cruel hatred which we see reigns amongst Nations of different Religion Add hereunto That as it is impossible for a man to live without a head so is it for diversity of Factions and where there are two Religions there must of necessity be two Heads and every fool knows whether or no one Kingdom can at one and the same time receive two Kings And thou Bodin oughtest so much the less to have published the seditious opinion which hath caused thee so much sorrow for that thou knowst better then any other that the modern Heresies which now reign in many Chriâ—… Kingdoms have been sowed and fomented by great Princes to whom Lutherans Calvinists and many others like thy self have served to seduce the people and to be bawds to their ambition only that they may thereby be followed by the mal-content Nobility who greedily imbrace new sects out of a desire to better their condition and by Plebeians who follow them out of avarice and a detestation which they bear to their own unfortunate condition And if for the quiet of Empires all the people of one and the same Kingdom ought to be under one and the same human Law how much more for the same reasons and out of the same considerations ought this to be endeavored in matters of Religion which being bred with us in our mothers belly hath taken such deep rooting in our hearts as she is become the absolute Queen of all our affections and of all our passions and therefore she ought to be so much the better regulated in every State for that we cannot live without her nor can we be touched in any thing which is more ticklish These things are all of them so true as I will boldly affirm that even bruit beasts could they speak or could we understand their yelping braying and other noises which they make would be heard to praise God even as we do who hath created them and who doth feed them I remember that many years ago I heard a Polititian discoursing of this very Article and because he esteemed it too wicked to God-ward and seditious towards Princes I desired to inform my self of him whether there were any Prince or Commonwealth in the world who did permit so wicked a thing in their Dominions And he freely told me That even the most modern Hereticks themselves who had cryed up Liberty of Conscience in other mens States would by no means allow of it amongst themselves For they hated to see their own houses burn with the same fire which they by their seditions had kindled in other mens habitations And of this said he Geneva which I call the sink of all seditious impiety is an evident example where they who endeavor to raise new Heresies are condemned to be burnt The same man told me moreover that in Germany where so many modern Heresies were invented in their Hans Towns only to suppress the house of Austria Liberty of Conscience was permitted but that it would be evidently dangerous to imitate them for that the example of others would prove unfortunate to those who had not all the same requisite circumstances as those whom they set before them for a President He said that the Hans Towns of Germany live without any apprehension of any enemy-Prince who might aspire to deprive them of their Liberty that their Emperors were weak and that their Citizens were not only by nature far from the ambition of Governing the Country but were forced by necessity
had as great a mind to make themselves masters of those States as the King of Spain had to reduce them under his ancient Dominion To this a second and much more important difficulty was added for consultation was had what the Colleague Monarchs should do with the German Commonwealths when by their forces they should have conquered them For answer to which the common reason of Nations and the ordinary use of leagues was urged which is that the acquisition of enemies States made by Colleagues if any of them be of the number of the colleaguing Princes that they should be restored to their ancient Lords by vertue of which law the Roman Empire desired that when the victory should be gotten those Cities and Hans-Towns should be restored to her which had withdrawn themselves from her authority And the house of Austrea pretended with good reason to repossess her ancient Dominion over the greatest part of the Switzers and other people who to make themselves free had shook off the yoke of her Government Though all these pretensions were by the Senate acknowledged to be just yet did the Princes so much stomach them as after a long dispute it was at last resolved that no more should be spoken thereof And it was then said that it being impossible for the two aforesaid reasons that the Monarchies should by open Force subjugate the Commonwealths of Germany they should for the future so wisely strengthen and fortifie themselves as that the malady of the German Hans-Towns which till then had made such and so prejudicial progress should grow no greater And it was resolved that it being very palpable that the many large priviledges which were granted by some too prodigal Princes to their vassals in a middle way of living free and this not without great occasion had made them affect total liberty that therefore such priviledges as being scandalous and very pernitious to Monarchy should not onely not be granted hereafter no not to any desert how great soever but that every Potentate should cunningly by little and little endeavor to take them from their people and bring them so wholly into servitude as they should not have any the least ken of those priviledges which had heightned their minds to affect total Freedom And hereupon some former Emperors of Germany and Dukes of Burgony were severely reprehended who were not onely fools in granting their people prejudicial exemptions but ignorantly avaritious in selling them for a small sum of money vvhereby they had put themselves and other Monarchies upon great difficulties And for their greater severity these Princes decreed that all form all footsteps of levelling should from the very root be extirpated from amongst their subjects the wisest of the Dyet affirming that the great inequality of the Gentry in a Kingdom was that which secured them from ever bringing in a form of free Government and the Monarchy of Spain was so stiff in this Opinion as she freely said she spoke it knowingly that nothing had more preserved the Dukedom of Millan from living in that freedom after the death of Philip Maria Viscount which was then talked of being instituted therein then the great disproportion of wealth which hath always been observed to be in that noble Dukedom not onely between the Nobility and people of Millan but even between the Nobility it self which had also been the reason why in the rich Kingdom of Naples no speech was ever heard to be made by those Barons of levelling or living free no not when they had so fair an occasion presented them of doing so by the failing of the blood Royal and by many other interregni which they had had in their troubles for that the Nobility of Kingdoms had this of natural instinct rather to admit of any subject how barbarous soever for their King then to see not onely Barons of late edition but even Doctors and Shop-keepers made equal which liberty would do like to them Moreover it was hinted as an excellent means whereby to weaken the German Hans-Towns that the Potentates of Europe would forego the so pernitious custom of buying at a deer and dishonorable rate the schum of the Switzers Grisouns and other German Nations it being sure that if they should be left in their own Countreys those unquiet seditious and disorderly spirits which much to their profit they send abroad would cause such fractions at home as they would be seen to turn those weapons upon themselves which now they sell to unwise Princes at the weight of gold But the many jealousies which have always reigned which reign now more then ever and which it is to be believed will for ever reign amongst the greatest Kings of Christendom wrought so as for fear lest the one might leave all the refuse to be made use of by the