the Son is bound to exercise his Parents occupation so that no pretense almost is left for Wonderers and briefly as far as humane Laws can provide all other vain occasions for mis-expence of time are taken off for within the Cities no stews are allow'd or lewd persons to withdraw them Adultery is punished with death but yet they have liberty to take many Wives one they keep at home the rest are disposed of abroad where they best please Their Marriages they chiefly solemnize at the New Moon and for the most part in March which begins their year For their Religion they are Gentiles but have a confused knowledge of God Heaven and the Creation When they would decipher their great God they express him by the first Letter in their Alphabet and in their Devotions they worship him as their chief but not only preserver for they have their prayers to the Sun Moon Stars and to the Devil himself that he would not hurt them Their Priests are distinguished into the black and White Friers as we call them for they much resemble Friers in their course of life some are cloathed in White their heads shorn and their Victuals in common others in black long hair and live apart neither are marryed but both take their liberty to live obscurely as the debauchest swaggerers The chief of the Cities is Paquin where the King hath his continual Residence his Pallace here is compassed with a Triple wall carrys the bulk and face of a fair Town for indeed his retinue are no fewer then might well people a large City among the rest he hath 16000 Eunuchs daily attending such as their own Parents have emascul'd in their Infancy to make them capable of this Court preferment The seat Imperial was heretofore at Nanquin where still remains a Golden testimony of her past glory It is a fair City thirty miles in compass seated nine leagues from the Sea upon a fair Navigable River where there Rides commonly at least 10000. of the Kings ships besides Merchants it hath three brick walls the streets are six miles in length of a proportionable breadth and trimly paved The Metropolis is Quinsay or Suntien the largest City in the world for it contains 100 miles in compass it is seated in a low and Fenny ground is subject to floods and hath been forced in very many places to erect bridges for free passage from one street to another there are in all 12000. built of stone and most of them so high that a good ship may strike under them with full sail each of them hath its ten for a night guard The Inhabitants of this City live luxuriously especially their Women who are much more comely then their men yet all of them almost eat both Horse and Dogs flesh Toward the South part of the City there is a great lake about 24 miles in circuit in the midst stand two Islands whither the chief Nobilty repair and invite their friends to Solemnize their Marriage and have in each a stately Pallace erected furnished sufficiently with all fitting Ornaments for a Wedding jollity In many parts of the City there are publick places of Receipt for such as sustain any misfortune by fire there they may lodge their Goods safe upon a suddain casualty till they can make better provision In each Province the Cities stand so thick and are so populous that they all seem to be as one one as well for their continued building almost as their fashion of building for they all observe the same form and dispose their streets alike two broad crossing each other in the middle in so strait a line that the eye may reach clean from one end to the other The Revenues of the whole Empire and number of Inhabitants are not easily to be reckoned Yet this in brief he hath subject under him 70 Crowned Kings gathers up yearly 120 Millions of Crowns stirs not into the field without 300000 foot and 200000 horse Out of the Description of the Kingdom of TARTARY THese Tartaryans for brutish Customs were grown odious to the more civil parts of the World and as Herod in his fourth Book of Histories delivers were wont to sing their Parents to the Grave invite their best Friends to Feast with their Fathers flesh and use his Scull as a cup to drink in at their lascivious banquets Who more the Axiaca who quenched their thirst with the bloud of him whom they first slew as it gushed warm from his wounds who more foolish proud than the Agathyrst who were used to mend their beauty by a deformed painting and ugly staining of their bodies with motly colours You shall have here their Character which is given by most that describe them to have ill fashioned bodies answerable to their rude minds fit houses for so unclean guests Their Stature is different The most part have large shoulders a broad face with a crooked nose deformed countenance swarthy colour hollow eyes hairy and untrimmed beard and head close shaved Their speech is boisterous and clamorous their noise in singing like the yell of Wolves and endurance of hunger thirst heat cold and watching equals them in strength of body to the most able beast for it exceeds the common power of a man