THE ANTIPATHY betweene the French and Spaniard Englished By Robert Gentilys Sold by R Martine at the Venice in old Baly 1641 THE 〈◊〉 AND THE Spaniard OR of the world displayed in lively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 representing the Antipathy of their Humours and different Dispositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Customes of both those Nations By R. G. Gent. LONDON Printed for 〈◊〉 at the Princes Armes in Pauls Churchyard TO THE RIGHT Worshipfull SIR PAUL PINDAR Knight YOur well known goodnesse which makes you admired praised by every one excited long since a desire in me to testifie unto the world and your self that though a stranger unto you yet I was not such a stranger in the city but that I had heard and taken notice of your daily pious and charitable workes So that this my translation being to goe forth into the view of the world I have made bold to dedicate it unto you for two causes The first my desire to make knowne unto you that you had an unknowne servant who had long wished for some opportunity whereby he might manifest the desire he had to tender his service unto you The second to make this poore worke more acceptable to the world by prefixing your beloved name in the front of it which is greater in the worlds esteeme Quam cui possit invidia nocere Your curteous and noble mind will I hope not disdaine the gift though so smal that it meriteth not so great a Patron I promising ere long to present you with something which shall bee mine owne invention So wishing you many happy daies fore-runners of eternal happinesse I rest Your Worships most devoted servant Robert Gentilis To the Reader TO obviate an Objection I thought good to write these few lines unto thee For it may bee said that the extolling of one is in some sort the vilifying of another and the glorious praises given in this book to the French and Spaniards may seeme a disparagement to our Nation But when I think upon that Prince who desirous to have a valiant man brought before him and one being presented unto him who had many scarres about him which were questionlesse tokens of his bold adventerousnesse said he had rather have had the man who gave those wounds I resolve my selfe that our Nation is rather commended and magnified by their praises then otherwise For if their conquests be so glorious what must the English renowne be who never could bee said to have had but the upper hand of either of them in all attempts or enterprises witnesse Histories Chronicles of all ages If the Authour have beene any thing hyperbolicall in their praises impute it to the Spanish phrase humour which cannot speake in a low stile or strain in your owne discretion accept of his meaning circumscribe his generalities As for example when he saith that these two great Monarchs protect defend others taxe him not with so much indiscretion as to imagine he meant all but onely such petty Princes Dukes as have their adherencies and dependancies upon them And not those who equall in power need not crave ayde of any but God either to defend or vindicate them So submitting my authour and my selfe to thy curteous censure I rest Thine if thou esteeme me worthy of thy favour R. G. The opposition and conjunction of the two great lights of the EARTH CHAP. I. That Peace and Vnion are Gods Attributes and the perfection of nature THAT supreame God who made the Heavens chroniclers of his glory and greatnesse to give us by his visible effects some knowledge and notice of the invisible treasure deposited in the deepe treasures of his owne omnipotency In all his operations as well internall or as the Divines doe terme them ad intra which are the generation of the word and production of the holy Ghost as also in the externall as the creation the providence the preservation and the like sheweth us that his most essentiall and proper attribute is Union Since the reall distinction admitted by sacred Divinity betweene the Divine persons is not sufficient to make the Son not to be the same with the Father and both one with the holy Ghost Nor doth that infinite variety of divers natures whereof this artificial frame of the world is composed besides the universall dependency which they have from one beginning refuse the bond of peace wherewith they are straightly joined together For proof of the first the efficacy wherewith the same God did so much give in charge and urge unto his chosen people the unity of his divine nature shall serve me for a concluding reason he saying unto them a thousand times Hearken O Israel thy God is one and one is his name Which wordes as they are most true and unreproovable witnesses of this truth shall save me a labour of proving it by naturall and theologicall reasons The second which is the dependency which all creatures have from one onely beginning may be plainly demonstrated by that which historicall Moses writ the beginning of his sacred history attributing the creation of the world to one sole cause Which truth that great Mercurius Trismegistus did also leave engraven in pure Emerald beeing there in followed by the whole troop of Philosophers who unanimously confessed one first cause eternall independent and immortall needing therein no other Tutor but onely the light of naturall reason And if any curious man should aske me the proof of the third point he may yeeld himselfe satisfaction by considering the streight bonds and intrinsecall union wherewith all natures doe linke themselves