other so salutiferous a memorandum was publiquely praised by all and in private abhorred by every particular But it is true that to make Monarchy as pleasing to the people as it was possible for Princes to do these underwritten Articles were with great solemnity penned established and sworn unto in the Dyet to be inviolably kept I. THat since to love and fear God with all ones heart was the wisest piece of Policy and the most perfect State-Reason which could be learned and practised by Princes they should not for the future make use of his most holy name as many had formerly done as a means whereby to get money from their people and to hurry them or wheel them about with divers Sects and new Religions such as made most for their worldly interests but to obtain that favour from his Divine Majestie which brings abundance of all that is good to Princes who fear God and to people who obey his holy Laws II. That for the future they should be content so to milk and shear the sheep of their Flock as that they should not onely not flea them but not so much as touch a bit of their skin being mindful that men were creatures which had understanding not beasts which knew nothing that therefore there was a great deal of difference between Shepherds who shore and milked sheep and Prince-shepherds who shore and milked men the latter being to use the shears of discretion instead of those of meer interest which are onely made use of and that always unfortunately by greedy Shepherds it having been often seen that publike hatred hath been able to metamorphize the simple sheep of subjects into skittish Mules who have driven their indiscrete shepherd out of the fold with kicking III. That they should keep their people within the bounds of fear not with such a caprichious beastiality as makes the Government of one man alone dreadful and then totally pernitious when he will judge mens lives by his sole arbitrary power but by being inexorable in those faults onely which not deserving pardon had need to be punished with all the severity that the Law allows IV. That they should be
into their hands by which means I was able to reap great advantage from them without ever loosing any one of them A rare Precept and a piece of cunning as singular as hard to be put in practice and the more necessary for such as your Lordship for that you do not like me who keep my lovers fast imprisoned by the strong chains of Lust but you hold those whom you have been a Benefactor unto by the weak thred of gratitude which is broken by every least shadow of distaste though it be unwarily given And I have known many such as you who by having unwisely been inamored on some one person have not onely lost their own interest but greatly ruined that friends Fortune whom they would exalt by the jealousies which they have raised in all the rest of their followers foolishly furnishing them with weapons whereby they have forced those who would otherwise have been very grateful to change the defect of partiality with the vice of Ingratitude All which are so true and necessary Advertisements as if they be observed as they ought to be by such as you are you shall never have any reason upon any dislike to complain more of your friends infidelity then of the hatred of those that love you It being an observed rule by such as I am that he who will be attended by many loving followers must not be adulterously in love with one onely person The XXXVII ADVERTISEMENT The Ambassadors of the Province of Marca being sent to this Court in a publike Audience complaine unto his Majesty of an unfortunate affair which hath befaln his inhabitants of that Province for which Apollo provides sufficient remedy with singular demonstration of true love and affection THe Marchian Orator who came the last week to this Court made his solemn entrance yesterday being attended by the greatest part of the Nobility and being clad in a long mourning weed he appeared in the Colledge of the Litterati where after having made his low reverence to Apollo he spoke thus Monarch and Father of Learning and you other Princes of the Cujus who hear me speak whilst learning flourisht in the world la Marca was so famous therein as she had the fame to have Poets Philosophers Orators and other great personages no whit inferior to those of Mantua Athens or Rome in so much as she hath been by some great wits compared to Greece her self that fruitful mother of all Sciences But since her Litterati have been hewen in pieces and starved by Barbarians Learning hath been also so trampled upon by them as after the burning of so many famous Libraries wherein the labors of the most learned writers perisht having lost the Noble Latin tongue the very rase of Doctors were quite lost whose ruine hath occasioned the very last displanting of the noble Province of Marca for the noble Marchians being first called by the famous City of Iesi Piceini Aesini after the lamentable loss which they had of Dipthongs as I have said they are remained Piceni Asini so as truely I do not know any other greater calamity that ever befel any Nation which can be compared to this of ours which by the loss of one onely Dipthong hath so far lost her ancient reputation as the unfortunate Marchians cannot traffick nor appear in the company of any gallant men but they must be twitted in the teeth with Asino Here the Orator with abundance of tears ended his discourse nor was there any one Litterato in that Audience who were not very sensible of the Marchians misfortune insomuch as Apollo himself being much moved at the misery of so noble a Province called for some Paper and Ink and with his own hand did again set the Dipthong to Iesi and commanded Virgil who was the Regent of scanning Verses that the first syllable of Iesi should be pronounced long and ordained upon pain of grievous punishment that no man for the future should dare to call the Marchians Asini since it was very true that mother Nature had sowed L'Asinita in so just a measure amongst all the Nations of the world as every one had a share thereof equal to her companion The XXXVIII ADVERTISEMENT Gonzalvo Ferrante Cordova desires Apollo that the title of Magno or Great may be confirmed unto him and instead of being granted his request receives a very unsatisfactory Answer GOnsalvo Ferrante Cordova called by the Spaniards il Gran Capitano appeared some days ago in Parnassus with a noble train of many Castilian Gentlemen and having in a haughty Oration related unto his Majesty his famous actions in war demanded the confirmation of the Title Magnns which was given him by the consent of the whole Militia and by all the Historians of Europe Gonzalvo was graciously received by Apollo who bad him give in in writing all his Military enterprises and commanded afterwards that they should be diligently examined by Giovani Giovanno Pontano by Francisco Guicchardin and by the most reverend Paulus Iovius and that they should make an exact report thereof to the Senate of History to the end that if they should be found to be such as did deserve the Title of Magnus they might confirm it unto him by his Majesties Authentick Letters Pattents Gonsalvo delivered unto those Historians a very perfect Commentary of all his Actions which were by them diligently examined and weighed and afterwards made a full relation thereof in open Colledge where they resolved what answer should be given to Gonsalvo who being sent for into the Court Titus Livy the Master of the Colledge told in the name of the whole Senate that they had very exactly considered his war enterprises and had at last concluded that for what he had done in Granada being things done under the command of a C. who was his superior according to the stile of the Court of Parnassus they were not to be reckoned upon the whole glory of victory in such cases being given to the Captain General who commanded the Army in chief and that though he had been General at the business of driving the Moors out of the Kingdom of Granada they thought the action was not such as might deservedly confer the glorious Title of Magnus upon the Commander in chief for it was no great business for all Spain to drive out a few Moors who were divided amongst themselves out of Granada Then Livy added that his enterprises done in Affrica in the taking in of some small places were not thought worthy to be considered in a subject who demanding the high Prerogative of the Title of Magnus must make it manifest unto the world that he had atchieved enterprises which were tâ—…ly Great and that it appeared cleerly by his writings that he had won all his reputation in Military affairs in the war which he managed in the getting of the Kingdom of Naples wherein two field battles were famous and worthy consideration the one given at Saminara the other at Garigliano which