Their lust is without Law for they except no kindred but their own Mothers Daughters and Sisters No species for they mix with beasts nor sex for they are unsatiate Sodomites and yet take liberty for as many Wives which they can maintain which contrary to our civil courses they buy of their Parents instead of receiving Dowries Their meat is the raw flesh of horses without regard how they were killed or what diseases they dyed sometimes they suck bloud from the living to appease their hunger and thirst if in a journey they be distressed for want of food Cities they have but few nor houses other then moveable Tents made of Beasts skins which they pitch up by great multitudes in the form of a Town and those are called hordes when the Grass is once eaten bare and the ground yields not meat for their Cattel they trudge with bag and baggage to another quarter and so in course they wander through the vast Desarts unsetled and indeed impatient to be setled or rather imprisoned as they take it within any bounded compass having the wide world to roam in Their chief Arms are Bow and Arrows which they use most on Horse-back for their most speedy flight and have them commonly strongly poysoned for the more sure mischief to the foe their stratagems are downright fraud and breach of truce for they keep no faith with an Enemy regard not any compact made upon terms of peace but follow their own sense and commit what out-rages they can with least danger to themselves Their Religion is answerable to their vile customs Some are Pagans others Mahometans yet will not be called Turks but Bersemany and their chief Priest Seyd whom they reverence more then their Maker and
then the hangman having a pan of Coals near him with red hot pincers nip'd of the nipple of one breast then he took a knife and gives him a slash or cut down the back on one side from the shoulder to the waste and presently gave him such another slash three inches from the first then on the top he cut the slashes into one and presently taking pincers took hold of the cross cut and tore him down like a Girse below the middle letting it hang down behind him like a belt after which he took his burning pincers and pluck'd off the tops of his fingers of one hand then passing to another place of the Town his other nipple was plucked off the other side of his back so cut and mangled which they call by the name of rimming his other fingers nip'd off then passing further all his Toes were nip'd off with the burning pincers after which he was inforced to come out of the Cart and go on foot up a steep hill to the Gallows where he was broken with a wheel alive one bone after another beginning at his leggs and ending with his neck and last of all quartered and laid on the Wheel on a high post till Crows Ravens or consuming time consume him This was the manner of both their executions but I speak of the greatest murther particularly because it is reported that all these torments never made him once to change countenance or to make any sign or action of grief to call to God for mercy or to intreat the people to pray for him but as if he had been a sensless stock or stone he did most scornfully and as it were in disdain abide it whilst the other Villain did cry rore and make lamentation calling upon God often The difference was not much in their lives and manner of their deaths but the odds may be great in their dying In the City of Prague is said to be of Churches and Chappels 150. I was there at four several sorts of divine exercise viz. at good Sermons with the Protestants at Mass with the Papists at a Lutherans preaching and at the Jews Synagogue three of which I saw and heard for curiosity and the other for Edification The Jews in Prague are in such great numbers that they are thought to be of Men Women and Children betwixt 50 or 60000. who do all live by Brokage and Usury upon the Christians and are very rich in Money and Jewels so that a man may see 10 or 12 together of them that are accounted worth 20 30 or 40000 l. a piece and yet the slaves go so miserably attired that 15 of them are not worth the hanging for their whole ward-ropes The City of Hamburgh The priviledges of their grand hang-man YOu must understand that this fellow is a Subsidy Hangman to whom our Tyburn Tatterdemallion or our Wapping winde-pipe stretcher is but a Raggamuffin not worth the hanging The priviledges of this Grand haulter-master are many as he hath the emptying of all the Vaults or draughts in the City which no doubt he gains some favour by Besides all Oxen Kine Horses Dogs or any such beasts if they dye themselves or if they be not like to live the hang man must knock them on the head and have their skins and whatsoever Inhabitant in his jurisdiction doth any of these things aforesaid himself is abhorred and accounted as a Villain without Redemption So that with hangings headings breakings pardoning and killing of Dogs flaying of Beasts emptying of Vaults and such privy Commodities his whole Revenue sometimes