, &c. At the siege of Ostend (the devil's academy)
a poor town in respect, a small fort, but a great grave, 120,000 men lost
their lives, besides whole towns, dorps, and hospitals, full of maimed
soldiers; there were engines, fireworks, and whatsoever the devil could
invent to do mischief with 2,500,000 iron bullets shot of 40 pounds weight,
three or four millions of gold consumed. [288]"Who" (saith mine author)
"can be sufficiently amazed at their flinty hearts, obstinacy, fury,
blindness, who without any likelihood of good success, hazard poor
soldiers, and lead them without pity to the slaughter, which may justly be
called the rage of furious beasts, that run without reason upon their own
deaths:" [289]_quis malus genius, quae furia quae pestis_, &c.; what
plague, what fury brought so devilish, so brutish a thing as war first into
men's minds? Who made so soft and peaceable a creature, born to love,
mercy, meekness, so to rave, rage like beasts, and run on to their own
destruction? how may Nature expostulate with mankind, _Ego te divinum
animal finxi_, &c.? I made thee an harmless, quiet, a divine creature: how
may God expostulate, and all good men? yet, _horum facta_ (as [290]one
condoles) _tantum admirantur, et heroum numero habent_: these are the brave
spirits, the gallants of the world, these admired alone, triumph alone,
have statues, crowns, pyramids, obelisks to their eternal fame, that
immortal genius attends on them, _hac itur ad astra_. When Rhodes was
besieged, [291]_fossae urbis cadaveribus repletae sunt_, the ditches were
full of dead carcases: and as when the said Suleiman, great Turk,
beleaguered Vienna, they lay level with the top of the walls. This they
make a sport of, and will do it to their friends and confederates, against
oaths, vows, promises, by treachery or otherwise; [292]--_dolus an virtus?
quis in hoste requirat_? leagues and laws of arms, ([293]_silent leges
inter arma_,) for their advantage, _omnia jura, divina, humana, proculcata
plerumque sunt_; God's and men's laws are trampled under foot, the sword
alone determines all; to satisfy their lust and spleen, they care not what
they attempt, say, or do, [294]_Rara fides, probitasque viris qui castra
sequuntur._ Nothing so common as to have [295] "father fight against the
son, brother against brother, kinsman against kinsman, kingdom against
kingdom, province against province, Christians against Christians:" _a
quibus nec unquam cogitatione fu