Prince did not consider what he asked for it seemed he did not well know what it imports in a state by rich patrimonies and Pretence of Nobility to put the Bulls horns upon the head and Woolves teeth in the mouths of meek sheep ready to be milkt with both hands and shorn to the very quick when they wanted the pretension of that vain-glorious Nobility which teaching others onely how to command like Lords made the base slavery of obeying known and that those Potentates who had indeavoured to found and maintain a great Nobility in their states by the institution of birth-right were at last aware that they had foolishly made them the heads of those people who when they had wealthy men for their guides and such as were remarkable for their Nobility were dreadful to all Princes and that great Families in all States served onely for Lanterns which in the obscuâ—…est times of revolutions gave light to the common people who walked in the dark Wherefore in States where there was a numerous Nobility it behoved Princes to live with the punctilio of respect which was an unsufferable burthen which those kingdoms wanted where no such impediments being found their possessors might justly and with much reason term themselves true and absolute masters of their States and that there wanted not examples of Noble men in France Flanders and elsewhere who in foul Insurrections made by themselves durst take upon them the Title of Fathers of their Country and the peoples Protectors and who that they might Tyrannise over the people and give Laws even to their natural Princes were not ashamed to guild over their seditious taking up of Arms against their King with the specious and charitable pretence of publick good To this the Embassador answered that the example of the warlike Nobility of France was the only thing which had induced his Prince to desire it so much in his State for he found cleerly that the trechery of those who had made insurrections against their King had been overcome by the glorious French Noblesse and that the noble kingdom of France being armed by a no less numerous then warlike Noblesse had taught the whole world how much a numerous Noblesse imports in a kingdom for 't was they alone who by their unvanquishable swords had quenched the fire of those French Insurrections which in a kingdom that had wanted so great a benefit would have burnt eternally Apollo answered that all this would have been true if the French Insurrections of which he spake had been raised onely by the people but that being apparently kindled by a great many of the Noblesse of that kingdom the Physician would prove very ridiculous who should glory in the cure of a malady of which through his gross ignorance he had been the onely cause and that every wise Prince ought to keep from the fault of nursing up and nourishing Companions and brothers in his kingdom since those Monarchs reigned most securely who put the greatest distance between their greatness and the lowliness of their subjects That it nauseated his Majesty as much as ignorance it self did to see that there should be so arrogant and vain-glorious subjects in one of the chiefest kingdoms of Europe who by the proud pretence of their Nobility durst affirm they were as nobly born as the King himself as if any comparison which was not infinitely ridiculous and hateful could be made between a spindle and the Mast of a Tree between Flyes and Elephants between commanding and obeying And Apollo added that it was this monstrous petulancy which made the Ottoman Emperors hold it the chief means of their security and greatness and that not without reason not to allow any the least shadow of Pretence to Nobility in their Dominions and that those who would see narrowly into the effects which the Noblesse occasion in a kingdom did not so much blame the resolution of those Emperors as some did who understood very little of worldly affairs For those great Princes who in their affairs minded onely substance and not appearance did infinitely abhor the boasting and vain-glory of those things which seemed to be and were not and they abhord to see that a Nobleman who had no experience or was not any ways skild in the affairs either of war or peace should notwithstanding through the sole pretence of his empty Nobility think those qualifications in the Militia to be due to him which a Prince is so necessitated to confer upon the only worth and merit of such Commanders whose hairs were grown gray under a Murrion and who by perpetually wearing of Curasses in actions of war had made their breasts and backs as hard as horn and that that which above all other things made such people hateful was to see them so wilful as not to obey antient Commanders of a less noble extract though they themselves were but young it being certainly an insufferable pretension to desire thorow foolâ—…sh ostentation that the gifts of fortune should be esteemed by a Prince to be indowments of minde In fine Apollo said that he though tit was greater cruelty high inâ—…ustice that the estate should not be equally divided amongst those brothers who had one and the same Father and Mother That he thought it fit some Prerogative should be given to the Primogeniture but that it should be such as should make him appear to be the head of his house not the Master of his Brethren and that the rich and just right of Eldership which Fathers ought to leave in their Families was love and concord between his Children And that it would be both great folly and cruelty to introduce that primogeniture amongst private men which occasioning such scandals in the blood of Princes as might be seen registred in history was onely born withal for the publike peace sake which the people would not enjoy if kingdoms were divided and that Primogeniture being onely advantagious to Princes subjects who were excluded from Paternal Inheritance were necessitated for their subsistance to take pay of them and to be trained up in war by which Princes secured their States that they might be furnisht with the same abundance of Military men as now they had with high injustice and the peoples ill will if they should admit all Brothers to Paternal Inheritances for that was onely the laudable Primogeniture which neither Princes nor Parents but brothers themselves by joynt agreement do erect in their Families when one onely of them betaking himself to propagation all the rest labour to augment the common Patrimony Apollo concluded his answer with this that he absolutely denyed to grant the Prince of Helicon the Primogeniture which he desired because he could no longer behold those horrid Tragedies and cruel machinations which were plotted amongst Brethren in those States where the use of Primogeniture was practised for those who were excluded from paternal Inheritance left no sort of cruelty or trechery unindeavoured to recompence the foul