amounts to four or five hundred pounds a year And he is held in that regard and estimation that any man will converse and drink with nay sometimes the Lords of the Town will feast with him and it is accounted no impeachment to their honours for he is held in the rank of a Gentleman or a rank Gentleman and he scorns to be clad in the cast weeds of executed offenders no he goes to the Mercers and hath his Sattin his Velvet or what stuffe he pleases measured out by the Yard or the Ell with his Gold and Silver Lace his silk Stockings laced spangled Garters and Roses Hat and Feather with four or five brave Villains attending him in Livery Cloaks who have stipendary means from his ignominious bounty Their manner of executing Thieves and Murtherers upon the Wheel I shall name one for a president A Poor Carpenter dwelling in the Town who having stoln a Goose and plucking it within his doors a little Girl his Daughter-in-law went out of his house and left the door open by which means the owner of the Goose passing by espyed the wretched thief very diligently picking what he before had been stealing to whom the owner said Neighbour I now perceive which way my Geese use to go but I will have you in Question for them and so away he went the Caitiff being thus reproved grew desperate and his Child coming into his house ye young whore quoth he must ye leave my door open for folks to look in upon me and with that word he took a hatchet and with a cursed stroak he clove the Childs head for the which murther he was condemned and judged to be broken alive upon the wheel Upon the day of Execution about the hour of 12 at Noon the people of the Town in great multitudes flocked to the place of Execution which is half a mile English without the Gates the Prisoner came on foot with a Divine with him all the way exhorting him to repentance and because death should not terrifie him they had given him many Rowses and Carowses of Wine and Beer for it is a custom there to make such poor wretches drunk whereby they be made sensless either of Gods mercy or their own misery but being pray'd for by others they themselves may die resolutely or to be feared desperately But the Prisoner being come to the place of death he was by the Officers delivered to the hang-man who entring his strangling fortification with two grand hang-men more and their men to assist their Hamburghian brother in this great and weighty work the Prisoner mounted on a mount of Earth built high on purpose that the people about may see the execution a quarter of a mile round about four of the hang-mens men takes each of them a small halter and by the hands and the feet they hold the prisoner extended all abroad lying on his back then the Arch-hang-man or the great Master of this mighty business took up a wheel much about the bigness of one of the fore wheels of a Coach and first having put off his Doublet his Hat and being in his shirt as if he meant to play at Tennis he took the wheel and set it on the edge and turn'd it with one hand like a Top or Whirly-gig then he took it by the Spoaks and lifting it up with a mighty stroke he beat one of the poor wretches legs in
is inricht with variety of Mines which yields her plenty of Iron Steel Copper Silver and Gold Lead she hath not and scarce at all any Tin DENMARK THe people are valiant and Warlike strong of body and big boned and of a terrible countenane ambitious of a glorious death rather than a sluggish idle life Such incredible plenty of Herring near the Isle of Scunia that say they are scarce able by main strength of Oars to Row out of the Harbour Here are furniture for War both by Sea and Land Armour Masts Cables Steel Saddles c. POLAND IT is well-nigh past belief which is reported of their Multitudes of Bees such as yield more Honey and Wax then the people can find room for they need here neither Art nor care of the good Huswife to order their Hives but naturally are their own Guardians and provide so diligently for their own safety within the bulks of Trees that they easily pass over the hardest winter without hurt The Polanders have a good mind to Religion but cannot fasten upon any one to their liking and therefore they will try all Christians they have been ever since the year 965. but from that time they have scarce slipt any Error Schism or Heresie which hath crept into the Church Here are Jesuits and other of the Romish Sects Here are Lutherans and Calvinists and Arians Anabaptists and Antirinitarians none allowed but all tollerated And indeed Poland had the Seniority of Amsterdam for that old saying that if a Man had lost his Religion here he might find it They have one ancient Custom in their Churches when the Gospel is Reading the Nobility and Gentry unsheath their Swords and stand as it were prepared to defend it with their lives against any which dare violate it In Samognia near to Livonia a people there which is called the Peasants who are most of them gross Idolaters and are oftimes met in their Woods with horrid Visions