one with another untill they come unto the first linke from whence they were taken Nor let any one thinke this union and naturall concord of the creatures to be a borrowed perfection or accidentally belonging unto them seeing that the supreame architect who made all thinges deliberately and with wisdome and measure having set every one of them in their owne poste and place convenient for their natures gave unto them all joined together union for the center of their preservation And that so properly and intrinsecally that if the said union could be broken the whole frame of the world whose harmony consisteth in the reciprocall consonancy of all its parts would be brought to nothing He that shall with particular attention consider the seven rings or linkes whereof the chaine of this world is composed shall easily finde out this marvailous bond of union Beginning from the first and last which is God who though he be generally united to all creatures which live in him subsist by him and move through him yet by a more particular assistance he is united unto the Angelicall nature as the perfectest of all creatures This joyneth it selfe with the nature of the heavens which by reason of its incorruptibility is the most perfect next unto the Angelicall To the celestiall enterlaceth it selfe the elementall in whose linke consisteth the diameter of the chain as that which according
harmony of the world might come to be lost whose preservation is grounded upon the incorruptible unity of this matter It hath bin created but not from everlasting as Plato and others have affirmed it being impious to give or attribute the glory of eternity and of being without a beginning unto a creature which is due onely to God Finally it is sufficient for us to know without engulfing our selves into any other metaphysick that the matter whereof all corporall things are framed is of one and the same kinde and by that reason all your materiall species or kindes are united and coupled together And because that the formes of the compounds which must necessarily be sundry and diverse to make a perfect and faire compound should not deviate from that unity which God ordaines and nature pretends The supreame Artificer determined that they should all come forth of the entrailes of the materia or as the Divines call it de potentia materie that so in all their alterations and changes they might be tributary unto that beginning out of whose bowels and entrailes they came the power of corrupting engendring and altering resting onely in it as not being subject to goe out of the bounds of union and peace By this doctrin is confuted the opinion of many moderne Phylosophers who judging by the sence that which is contrary to reason beleeve that the formes of the Elements have no other end then to destroy and corrupt As for example the fire which we see consumes and devoures all as it findes living in perpetuall warre with the water as also the earth with the ayre For if we leave that seemingnes which sence sheweth us and examine the trueth with reason we shall finde that the elements being constitutive parts whereof all your mixtes are compounded it is repugnant and contrary to them to have destruction be their end their nature being essentially ordained to compound Whence is concluded that the naturall end of the Elements is nothing but union And although there ordinarily seemes to be a continuall enmity betweene them destroying one another yet we must hold for a certaine that this warre is onely made for the preservation of peace and union since the fire in seeking to persecute its contrary doth nothing but seeke a temperament to the rigor of his proper strength and any thing else which might hinder the union and conjunction whereby the compound is preserved So that we will conclude this Chapter saying that Union is an attribute of God the treasure of nature the naturall center of creatures and chain of the whole world This unites the mortall with the divine as the eternall Word with humane nature The mortall with incorruptible as the body with the soule The materiall with the spirituall as the understanding with the sences The living with the insensible as beasts with the earth The heaven with their elements the elements with man man with God And finally from God to God there is nothing but peace concord union agreement and love CHAP. II. That enmitie and discord are monsters of nature and the divels owne children FRom the precedent Chapter we may by very good consequence inferre that which we seeke to prove in this For if union and peace as we have proved be Gods attributes and the perfection of nature it is plaine that enmity and discord capitall enemies of union must of necessity be contraries to God and nature being altogether averse to the noblest perfection that our understanding can conceive in God which is unity and simplicity wherewith his divine attributes and perfections are so indivisibly united together that no manner of distinction can be admitted betweene them either reall formall or fundamentall as Divines doe terme them unlesse we should allow of the distinction of reason which our understanding licenciously frameth conceiving that to be distinct which in it selfe is indivisibly one Daily experience sheweth us the great repugnancy and contrariety that is betweene discord and nature either of them shewing it by their effects seeing the proper and principall end of the one is to corrupt diminish ruine and undoe