men much more those who are perjured before God allowed the Atturney-General three days to make good his impeachment and ordered that Gonsalvo's business might be adjourned until then Gonsalvo being very much troubled at this foul imputation told the Atturney Bossio that he had always profestfidelity and that he did not onely wonder but was very much scandalized that so wicked an accusation should be laid upon such a one as he born and bred up in a kingdom where loyalty to his King and fidelity to every privat man did abound as much as in any other place of the world Bossio answered him desiring that he would be pleased to relate the case of the imprisonment of the Duke of Calavria how it had been carryed for for what appeared to him it would be proved that he was not troubled without reason Gonsalvo said that having besieged the young Duke of Calavria in the Castle of Taranto who was son to Frederick the last King of Naples he capitulated with that young Duke when he resolved upon rendering that he should have free leave to go whither he pleased best and that he plighted his faith to keep this promise and therupon he received the holy Eucharist but that afterwards falsifying his oath he made sure of the Dukes person whom he sent with a good guard prisoner into Spain Apollo seemed then to be mightily offended with Gonsalvo and told him that so wicked and execrable an action rendred him altogether unworthy of any place in Pernassus and therefore willed him to get quickly out of his State Gonsalvo was much confused and astonished at this so severe sentence and answered in his excuse that though he acknowledged it to be a very foul action yet that he was necessitated to do it for his Kings service for it being a practised rule amongst good Politicians that no Prince doth securely possess any conquered State whilst they live who were driven out of it the noble acquisition of the kingdom of Naples could not be esteemed a compleat victory unless he had secured that Prince his person Apollo was so far from allowing of Gonsalvo's excuse as growing much more incenst he bad him be sure not to be seen any more above two days in Pernassus which should not be a receptacle for those who by their actions shewed they more respected the service of men then the good will of God Then did his Majesties Masters of the Ceremonies drive Gonsalvo out of the house who whilst he went disconsolately down the stairs told the Atturney Bossio that apparent wrong was done unto him for Caesar who to purchase the Roman Empire had not onely violated the laws of God and man but was the first Author of that wicked saying That all things were lawful which conduced to government was seen to have a glorious place in Pernassus from whence he was so unjustly driven out 'T is said that Bossiv boldly answered Gonsalvo that Caesars example did not square with him for it was one thing to commit foul actions thereby to purchase a kingdom to a mans self and another thing to do the like to purchase one for ones Master For by the laws both of God and man a Pander deserved greater punishment who meerly out of the malignity of a depraved mind delighted in doing ill then he who committed Fornication out of the frailty of the flesh The LVII ADVERTISEMENT A Barque loaded with inventors of new grievances running shipwrack upon the shore of Lepanto his Majesty treats them well though he do greatly abominate such like men THe dreadful storm at Sea occasioned some days ago by the furious southwest winds drove a Vessel upon the Strand of Lepanto to the succor whereof all the inhabitants along the river side made in for they saw it was fraught with passengers and were so fortunate therein as though the Barque split they saved above fourscore persons that were in her who were by order from Apollo commodiously lodged and were then askt who they were whence they came and whither they were bound They answered they were all of them Italian Arcigogalanti and were lately come from Italy which when his Majesty understood though he be naturally very courteous yet doth he so abominate those cruel enemies of mankind as he had almost repented the ayd which he had given them thinking those wicked ones unworthy of commiseration who spend their lives in nothing else but in inventing execrable grievances by which many modern Princes so cruelly torment their miserable people Yet some Vertuosi said that since there were so many of those rascals in that Barque all of them come from Italy they must needs believe that they brought the good news to Pernassus that the Italian Princes had put on the noble resolution of purging their States from that wicked sort of men Apollo commanded that they should be asked wherefore they parted from Italy and whither they were going they answered that having happily finished all the most witty inventions whereby to empty the peoples purses and fill the Princes coffers therewith since they had raised the Gabels and Taxes as high as it was possible for them to do and having nothing more to work upon in Italy they had ran over France and Spain in which noble kingdoms they had so behaved themselves as they had left eternal memory in both of them of the Florentines and Geâ—…efes That afterwards endeavouring to get into England the Low-Countries Germany and Poland all of them Provincees abounding with gold and wealthy inhabitants and where they thought to have done wonders they were driven out with cudgels by those people who were born to a kind of Liberty and who might be said to be sheep which giving their shepherds a little milk by way of recognition or Fealty in a certain little mark'd measure And vvho vvill not suffer themselves as it is usual elsevvhere to be milked at discretion Wherefore like those famous Trojans led on by Aeneas they vvent plowing up the Sea vvith that their little vessel to finde out nevv people and nevv Countreys vvhere to the praise and glory and profit of Princes and to that perpetual desolation of the people vvhich occasioneth security in reigning they might use their Talent and open their shop When the Literai had heard these things many of them presently beseeched his Majesty that he would publikely revenge the injuries done to so many Nations which through the malignity of that race of Vipers had been flead by their avaricious Princes with the rasor of exorbitant grievances making them be burnt in the remainders of that their Vessel But Apollo whose deep judgement exceeds all humane wisdom having understood the shameful profession of those rascally people commanded that their entertainment should be doubled and that they should be better treated and causing mony to be given them and great store of victuals sent them to Constantinople willing them to see whether they could reduce the Ottoman Empire which was so Capital an
upon a three farthing business and that the world did very much desire to see a compleat Collection made of Cases touching the consciences of great Princes A Subject very necessary for the universal tranquillity and yet wholly omitted by Divines In which Collection men should exactly discourse upon those actâ—…ons of Princes wherewith they so often put the world in confusion filling it with Pillages Plunders and so many Murthers that many of them blinded with an ambition of reigning upon the earth have made it flow withrivers of humane bloud And the most judicious College of the Literati hearing these particulars desired that they should dispute and resolve upon these present questions viz. Whether Christian Piety doth admit of that pretence of Right which the violence of the sword hath usurp'd upon other mens Estates Wâ—…ether a Principality taken either by force or fraud from another Prince may be held by one that hath the true fear of God in him Whether the determination of Governing a Kingdom that is conquered with a purpose only to impoverish and waste it that he may Reign over it without jealousie may be put in practice by him that hath been bred up in the Christian Faith And whether to set and cry up meer damn'd Policy called Ragione di Stato so high that at this instant she tramples upon all Laws Humane and Divine be not a more detestable and accursed Idolatry then to adore Nebuchadnezzars Image and the Golden Calf Lastly the College declared That then their desires should be fully satisfied when there should be found one Divine so truely fearing God that with his Writings