and are strangely cozened by the Devil with a belief that they can Prophesie The silly blasphemers nourish in their House a poor Snake like themselves gathered out of some Ditch and call it their God Ziemenike Their greatest Commodity is of Honey which they gather ready made to their hands in their hollow Trees PERSIA FOr want of lawful Heirs to Cambyses their second King their Princes consulted to salute him whose Horse first neighed at a set meeting upon the Court Green before the Sun-risin Darius Histaspes was one and by the subtilty of his Horse-keeper carryed the Crown for the night before in the same ground he had coupled a Mare with the Horse his Master should ride which when the lustful Steed missed the next Morning being full of spirit no sooner had he set footing upon the place but with much eagerness he snuffed and neighed after his Mare and gave the quue to the other Princes to Proclaim Darius King of the Pesiians This was he whom the Scriptures call Ahasuerus he was Hesters Husband The ancient Persians Customs were most of them Superstitious but they held nothing almost in so great reverence as Water It might not lawfully be soiled so much as with a foul hand but to piss or cast rubbish or a dead Carkase into their Rivers was a kind of Sacriledge They had many Wives and more Concubines for they were exceeding desirous of increase and great Rewards were appointed by their King himself for him that could most augment the number of his Subjects in one year They seldom entred into any Consultation of State till they had well armed themselves with drink for then they thought they should be most free to speak what they most thought To spit or laugh before their Prince was a Crime well-nigh unpardonable Some say that they bury not their dead but cast them forth to be devoured by wilde Beasts and thought him most happy which was soonest torn to mammocks the rest their friends bewailed as such who had lived impurely and were therefore by this sign declared worthy of Hell only without any Redemption In Assyria now Arzeram stands the most famous City Ninive near the River Tigris containing full three score Miles in compass they had a Custom to sell their Virgins which were fair and most desired and tender the price into the common Treasury The homelier sort were placed in Marriage with that Money to those which would accept of them for gain at least if not for Beauty Bermudas ISLAND THis Island having been formerly shunned by Travellers as most dangerous and seldom seen by any except against their Wills reputed to be rather a hold and habitation of Devils then any fit place for men to abide in was discovered by Sir John Gates and Sir George Sommers in the year 1609. they found there in great abundance Fish Fowl Hogs and other things for sustenance of Man but no people nor any kind of Cattel Sir John and Sir George having with them 150 Men abode there nine Months Most of these Men afterwards returning for England and making it known to the Virginia Company obtained a Charter from His Majesty and so hold it In Mr. Richard Moor the Governours time he having spent three years of his Government for the most part Fortifying the Country c. A wonderful annoyance fell out by silly Rats These Rats coming at the first out of a Ship few in number increased in the space of two years or less so exceedingly that they filled not only those places where they were first Landed But swimming from place to place spread themselves into all parts of the Country Insomuch that there was no Island though severed by the Sea from all other Lands and many Miles distant from the Isles where the Rats had their Original but was pestred with them They had their nests almost in every Tree and in all places their Burrows in the ground like Connies to harbour in They spared not the Fruits of Plants or Trees neither the Plants themselves but eat them up When we had set our Corn they would commonly come by troops the night following or so soon as it began to grow and dig it up again If by diligent watching any of it were preserved till it came to earing it should then very hardly scape them yea it was a very difficult matter after they had it in their Houses to save it from them for they became noy some even to the persons of Men. They used all diligence for the destroyng of them nourishing many Cats wild and tame for that purpose they used Ratsbane and many times set fire on the Woods so as the fire might run half a Mile or more before it were extinct Every Man in the Country was enjoyned to set twelve traps and some of their own accord set near a hundred which they visited twice or thrice in a night they trained up their Dogs to hunt them wherein they grew so expert that a good Dog in two of three hours space would kill forty
