y above measure
the use of them that are sought and brought from far, is most folly of
all: for it savoureth of ignorance, or at the leastwise of negligence,
and therefore worthy of reproach.

[3] Earthly stars.

[4] "And paints terrestrial constellations with varied flowers."

[5] Refuse-heaps.

Among the Indians, who have the most present cures for every disease
of their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and
less of foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use
them, but work wonders even with their own simples. With them also the
difference of the clime doth show her full effect. For, whereas they
will heal one another in short time with application of one simple,
etc., if a Spaniard or Englishman stand in need of their help, they
are driven to have a longer space in their cures, and now and then
also to use some addition of two or three simples at the most, whose
forces unto them are thoroughly known, because their exercise is only
in their own, as men that never sought or heard what virtue was in
those that came from other countries. And even so did Marcus Cato, the
learned Roman, endeavour to deal in his cures of sundry diseases,
wherein he not only used such simples as were to be had in his own
country, but also examined and learned the forces of each of them,
wherewith he dealt so diligently that in all his lifetime he could
attain to the exact knowledge but of a few, and thereto wrote of those
most learnedly, as would easily be seen if those his books were
extant. For the space also of six hundred years the colewort only was
a medicine in Rome for all diseases, so that his virtues were
thoroughly known in those parts. * * *

For my part, I doubt not if the use of outlandish drugs had not
blinded our physicians of England in times past, but that the virtues
of our simples here at home would have been far better known, and so
well unto us as those of India are to the practitioners of those
parts, and thereunto be found more profitable for us than the foreign
either are or may be. This also will I add, that even those which are
most common by reason of their plenty, and most vile because of their
abundance, are not without some universal and special efficacy, if it
were known, for our benefit: sith God in nature hath so disposed his
creatures that the most needful are the most plentiful and serving for
such general diseases as our constitution most commonl