he had affrighted Princes from doing amiss as 't is confess'd many of them have with a great deal of pains terrified private men For it seemed to them unreasonably strange that such a multitude of Learned Divines should so trouble themselves to dispute of the strict account which Shop keepers were to give to the Divine Majesty even for idle words and yet should forbear to make any mention of those horrid offences which great Princes commit when with armed Troops plundering mens States they bring all things both sacred and prophane to utter destruction And that their Ministers should with far greater benefit to mankind and eternal rewards to themselves have discoursed upon the actions of Lewis the twelfth and Francis the first both Kings of France of Ferdinand King of Aragon and of the Emperor Charls the fifth whose souls departed this world charg'd with the heavy load of half a million of Homicides all of them committed out of an ambition to Reign for which they were to give a very strict account to God when to stuff up volumns with the venial sins of privat persons All which would be things very necessary to the end that mankind so much afflicted by the ambition of Princes may one day receive that consolation which with so much anxiety it longeth for that those which reign may be frighted from evil-doing and be brought to know that Hell was made as well for mighty persons as for mean Almansor that was King of the Moors meeting with the Kingdom of Naples they two fall a weeping and rehearse their miseries brought upon them by the oppression of the Spaniards THe most famous King of the Moors Almansor he that for many years governed the Noble Kingdom of Granada in Spain met yesterday with the Kingdom of Naples and walking to and again began to discourse with him And after he had for a good while viewed well the chain which this Kingdom of Naples wore about his legg he told him that being of Morisco work he thought he had often seen and handled it And a little while after with gestures of much amazement he assured him that he knew it very well and that it was the very same with which he and the Mauritanian Kings his predecessors had for seven hundred years kept many Kingdoms of Spain in bondage And that therefore he earnestly intreated him that he would discover to him how by whom and when he was enchained A good eye and a very excellent memory hast thou Almansor answered then the Kingdom of Naples for this unhappy chain which thou seest upon my legg was brought from Spain by Consalvo Cordoua called il Gran Capitano And therefore I think it very likely to be the same you speak of And 't is now a hundred years that I have been in that miserable slavery which you see me in From which I know not whether ever I shall be able to free my self because by reason of the excessive power to which I see the Spanish forces are risen having utterly lost all hope of aid that I can expect from men I know my antient liberty lies all in the powerful hand of God who must renew upon me the miracles of the Red-sea if ever I recover The years reply'd Almansor do agree very well for it was but a little before thy bondage that the Spaniards loosned from off the Kingdom of Granada's legg this chain with which they have bound thee But do me the singular favour good Neapolitan Kingdom to tell me how it was possible for the Spaniards to make themselves Masters of such a Kingdom as thou art so potent and so far distant from their Forces By fraud Almansor said the Kingdom of Naples did the Spaniards get footing in Italy for with open force they would never have been able to have made such notable atchievements and as you say very well so infinitely surpassing their forces and those too lying so far off But listen and you will be amazed at the exceeding large conscience which in matters of State a King of Spain had though he used incomparable artifices to be taken amongst fools for a Saint Macarius painted upon a Wall For you will hear a Tragedy according to the rules of my Christian Religion cruel and impious but according to the tearms of Modern Policy the most witty as ever any Nation represented upon the Stage of the World Alfonso my King to his final and my principal ruine gave his Grandchild Isabella â—…or from that unhappy marriage had my ruine its beginning for wife to Giovanni Galeazzo Duke of Millan At first the unfortunate Princes childhood afterwards his unspeakable sottishness encouraged Lodovico Sforza to seise upon his Nephews Estate Alfonso as it behooved him sought to hinder this usurpation Of which â—…ent Lodovico being aware and knowing that without the ruine of my Kings 't was impossible for him to compass the end of his unjust desire he threw himself headlong upon that resolution which since proved so fatal to him to me and all the Italian Princes of calling the French into Italy for the gaining of me My Kings to defend themselves from so puissant enemies called in to their aid that good soul Ferdinand King of Aragon their Cousin who shewed himself such a loving Kinsman and so faithful a friend that instead of driving out the French he shared me
out betwixt himself and them and to perfect the Tragedy in all points a little after this unhappy dividend he made War upon the French whom having overcome he forced to return into France with abundance of shame and loss Whereupon the good King Ferdinand without any scruple of conscience became my absolute Soveraign And then it was that he clapt on my legg this chain which you have taken notice of for your Countrey-making and workmanship And I make a question whether in the Chronicles of the Saracens of the Moors or of the Turks which you must needs have read there be found registred a more treacherous act committed by a King who would needs be esteemed a man of a most Saint-like conscience and one that bare a very good mind and who but a little before had received from the Apostolike Sea the glorious Title of the Catholick King Certainly reply'd Almansor in the Chronicles which you have named one may reade of very foul actions done by divers Princes out of an ambition after Soveraignty but this which you have related of Ferdinand goes beyond them all But said the Kingdom of Naples if you Almansor and your Nation have held the Kingdom of Granada enchain'd so many hundreds of years what course did the Spaniards take to set it at liberty That fatal Union reply'd Almansor of the Kingdoms of Castile with those of Aragon which ensued upon the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella was it that occasioned the Kingdom of Granada's Liberty and most unhappy Union which the greatest Potentates of Europe have bewailed do bewail and with true tears everlastingly shall bewail no less then I have done and do as that which hath been the true and onely root from which have sprung all those mighty subversions of States that at this day are seen in many parts of Europe and more notoriously in Italy And believe me Neapolitan Kingdom I had reigned happily in Spain to this very day had not that pestilent Union broke the neck of my greatness For those so fierce jealousies that were between these Castilians and the Aragonians were my impregnable Citadels which would have made me Reign in Spain eternally Yet take it upon my word the assistances that the Popes gave to Ferdinando and Isabella did greatly hasten on my suppression Peace good Almansor quoth the Kingdom of Naples no more of that if you love me For after you were driven out of Spain the Popes suffered so great miseries from that ambitious Nation that it may be very truely said they then purchased with ready money those infinite calamities which they have met withall For although the Sea Apostolike was very well contented to see the Mauritanian Kings driven out of Spain yet did that great pleasure prove extreamly painful by my servitude which followed soon upon it The Popes having never dreaded any thing more then that I should fall into the hands of some potent Prince who might make them live in those perpetual jealousies