place Sommerset-shire THis Country besides other Commodities in some places is inriched by Lead-mines which yields great Plenty the most Marchantable Commodity that is in England and vented into all parts of the World Some places are beautified with Diamonds as St. Vincent Rock whereof there is great plenty and so bright of colour as they might equalize Indian Diamonds if they had their hardness yet being so many and so common they are less sought after or commended In this Country is the City of Bathe which takes name of the hot Baths A place of continual concourse for Persons of all degrees and almost of all diseases who by Divine Providence do very often find relief there the Springs thereof by reason of their Mineral and sulphurous passage being of such exceeding power and medicinal heat as that they Cure and Conquer the rebellions stubbornness of corrupt humors At Dunstere where as is reported a great Lady obtained of her Husband so much Pasture Ground in common by the Town side for the good and benefit of the Inhabitants as she was able in a whole day to go about bare-foot Wilt-shire SAlisbury the chief City in which every street almost hath a River running thorow in her midst The Cathedral a most rich Magnificent Church wherein are as many Windows as there are days in the year as many cast Pillars of Marble as there are hours in the year and as many Gates for entrance as there are months in the year Aurelius Ambrosus buryed at Stonheng Anno 500. THis ancient Monument was erected by Aurelius Surnamed Ambrosus King of the Britiains whose Nobility in the Reign of Vortiger his Countrys scourge about the year 475. by the Treachery of the Saxons on a day of parley were there slaughtered and their bodys there Interred In Memory whereof this King Aurel caused this Trophy to be set up Admirable to Posterities Both in form and quantity the matter thereof are stones in great bigness containing twenty eight foot and more in length and ten in bredth these are set in the ground by two and two and a third laid Gate-wise over-thwart fastn'd with tenons mortasses wrought in the same which seem very dangerous to all that pass there under The form is round and as it seemeth hath been circulated with three ranks of these stones Many whereof are now fallen down and the uttermost whereof containeth in compass three hundred foot by measure of assize They all are rough and of a gray colour standing within a Trench that hath been much deeper In this place this foresaid King Aurelius with two more of the Brittish Kings his Successors have been buryed with many more of their Nobility and in this place under little banks to this day are found by digging bones of Mighty men and Armour of large and ancient fashion Not far hence is seen the ruins of an old Fortress thought by some to be built there by the Romans when this Kingdom was possessed by their Emperours Bark-shire IN Reading in the Collegiate Church of the Abbey King Henry the first and Queen lay both veiled and Crowned with their Daughter Maud the Empress called the Lady of England were Interred as the private History of the place avoucheth But of far greater Magnificence and State is the Castle of Windsor A most Princely Pallace and Mansion of His Majesty In this Castle was King Edward the third born and here held at one and the same time Prisoners John King of France and David King of Scotland Neither was it ever graced with greater Majesty then by the Institution of the most Honourable Order of the Garter the invention thereof some ascribe to be from a Garter falling from his Queen or rather from Joan Countess of Salisbury a Lady of an uncomparable beauty as she danced before him whereat the by-standers smiling he gave the impress to check all evil conceits and in Golden Letters imbellished the Garter with this French Posie Honi Soit Qui Maby Pense The Princely Chappel of Windsor is graced with the bodies of Henry the 6 th and Edward the 4 th Kings of England the one of Lancaster the other of York as also King Henry the 8 th lyeth there Interred Finch-hampsted For wonder inferiour to none where as our Writers do witness that in the year a thousand one hundred a Well boiled up with streams of bloud and fifteen days together continued that Spring whose Waters made red all others where they came to the great amazement of the beholders Middlesex LOndon This City doth shew as the Cedars among the other trees being the seat of the British Kings the Chamber of the English the Model of the Land and the Mart of the World For thither are brought the silk of Asia the spices from Africa the balms from Grecia and the riches of both the Indies East and West No City standing so long in Fame nor any for Divine and Politick Government may with her be compared In King Johns time a Bridge of Stone was made over Thames upon nineteen Arches for length breadth beauty and building the like again cannot be found in the World Essex IN the year 1581. an Army of Mice so over ran the Marshes in Deugâ—y Hundred near unto South-Minster in this County that they shore the grass to the very roots and so tainted the same with their venemous teeth that a great Murrain fell upon the Cattel which grazed thereon to the great loss of their owners