Of the other to generate to joyne to multiply and unite all wordly things with the most firme bond of peace Because that knowing by evident induction that discord and enmity are enemies unto God and the very plagues of nature we may with good reason conclude them to be the workes of the divell wrought by his owne hands so pestilent a fruite doubtlesse proceeding from such an accursed tree The Apostle did in three wordes admirably set downe the genealogie and discent of this fierce monster saying that through the divells envy death was come into the world Wherein we must note according to the exposition of some Doctors that the Apostle in this place calleth dissention and discord by the name of death And that very properly seeing that the Doctors meaning by death as well the soules as the bodies death we shall finde death to be nothing else but a wretched separation and unfortunate divorce tending to ruine and perdition And as for the death of the body none can be so ignorant as to deny this truth beholding with his owne eies the dissolution of the streightest and internallest friendship as humane understanding can conceive and after that the miserable accidents which ordinarily accompany a dead carcasse And if this passage bee taken for spirituall death it being an enmity and divorce between God and the soule and not an ordinary divorce but an infinite one by reason of the infinite distance that is between God and a sinner we still conclude that death and discord are one and the selfe same thing and both daughters to the divell and envy as the Apostle saith the motive which moved the divell to bring this accursed dissention into the world was a cruell impatient rage against man being not able to endure that God should grow enamored of so ugly base and wretched a nature as humane nature is and that he should enrich it with so many extraordinary favours priviledges as unite himselfe hypostatically to it and make it the instrument of redemption denying that favour to the Angelicall nature which is more noble and perfect then the humane and so being desperately enraged he contracted matrimony with envy in which wedlocke death was borne so that death or discord hath the divell for her father and envy for her mother her grandfathers were pride and contempt and her first root was ambition This cursed plant was the first Angels plague and that which made him to exceed the bounds of his owne nature rashly opening the way unto an unbridled appetite and ambitious desire to climbe up unto the heaven of divine perfection to place his throne above the starres and to be like unto the most high Making the consideration of himselfe and the beauty and perfections wherewith he was enriched the instruments of so blinde a pretence and proud absurdity Judging himselfe thereby
when hee gave the Israelites their freedome taking them out of Egypt hee could in the night have opened the gates of the citie and made them come out or by day have blinded all the people of Egypt that they might not have seene them or finde some other meanes to free them out of bondage but if he had done so hee had not caused that feare which materiall means did and the visible tokens which he shewed in turning the waters into bloud filling the land with Locusts and Frogges and Flies with other marvailous wonders effects by means of which all that barbarous people and even Pharaoh himselfe confessed the omnipotencie of the God of the Hebrewes and besought Moses and his brother Aaron to pray for them that those plagues might be taken away from them and that they would obey him And if God had used some other signe as had not been so plaine and manifest as this and that which hee used at the red Sea peradventure the Egyptians would not have attributed the deliverance of their slaves to the power of God nor the people of Israel who was rough and of a hard beliefe would have believed that he by his omnipotence onely could have wrought any such effect In the law of Grace God used the same meanes to make himselfe knowne seeing that all the miracles which hee wrought as the Evangelists set them downe were done by sensible and materiall signes from which every grosse and rough understanding might gather the greatnesse and the supreme power of the Creator For who could be so grosse but seeing sight restored to a blinde man with onely laying a little dirt upon his eyes might not know that the dirt of it selfe had no such vertue and that therefore hee who applied that medicine had a command above nature And who will but say seeing a Lazarus who had lyen in the grave foure dayes raysed onely by saying Lazarus come forth that hee had power over death And that the satisfying five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes onely by blessing of them doth not infer supreme worth and power And that seeing the healing of one the restoring of sight to another turning water into wine banishing death by naturall means doe not presuppose that this is a supernaturall power and vertue And if that Christ had done these wonders without visible and materiall meanes onely by his absolute power peradventure his infinite power had not beene knowne and therefore let us conclude with Saint Paul that by meanes of visible and materiall things wee come to the knowledge of the invisible things of God as his Infinitenesse his Immensity his Goodnesse and Omnipotencie And if in all nature there be any visible thing which sheweth us this divine power it is the