wherein finding themselves at this instant plunged up to the very eyes many of them and specially those that have most insight in the affairs of the world take but little rest in their beds A clear testimony of the truth of what I tell you was that lamentable and most vilâ—…anous sack of Rome committed by the Spaniards a little â—…fter my bondage with which ingratitude they paid the Apostolical Sea all they were in her debt both for the release of the Tribute of Naples and those succours besides that they had from her in the War of Granada A calamity which passing the bounds of any the do efullest miseries hath so open'd the eyes of even the most drowsie-witted men that every one begins to perceive what it is out of a zeal towards Piety to unchain Lions For no sooner did the Spaniards perceive themselves freed from that encombrance which the Moors of Granada were to them but by reason of that ambition which they openly declared of desiring to sway the Universe there were discovered not only in Italy but all Europe over most important jealousies of State most troublesom differences in points of Religion in so much as I have heard it maintained by men of very good understanding in the affairs of the world that perhaps it would have been better for the Princes of Europe that you had still Reigned in Granada then that the Spaniards should have come over into Italy to get from us such important Estates as now they possess there Which disorder hath caused such an alteration even in matters of Religion that they which know how to discourse of the true causes of the weighty resolution of Princes stick not to say that the fear which Germany was in of the monstrous power of the Emperor Charls the fifth was the occasion that the Moors which were in Granada are changed into those many Hereticks which our age beholds in Germany and elsewhere A race of men so execrable that with their hainous impiety they have defiled a great part of Europe To this very sad disorder of sacred things are added the prejudices both publick and privat which my ruine hath both brought and continually doth bring to the Italian Princes and more particularly to the Popes For no sooner had the King of Spain clapt this Chain about my legg but they began to aspire to the Soveraignty of all Italy And to come quickly to it they had a very excellent way of interessing themselves in the differences that were in agitation between the Italian and French Princes touching the possession of the Dutchy of Millan in which that Man of Men Charls the fifth carried his matters so that he made himself to be known for a Grand-child worthy of his Grand-father by the Mothers side For having with the Forces of the Italian Princes driven the French out of Italy instead of re-investing the Sforzi into the State as had been agreed upon between him and the other Confederate Princes by the deceitfulness of a thousand Turkish cavils which he made a shift to invent against those poor Dukes he made himself absolute Master of that so important Dukedom Hold good Neapolitan Kingdom saith Almansor and make a stop here Well If that disorder hath likewise ensued that the Noble State of Millan is fallen into the Spaniards hands what hinders them that they do not suddenly take in all Italy And if your slavery hath made it apparent to the world that the aids and succours of Princes serve rather for the benefit of him that gives them then for the profit of him that receives them why did not the Italian Princes rather suffer the French to rule over Millan then by receiving aid from the Spaniards run the hazard that so important a member of Italy as that Dutchy should fall as indeed you say it did fall into the power of the Kings of Spain What hinders Reply'd the Kingdom of Naples why the power of the Kings of France defending from the Spanish
ambition that remainder of Liberty which is yet left in Italy For those glorious Kings for the interest of their own greatness will not endure it that the Soveraignty of all Italy should fall into the power of the ambitious Spaniard who hath not been able to quench his vehement thirst of Reigning with the Purchase of all the new World which he hath discovered and so much of the old as he doth possess Besides that the Italian Princes who know in how shrewd danger of a mischievous and most wretched slavery they stand are so united together that although they be many in number yet make they up but one body and the Spaniards which have used and still do use all possible artifices to disunite them perceive that they were as good let it alone But as for the State of Millan you must know it was judged safer for the publick Liberty of Italy that the said Dutchy should fall into the power of the Spaniards then if it had remained in the hands of the French who bordering upon Italy if once they had possession of never so little a part in it 't is a thousand to one but they would make themselves absolute Masters of all But in the Spaniards the case was clean contrary For their forces though very great yet lie so far off that with a great deal of difficulty can any be transported such a long way by Sea out of Spain into Italy for the making good of what they have gotten there already much less such as would be sufficient for subduing of the whole You say true quoth Almansor but go on in your relation to me of the prejudices which your falling into the Spaniards hands hath brought to the Popes Know reply'd the Kingdom of Naples that whereas formerly the Popes were a terror to my Kings now the case is clean otherwise for they live in extream torment lest one day there should happen to be an union of Naples with Millan which they perceive to be the scope of all the Spaniards intentions Whereupon the Spaniards whose proper nature it is to reap singular profit from the fear in which they perceive they have put their neighbouring Princes have arrogated to themselves such high Authority in the Court of Rome that they boastingly give themselves out for the true Arbitrators of all important matters that are handled therein Besides what I have told you there is this more When the Kings of Naples were not Kings of Spain the Popes with every slight threatning to deny the Investiture got from my Kings Principalities Dukedoms Marquissates and other great Estates by way of Present besides that the Kings bought their friendship with Alliances and every other sort of Liberality But that fear being now over if the Popes will aggrandize their Kinsmen with the Titles of Important States they must pay for them with ready money And the subtile Kings of Spain over and above the precious Gold of Intreaties which they will have howsoever for the first payment sell afterwards at dear rates Important Interests and grievous disorders quoth Almansor are these you have told me but how comes it to pass that you Kingdom of Naples who are the Magazine of Silks the Granary of Italy go so ragged and are so lean As long as the Spaniards answered the Kingdom of Naples that come naked out of Spain will within four daies after they are arrived at my house be covered all over with Gold needs must I strip my self to cloath so many and such pittifull tatter-de-Mallions Moreover did you but behold the greediness of the Vice-Roys that are sent to my house to repair their fortunes and did you know the rapines of the Secretaries of a thousand Officers and other Courtiers whom every Viceroy brings with him all thirsting after my bloud you would extreamly wonder how it were possible for me to satisfie the ravenous and dog-like unsatiableness of such a company of starvelings As for that small store of flesh you see about me the Spaniards say they find it written in a certain Book of a Florentine which hath given out rules of the cruel and desperate modern Policy that being a conquer'd Kingdom I must like those Barbary-horses which are employed only in running of Races be kept low And how added then Almansor are the Millanois handled Why they too reply'd the Kingdom of Naples are bathed in the same water