Suffolk RAlph Coggeshall in the Monuments of Colchester declareth that a Fish in all parts like a Man was taken near Orford and for six Months was kept in the Castle whence after he escaped went again to the Sea As strange but most true was a crop of Pease that without tillage or sowing grew in the Rocks betwixt this Orford and Aldebrough in the year 1555. when by unseasonable weather a great dearth was in the Land there in August were gathered above one hundred Quarters and in blossoming remained as many more where never grass grew or Earth ever seen but hard sollid Rocks three yards deep under the roots Hereford-shire AT Langley in this Country was buryed Richard the second that unfortunate King who in the Cell of Fryers Preachers was there first buryed but afterwards removed and enshrined at Westminster And in another Langley near the East from thence was born that Pontifical Breakspear Bishop of Rome known by the name of Hadrian the fourth and famous for his Stirrup-holding by Frederick the Emperour whose breath was lastly stopped by a fly that flew into his mouth Bedford-shire IN the year 1399. immediately before those Civil Wars broke out between the Princes of York and Lancaster The River Ouse near unto Harwood stood suddenly still and refrained to pass any further so that forward men passed three miles together on foot in the very depth of her channel and backwards the waters swelled unto a great height which was observed by the judicious to fore-tell some
is a free City not being subject to the Emperour or any other Prince but only governed by twenty four Burgo-masters whereof two are the chief who are called Lords and do hold that dignity from their first Election during their lives The buildings are all of one uniform fashion very lofty and stately it is wonderful populous and the water with boats comes through most of the streets of the Town Their Churches are most gorgeously set forth as the most of them covered with Copper with very lofty spires and within sides they are adorned with Crucifixes Images and Pictures which they do charily keep for Ornaments In St. Jacobs and in St. Katherines Churches there is in one of them a Pulpit of Alablaster and the other a pair of such Organs which for worth and Workmanship are unparallel'd in Christendom as most travellers do relate The Womens Habit. THe Women there are no fashion-mongers but they keep in their degrees one continual habit as the richer sort do wear a Huick which is a Robe of Cloth or Stuff plated and the upper part of it is gathered and sowed together in the form of an English pot-lid with a tassle on the top and so put upon the head and the garment goes over her tuffe and face if she please and so down to the ground so that a man may meet his own Wife and perhaps not know her from another Woman Men and Women draw Carts their Office THey have no Porters to bear burdens but they have big burly-bon'd Knaves with their Wives that do daily draw Carts any whither up and down the Town with Merchants Goods or any other imployments And it is reported that these Cart-drawers are to see the Rich men of the Town provided of Milch Nurses for their Children which Nurses they call by the Name of Ams so that if they do want a Nurse at any time these fellows are cursed because they have not gotten Wenches enough with Child to supply their wants The Lawyer a bad Trade A Lawyer hath but a bad Trade there for any Cause or Controversie is tryed and determined in three days Quirks Quiddits Demurs Habeas Corpus's Cercioraries Procedendoes or any such dilatory tricks are abolished and not worth a button THE Lamentable Destruction OF THE Ancient and Memorable City and Temple OF JERUSALEM Being destroyed by Vespasian and his Son Titus WArs hath brought dreadful Jars and Confusions both of horrour and terrour unto Domestick Forreign Inward and Outward Estates In Jehovahs ire were shafts shot at Juda so that War Fire Sword Famine Infectious Plagues Depopulations and Desolations was the final Conquest of old Jacobs Land These are the Theames of my mournful Muse these are the grounds of my Lamentation Josephus wrote these things in ample manner which I do here Epitomize That worthy Author in a large scope relates and the Books of his Antiquities do tell his Countries alterations how oftentimes they rose how often they fell how often God favoured them and how often his frowns was upon them and at last in his anger he cast them head-long down The seventh Book of Josephus's wars declareth plainly how the Romans did by Conquest gain the Kingdom how death did in sundry shapes tyrannize both in Sword in Fire in Famine and in Rapes Since Hebers Sons enjoyed the Country it hath been six times wasted and destroyed so that if you account all the Wars since the Creation that hath chanced they are nothing to Jerusalems desolation No story no Memory describes the calamity of old Israels Tribes to be parallel'd And indeed if each Land in the universal did recount the bloudy broyls to them it were