rsh. We may say the
same of Athens, Actium, Thebes, Sparta, and most of those towns in Greece.
Nuremberg in Germany is sited in a most barren soil, yet a noble imperial
city, by the sole industry of artificers, and cunning trades, they draw the
riches of most countries to them, so expert in manufactures, that as
Sallust long since gave out of the like, _Sedem animae in extremis digitis
habent_, their soul, or _intellectus agens_, was placed in their fingers'
end; and so we may say of Basil, Spire, Cambray, Frankfurt, &c. It is
almost incredible to speak what some write of Mexico and the cities
adjoining to it, no place in the world at their first discovery more
populous, [561]Mat. Riccius, the Jesuit, and some others, relate of the
industry of the Chinese most populous countries, not a beggar or an idle
person to be seen, and how by that means they prosper and flourish. We have
the same means, able bodies, pliant wits, matter of all sorts, wool, flax,
iron, tin, lead, wood, &c., many excellent subjects to work upon, only
industry is wanting. We send our best commodities beyond the seas, which
they make good use of to their necessities, set themselves a work about,
and severally improve, sending the same to us back at dear rates, or else
make toys and baubles of the tails of them, which they sell to us again, at
as great a reckoning as the whole. In most of our cities, some few
excepted, like [562]Spanish loiterers, we live wholly by tippling-inns and
alehouses. Malting are their best ploughs, their greatest traffic to sell
ale. [563]Meteran and some others object to us, that we are no whit so
industrious as the Hollanders: "Manual trades" (saith he) "which are more
curious or troublesome, are wholly exercised by strangers: they dwell in a
sea full of fish, but they are so idle, they will not catch so much as
shall serve their own turns, but buy it of their neighbours." Tush
[564]_Mare liberum_, they fish under our noses, and sell it to us when they
have done, at their own prices.

------"Pudet haec opprobria nobis
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli."

I am ashamed to hear this objected by strangers, and know not how to answer
it.

Amongst our towns, there is only [565]London that bears the face of a city,
[566]_Epitome Britanniae_, a famous emporium, second to none beyond seas, a
noble mart: but _sola crescit, decrescentibus aliis_; and yet, in my
slender judgment, defective in many things. The