wherewith you see me so wet Only this difference there is betwixt us that at Millan it drops in and in my house it powres in amain The true causes of this diversity of usage are the qualities of the Lombards inclinations very much unlike to those of my Neapolitans For the Nobility of the State of Millan is naturally humorous free resolute and far from those vices that are most proper to my Neapolitans of flattery and affectation But so ready to lay about them and of that wavering disposition as I dare say were there but one head-piece of Cremona amongst my Barons it would be sufficient to obstruct that on-forced Donative that hath brought me to live upon bread and onions Which though it had been often demanded by the Spaniards in Millan and that in very high tearms they were told again that they should mind their own livelihoods Besides that the neighbourhood of the Grisons of the Duke of Savoy and of the Venetians are some cause why the Kings of Spain proceed in Millan with more discretion When the Popes stood to their arms I was then for their sakes much respected too But withdraw good Almansor for I see my most capital enemy Don Pietro di Toledo coming this way and I would not by any means he should perceive that I make my moan to you And certainly even for this may my slavery be tearmed most unhappy that I am enforced to call this miserable condition which you see hath brought me to the last gasp a most happy Golden Age. The Conte di Fuentes is admitted into Pernassus DOn Pietro Enriquez Gusman Count of Fuentes was admitted the last Consistory into Pernassus but with a very severe censure because Apollo would be exactly resolved whether in the time that for many years he had governed the Dutchy of Millan he had given any distast to those Italian Vertuosi who for the admirable fruitfulness of their wits born to the invention of elegant things are deservedly called by his Majesty The first born Sons of Learning And albeit that among other Objections made against that truely famous man that accusation did him most prejudice wherein he was â—…axed for giving his mind to that mischievous husbandry of sowing jealousies and planting contentions by which he had made those Italian Potentates whose friendship he should have procured with all the skill he had to be suspected by his King more then to the Government of the people yet were the difficulties of the heaviest accusations taken off by the conclusive proof of his having been in Italy a prodigy of nature
inclin'd to wantonness would shew himself circumspect if he liked it better that a houshold-servant of his which was a spruce gallant should rather be infinitely hated then much beloved of his wife And as for that tediousness of coming to a resolution in her affairs which she knew to be faulty and full of danger it was not in her power to remedy it For â—…od Almighty having not without important reasons created her Spaniards in all and every thing of a geniâ—…s differing from that of the â—…rench as long as these were in their determinations rather hair-brain'd then good at action she by being slow and unresolved obey'd the will of God who had appointed that it should be so Presently after was drawn the Monarchy of Poland to whom Count Baldassare said That all the Princes of Europe desired that the present King Sigismond should have used against those sediâ—…ious Nobles which lately rebelled against him some severity worthy of so grievous an offence only that he might thereby terrifie other Nobles from committing the like To this the Polack Monarchy answered That in her Elective Kingdom those punishments inflicted upon the Nobility had alwaies proved dangerous which in an Hereditary State were beneficial And that Kingdom which one hath received as a Donative from a Nobility that had the election of the King in her own power could not be governed with that rigor which in hereditary States was necessâ—…ry without running an evident hazard of â—…umbling down headlong from his greatness â—…or that Senat whose election of love gave one a Kingdom if it were throughly moved by that most powerful passion of hate knew as well how to take it away again For the wary Senators used to reserve to themselves those necessary instruments whereby they might be able upon every occasion of dissatisfaction to repent their liberality Aâ—…d that the preâ—…ent Kiâ—…g Sigismond being the fiâ—…st of his stock that Reigned in Poland was in all his thoughts to aim at nothing more then wiâ—…h extraordinary diligence to get the good will of the Nobility of his State that so by his dearly esteemed memory he might perpetuate the succession of so great a Kingdom in his own stock An advice so much the more necessary for her King Sigismond in that the Polacks though they had their King by way of election yet they never defrauded the bloud-Royal of the succession if he that reigned knew but how by his gentleness to gain the universal good-will of the Nobility For Poland being a Nation which knew not how to live in an absolute freedom yet so much abhor'd total servitude as that King a thing common to all elective Principalitiâ—…s was amongst them the most sharp-fighted and vigilant in the affairs of his State that most of all made as if he did not see and made the greatest shew that he desired not to know all things Not only the Censor but the whole College of the Vertuosi admitted for excellent the Justification of the Polack Monarchy And because the most famous English Monarchy was drawn out of the Urn the Censor with something an angry countenance yet in gentle words told her That if humane wisdom were necessary for any person it was was most necessary for Princes because of the important business which they had in hand of governing mankind And that the chiefest and truest wisdom of men being the fear of God little store of discreet government could be expected from him who had committed the impious and detestable â—…olly of falling away from his Divine Majesty That therefore he required her to let the present Iames the sixth know that the politick precept which England and Scotland had impudently put in practice of conforming Religion to Ambition and making use of her for a Winch to turn and wind the people was a point of Policy that either was unknown to the Antients or which they durst not use for fear of offending God That therefore she should put him in mind to have alwaies before his eyes the deplorable calamities of the Greek Empire which although for ampleness of State for multitude of Subjects and wealthiness of Treasure it did vastly surpass the Kingdom of England yet because to avoid being subject to the Divine Supremacy of the Pope it disagreed from the Catholike Religion it so much deserved the Divine anger that the world hath beheld it made slave to the basest and most barbarous Nation as ever since the memory of men reigned upon the earth That therefore she should give notice to the now-King Iames that he ought so much the more to reconcile himself to God in that he being Soveraign over two Kingdoms so great enemies to one another it was not possible for him without especial assistance from God to establish the union of those two great Crowns That therefore he should know that every day he did more and more provoke him against himself when spending the greater part of the day in defending the manifest errors of his Sect he busied himself in nothing but Disputations of Religion At this severe and just censure of Castiglione the English Monarchy was seen to fall a crying And after this the Censor turning towards the vast Ottoman Empire told him That the cruelty which he used so much upon slight suspicions against his most principal Officers was judged by all the world to be a savage action every one being of opinion that men of extraordinary worth and high deserts should never be questioned but for grievous delinquencies and such as had been proved against them And that if the Ottoman Princes might be justified in taking away their Officers lives yet the custom of seizing