but a Molehill to a Mountain all which for sin the Almighty in his anger heaped upon this sinful Land It is now about sixteen hundred years since great Vespasian Romes Imperial Prince with his stout Valiant Son brave young Titus did over-run Judea's Kingdom and with a Royal Army renowned did beleaguer Jerusalem with Forces and stratagems as with Rampiers Engines scaling Ladders and Towers with all the Art that either might or sleight could do The besieged amongst themselves in this interim fell to Sedition like Bavines that lyeth near one to another if one burn and burning each one burneth another so did the Jews each other madly kill insomuch as their streets were fill'd with their slain Corpses Eleazer Simon and John disagreeing rent Jerusalem in pieces each contending who should be the chief John scorned Eleazer as thinking himself most worthy to be Superiour on the other side Eleazer thought John to be his Inferiour and Simon scorned them both and each scorned another and would not by any be ruled or over-born The City being thus divided into three Factions sad it is to relate how horrid their bloudy and inhumane actions were there all impieties were committed in sundry sorts of varieties all sacrilegious acts were counted most noble and meritorious facts In evil they strived each other to surpass and laboured most how to serve the Devil These men had no thoughts of grace and goodness but daily each against the other most madly fought and over-turned all things by their hurly burly so violent were they one against another that they burned each others store-houses with their Victuals And with hearts more harder than the Adamantine Rocks they drailed Virgins by the hair of their heads as also the Aged they spared not to drag about the streets some Infants their brains they dashed out and some upon the points of Lances they bore about the streets It is not possible to write with Pen the devillish out-rages and barbarous acts that was committed by them The advantage upon this seditious and most inhumane disorder that the Romans took is most incredible yet credible it may be because the Jews were altogether unmindful of their own safety they wasted and spoiled one another without remorse insomuch as their enemies their cruel foes relented and wept in pity of them whilst they relentness Villains void of pity did their Mother City consume and ruinate the Channels flowed all with gore bloud the streets were bestrowed with murdered carkasses the Temple with unhallowed hands defiled there was no respect to any to Man Woman or Child Thus this three headed multitude or hellish crew did waste themselves till indeed they did at length subdue themselves but you must note they were not altogether neglective some vigilancy they had upon their enemy and whilst they were making their strength more sure within the Romans without with their dreadful Batteries made not only the City to tremble but the Walls to break at which the factious wisely bethought themselves and assembled themselves together with all their powers and as a wonderment it was united together like good friends And then like swoln Rivers bounded in with Banks they sally forth and fight their enemies like as the ambitious torrent breaks his bounds and over-runs whole Lordships so did these Jews out-dare and challenge
then you will be more sorrowful and less dainty poor Jerusalem had once Beauty Strength Riches spacious Buildings Authority and honour yet these availed them nothing wrong trode down right and Justice was quite forgotten which was their chiefest their greatest their only earthly good But now one little piece of bread they reckoned more upon then ever before they did of bags of Gold Scraps parings and fragments c. which your full sed Corps did usually fling away with them had been a ransom for a King the loathsome garbage which our dogs refuse had been amongst the Jews a dish of state Whilst within Famine plaid the Tyrant the Romans Army strived to win the Walls their Pioners and all their Engines were at work to batter and assault the Wall Now note Jerusalem had three strong stone Walls and long it was ere the Romans could get one but the dearth so spread and death of the sword as that in the streets the living trod upon the dead the Carkasses which the Seditious kill'd fill'd many great houses so that with the stinck of bodies putrefied there dyed a number numberless of people for burial they afforded none but where they fell they let them lye stink and rot yet very unsensible were they of the sad condition of each other by hundreds and thousands then did the souldiers throw their liveless Corpses over the Walls upon this and their dis-uniting the Romans had high advantages and could with more security batter and scale the Walls When the Romans saw their dismal fall from the Walls they told it to Titus which when he perceived he wept and lifted up his hands to Heaven and called on God to witness with him this These flanghters saith he were no thoughts of mine