exquisite torments; neither should I lie (said he)
if I said 50 millions. I omit those French massacres, Sicilian evensongs,
[306]the Duke of Alva's tyrannies, our gunpowder machinations, and that
fourth fury, as [307]one calls it, the Spanish inquisition, which quite
obscures those ten persecutions, [308]------_saevit toto Mars impius orbe._
Is not this [309]_mundus furiosus_, a mad world, as he terms it, _insanum
bellum_? are not these mad men, as [310]Scaliger concludes, _qui in praelio
acerba morte, insaniae, suae memoriam pro perpetuo teste relinquunt
posteritati_; which leave so frequent battles, as perpetual memorials of
their madness to all succeeding ages? Would this, think you, have enforced
our Democritus to laughter, or rather made him turn his tune, alter his
tone, and weep with [311]Heraclitus, or rather howl, [312]roar, and tear
his hair in commiseration, stand amazed; or as the poets feign, that Niobe
was for grief quite stupefied, and turned to a stone? I have not yet said
the worst, that which is more absurd and [313]mad, in their tumults,
seditions, civil and unjust wars, [314]_quod stulte sucipitur, impie
geritur, misere finitur_. Such wars I mean; for all are not to be
condemned, as those fantastical Anabaptists vainly conceive. Our Christian
tactics are all out as necessary as the Roman acies, or Grecian phalanx, to
be a soldier is a most noble and honourable profession (as the world is),
not to be spared, they are our best walls and bulwarks, and I do therefore
acknowledge that of [315]Tully to be most true, "All our civil affairs, all
our studies, all our pleading, industry, and commendation lies under the
protection of warlike virtues, and whensoever there is any suspicion of
tumult, all our arts cease;" wars are most behoveful, _et bellatores
agricolis civitati sunt utiliores_, as [316]Tyrius defends: and valour is
much to be commended in a wise man; but they mistake most part, _auferre,
trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus virtutem vocant_, &c. ('Twas Galgacus'
observation in Tacitus) they term theft, murder, and rapine, virtue, by a
wrong name, rapes, slaughters, massacres, &c. _jocus et ludus_, are pretty
pastimes, as Ludovicus Vives notes. [317]"They commonly call the most
hair-brain bloodsuckers, strongest thieves, the most desperate villains,
treacherous rogues, inhuman murderers, rash, cruel and dissolute caitiffs,
courageous and generous spirits, heroical and worthy captains, [318]brave
me