miraculous conjunction of these two Nations so prodigious a one that any grosse understanding may plainly perceive that it is an immediate worke of Gods omnipotencie which only could undoe that which the Divell with so much diligence and art had done since we cannot imagine that any secondary causes could have so much worth industry and power as in an instant to unite two natures so infinitely distant one from the other and make them come froÌ„ an extream hatred and enmity to the other extreame of union And seeing that if the discord and contrariety of these two Nations had been a new or superficiall accident the onely consideration of good understandings and the perspicuity of wise and prudent persons might have been sufficient to remedy it but being nature and antipathy which like originall sin goes by succession from the Fathers to the children and so to the grand-children and especially being fostered and maintained by the Divels malice we must infallibly beleeve that it is the worke of heaven and that this union was onely reserved to God for to prevent an abysse of evils and miseries which by the said enmity were threatned And so God to whose goodnesse it belongeth to dispose sweetly of things having created and preserved the world by means of the union and peace of his creatures seeing that the discord of these two Nations was sufficient almost to ruine it stayed through his omnipotencie the fury of this raging evill and through his goodnesse and mercie provided such a perfect and salutiferous remedy as this divine union is that so the world might not only be freed from its imminent ruine the calamities which threatned it by reason of this enmity but might also bee enriched with those pretious fruits which from this union may be expected And as the end which God pretended in this confederacie is no other but this so it is plainly knowne that the Divell with all his followers hath not had power to hinder the execution of it though hee raised a thousand inventions pretences and feares both amongst the common people and also the most Noble egging them on with the fire of enmity and hatred to oppose themselves with all the power as might bee against Gods decree the Common-wealths repose and the good of the whole world and though the Divell went loose and puffed up holding the victory certaine with his forces against that small aid which was promised yet his care and labour being against the will of God and the universall peace I wonder not that God did send a woman to breake his head through the wisdom of so good a physitian whilest hee laid wait and snares for her heele And though there were no other reason to prove that this confederacie came from heaven this would of it selfe be a sufficient proofe that wee see it was gloriously effected against all humane endevours and propounded difficulties and against such great oppositions as I will now leave to the wise mans contemplation and the pennes of others who peradventure will write of this matter Wherefore I conclude saying that this conjunction being made at that time when this antipathy was most rooted between these two Nations wee must needs confesse that it was done by divine power since neither hatred nor disdaine nor the diversity of climates and humours nor the variety of customes nor mistrust nor the Divels endevours were able to hinder it CHAP. XIX Of Gods marvailous invention to unite these two Nations IT will not be hard to perswade an understanding man that this so important so glorious confederacie comes from heaven was ordained for the generall good of mankinde the effects circumstances means of effecting it having been such and so mysterious that they prove it to be true and that which now stupifies mans understanding is the marvailous and divine invention which God used in uniting those two Nations so different amongst themselves a meanes so â—ngenious and soveraigne that it not bee hoped nor looked for from any other place thâ—n from that inaccessible and majesticall Consistorie of the holy Trinity seeing that in it God hath shewed three effects of his immense God-head which are Omnipotencie in uniting from
to the order and perfection of nature is farthest from the first The fifth is composed of the last element which is the earth and this is the first linke which begins to turne towards it beginning and it is the vegetative nature which intresseth it selfe with the sensitive and that with the rationall which uniting it selfe immediately with God shuts up the chaine and circle of this succession And because the last knot or linke of this chaine was to unite it selfe with God and betwixt God and the creature there could be no proportion of equality therefore the eternall wisdome created the soule which being immortall and incorporeall should have some resemblance of God and so uniting it selfe perfectly with him the chaine of the fabricke of this world should so close up and shut And in case that some curious body not content with the generall union of the seven rings or linkes which have bin set downe should desire more particularly to finde out the point of this trueth he may satisfie himselfe with the internall searching out of each nature and linke of the said chaine And beginning from the first he shall finde in it an infinite abysse of perfections and attributes which are Wisedome Omnipotency Justice Goodnesse Glory Mercy and innumerable more which are all with an unspeakeable incomprehensibility gathered