upon their goods and making them to be carried to the Royal Treasury or Casna and so utterly to deprive the children of them had no colour of justice in it for every one conceived that by this cruel rigor mens Estates were rather proceeded against then their demerits With admirable gravity answered the Ottoman Empire to this so open reproof saying That he was grown up to that greatness in which all men saw him only by those two powerful means of Reward without measure and of Punishment without limit And that the only foundation of the tranquillity of every State being laid in the fidelity of the more important Ministers thereof Princes were to seek after nothing with greater care then by immense rewards to allure them to Loyalty and by infinite chastisements to frighten them from treachery And that it not being possible for those Officers which had in their power the Forces of Emperors and Government of States to trespass but in matters of greatest moment it were the course of a simple Prince in suspicions of highest consequence to draw up Processes to allow Apologies and to hear the Defendants Justifications Whereas in such cases as these the Prince that will not endanger all must strive to take his Officer unawares and secure his own affairs by making the execution of the
Prince without authority is idle The weight therefore of the Roman Empire did not exceed 480 pound and this redounded certainly to the infinite shame of the lay Electors who were thought to be those that by their cunning had brought her to that unfortunate condition For the common opinion was that they had wrought it so as those Cities and States which they themselves could not enjoy should by rebelling against the Empire vindicate their Liberty to the end that those Emperors might not have power to regain those States by force of arms which they had possessed themselves of with so much perfidiousness So as to the miserable example of the vicissitude of humane affairs the formerly dreaded Roman Empire hath wickedly wasted her antient Dominions by her Subjects avarice and ambition and is now reduced into a Lodging with the miserable salary of seven duckets a month which is given her rather by way of recognition and alms than as any due tribute In so much as the House of Austria is forced to maintain the Imperial dignity which is now brought to so low a condition out of her own Patrimonial Estate And though this so great misery moved commiseration in many Princes yet those who did remember the Henrie's insolences the cruelty of the Fredericks the seditions impieties and plunderings used by many other Emperors in Italy affirmed freely that it was not the rapacity of the Electors nor the Germans infidelity but that it was the great wisdom of all the Princes of Europe who for the good of the publick peace cut the talons and pluckt the chief feathers of the Eagle which had alwaies made profession to live by rapine and which made her self believe that all the people of Europe like so many tame pigeons were her prey And it was observed by many that the Princes of Italy did very much rejoyce to see the Roman Empire reduced to so great ruine as those who remembred what hard usage they had often received from thence in Italy Then was the flourishing and warlike Nation of France brought to the Scales by her famous Peers a four-square Edifice of five hundred and fifty miles extent on every side full of an infinite well armed Nobility on horseback who do not only maintain peace at home but make so great a King formidable to all Nations where are seen great abundance of sacred Personages which render her religious of Learned men who do beautifie her of Merchants and Artificers who enrich her and of Husbandmen who do make her abound in all good things But nothing makes the beholders wonder more then to see that the Kingdom of France is a Sea which is sailed upon and a Land which is sowed by all Wines The antient weight of this famous Kingdom was twenty millions of pounds but when she was weighed the last fifteen years by reason of the great calamities she was put into by some of her disloyal Barons she reached not to twelve millions And at this present she doth not only equal but exceed her weight in the best of her former times for she weighs 25 millions a thing which all men have much wondred at in so much as the Spaniards put their Spectacles upon their noses and did observe very punctually whether the weights were just or no. Since Bressia is added to the antient Kingdom of France given unto her by the Duke of Savoy which because it flanks the City of Lions hath increased her weight above one million Next the many Kingdoms of Spain were put into the Scale by the Spanish Grandees And to the great amazement of those old men that remembred that some sixscore years before those Kingdoms were but meanly esteemed of the weight came to twenty millions And they assured themselves that by the addition of so many other States which were yet to be put into the Scales she would not only equal but exceed the greatest weight of the French Monarchy They did then forthwith put into the Scales the flourishing Kingdom of Naples which was believed would add two millions to the weight but did take a million and a half from the weight thereof At which the Spaniards being much astonished said that Lorenzo had either used some cosenage or else the scales of necessity must not be just since it was not to be believed that the weight should grow lesser by addition And growing into great choler the Spaniards said that the Medici should do well to be once quiet and not add new offences and things hateful to the Spaniards to the insufferable distastes of Flanders Marselles and Aldighiera Lorenzo without any the least alteration reply'd to these resentful words That his scales were just but that the Neapolitans and Millaneses did not add any weight thereunto being so far distant from the strength of Spain and full of people who did so unwillingly undergo the Dominion of Forreigners and that the Indies were void of Inhabitants that the love and multitude of subjects the fertility and conjunction of States was that which weighed down his scales Then answering with some more shew of anger to the particular of Flanders Marselles and Aldighiera Lorenzo said that as long as the Spaniards would keep themselves within the bounds of honesty they should alwaies be beloved honoured and served by his greâ—… Dukes of Tuscany but that they were very much deceived if they thought they should ever be able to draw the Medici out of Florence as they had done the unfortunate Sforz out of Millan That States could not be deposited into the hands of Princes as monies were with a mind to recall them in a fitting time And that the merit of any gift how great soever was lost when one went about to reassume it Then the Princes who heard words begin to multiply interposed themselves between Lorenzo and the Spaniards and breaking off that hot discourse bad them proceed on to the scales The Spaniards put then thereinto the Dukedom of Millan which withdrew likewise a million from the weight whereat the Spaniards were so astonished as they would not put Flanders into the scales fearing to receive som further affront 'T was said that if they would have put in the Indies they might have done some good but not such miracles as some wide mouthes speak of who speak of millions of crowns with as much ease as Pigeons eat pease The English were next called in who put their Kingdom into the scales formidable for the strength of its miraculous scituation for the mountains wherewith she is invironed serve for walls made like bulwarks by Gods own hand and the sea supplying the place of a deep ditch makes her a redoubted Kingdom by reason of the commodity she hath to assail others and the insufferable difficulties which they meeâ—… with who will assault her This Kingdom the last fifteen years weighed fifteen millions but at the present it comes short of nine the occasion of this decrease to boot with the Apostasie of that