neither was it my fault Indeed those wretches that escaped from out of the City and came amongst their foes in my Army found both relief and pity if any of those that fled to my Army had by the Seditious been caught they had without remorse strook them dead But another misery I must unfold unto you many Jews had swallowed store of Gold which they supposed in their need should help them but from this treasure did their bane proceed the Gold was the cause that many of them perisht amongst them all one unhappy poor creature went privately to do the needs of Nature and in his dung he looked for his Gold where being by the straggling souldiers took they ript him up and searched his Maw to find what Gold or treasure there remained In this sort was many a Man and Woman ript and slain for the gain of Gold that the souldiers gaped for In some they found Gold in many none but had they Gold or not it was all one with them they were unbowelled and searched most barbarously whither they had any or no. But my story briefly to conclude Vespasians Souldiers had subdued the walls his triumphant banner was displayed and that in the midst of the streets at which the Jews were all dismayed and upon which they desperately did retire to the Temple which with ungodly hands they set on fire which noble Titus with great care intreated them they would spare Oh save the house quoth he and I will spare you for the Temple sake quench the fire put out the flame Oh let not after-times report that you have burnt the worlds unmatchable glory For your own sakes your wives and your childrens if from Vespasians hands you expect grace if from Vespasians hands you expect your lives oh save your Temple Titus doth command you to save the Temple The Jews heard of the mercy they might have had but with hearts hard they refused the offer they refused mercy and themselves regarded not but in their madness they burned consumed and confounded to the ground King Solomons great Temple that Temple which did cost thirty Millions was in a moment lost and consumed The blest Sanctum Sanctorum the holiest place often blessed with Johovahs sacred grace where as the Text saith were 22000 Oxen slain and 12000 sheep besides dyed at the same time for an oblation That house of God whose glorious fame made all the World to wonder was burnt and ransackt and laid level to the ground which when it was seen by Vespasian and young Titus they cry'd kill kill those wretched Jews spare not to kill use speedy and Marshal Law the Roman souldiers then fell on and spared none they slew while they were weary of slaying and had no respect to Age or Sex the streets were drowned in bloud and slaughtered-Carkases did swim in in bloud the ablest men that were saved they carryed away for slaves John Simon and Eleazer as they deserved were brought to violent ends Now from that time that the Romans began their siege until the City was won by Sedition by the Sword Fire and Famine were deprived of their lives eleven hundred thousand besides one hundred thousand were taken as beasts and sold for slaves and from the time it was first erected till the Romans had takeâ— it it stood as appears in Histories twenty one hundred seventy and nine years But before Gods vengeance was showred down upon them what strange prodigious Wonders did he shew as warnings how they should avoid their destruction and cause them to repent the wicked evils they had done 1. The Firmament shewed them a Comet like a fiery Sword 2. Divers nights the Temple and the Altar were environed with bright burning lights 3. In the midst of the Temple though una Cow did bear a Lamb. 4. No Bolts or Bars could restrain the Temple-gates but they would fly open of themselves 5. In the Air assembled Armed men and Chariots the pondrous Earth quaked affrighted and trembled 6. To this sense a voice cryed in the Temple the people cry'd oh let us from hence depart These supernatural accidents foretold some fearful Judgment was to come but toyes they were accounted to the Jews or scar-crow-bugbears to fright children with and not minding them nor no way by them being affrighted they did in Jerusalem securely revell they thought these signs were against their foes and not them But when war when death when spoil when ruine had storm'd them appear'd the place so desolate as none could have known there had been a City Thus Juda and thus Jerusalem fell which Christ did foretell and was now fulfill'd that all their joys they should be bereft off and that one stone should not be left to stand upon another FINIS THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK SHeweth that in Asia did God begin his marvellous work of Creation and there was the first Church Collected also the Saviour of the World born and slain In this Asia abounds Myrrhe Frankinsence Nutmegs Pepper c. and it breeds Elephants and many other Beasts and Serpents page 1. 2 3 4. In the City Medina in Arabia is Mahomet Intombed in an Iron Chest supported by Art from falling to the ground 5 A brief