in and united unto the indivisible latchet of the most simple divine nature Concerning the second linke which is the Angelicall nature he may very well apprehend not onely by the light of faith but also by the strength of his owne understanding the marveilous order perfect concord wherewith those Angelicall spirits are united together the Cherubins joyning themselves to the Seraphins the Seraphins to th' Archangels they to the Angels Thrones Powers Dominions the other kinds of the twelve quires of Angels with such great uniformity and concord as may be presumed in that heavenly commonwealth Then if we shall cast our eyes on the contemplation of the third linke which is the nature of the heavens we shall plainly see if Ptolomie deceive us not that the primum mobile is united to the Christalline heaven this to the eight spheare the eighth spheare to Saturne who joyneth himselfe to Jove Jove to Mars Mars uniteth himselfe to Sol Sol adheres to Venus Venus to Mercury Mercury to Luna from whose hollow superficies takes it beginning the fourth linke of th' Elementall nature joyning it selfe unto the annexed fire it unto the ayre whom the element of water followeth untill it comes to unite it selfe unto the earth which is the universall center of al heavie and ponderous things From the earth beginnes the fifth linke to goe upwards againe and this is the Vegetative Nature which like unto the rest keepes it dependance and succession united unto all her species and kindes beginning from the biggest trees and of greatest fruit even to the lowest humblest and poorest grasse of the field In this vegetative nature consists the basis and foundation of the sensitive which is utterly unable to put in practice th' operations of moving and feeling without it This likewise is not different from the first and hath it kindes and degrees of succession and dependency the noblest and perfectest of them which is the Lyon uniting himselfe to the poorest worme of the earth This sensitive nature linkes it selfe at last with the rationall which being by meanes of the soule spirituall exceeds in perfection the corporeall vegetative and nutritive remaining at last united with God So that the aforesaid union is not onely to be found in this whole universall frame but also in every one of its parts It being impossible that there should be any one not linked and united to the rest by the analogie of some attribute which is indifferently proper to them all The little microcosmos of man may be an example of this her being an epitome and cipher of the whole fabricke of the world in whom all natures are united he being participant of each vertue and perfection for he hath his body of the heavens elements and stones his vegetating or growing from the plants his feeling from beasts his discourse from Angels and the image and likenesse of God And passing to that which is proper unto this nature we shall finde that all his actions have a dependency one from the other the understanding being not able to understand any thing unlesse it unite it selfe to the sences nor these produce any sensations or feelings unlesse they joyn themselves by meanes of the species and image which presents it selfe unto them with the object And according to the Philosophers doctrines the object unites it selfe to the externall sence the externall transmits it to the common the common represents it to the phantasie from whence comes the names of phantasmaes With these imaginations doth the active intellect joyne it selfe illustrating them and with taking away all their materialities makes them of sensible intelligible The active intellect unites it selfe with possibility which cannot operate unlesse the active disposeth it to it by representing the species unto it disrobed of all matter and singularity From thence the intellect or understanding being disposed produceth its first operation which is the simple apprehension and this coupleth it selfe with the second which is affirmation or negation from whence groweth the third which is discourse The discourse goeth united with the will which could not produce any act of love or hatred or election if discourse had not gone before it being impossible to will or refuse that which hath not before bin knowne So that all things which are inclosed within this frame of the world are nothing but union accord and amity not onely through the dependency which every thing hath from one sole beginning but also through the loving correspondency which they hold amongst themselves And if any one shall aske me the reason of this marvailous linke and intrinsecall love wherwith so many and so different natures are linked together I will not answer them with that which is ordinarily said that God had so ordained But I wil say that the supreame artificer having determined in the creation of the world to make a perfect and durable compound variety and union were very requisite therein it being impossible to make any thing beautifull which was not composed of varieties or durable if it were in and against it selfe divided To this end he appointed all creatures at the least the corporeall ones a naturall and proper meane which hindereth all that which is contrary to the union and preservation of this world And this is that prima materia argued upon by all but as I beleeve knowne by none This materia which some say is pura potentia others an entitative act others that it is neither quid nor quantum nor quale is a beginning in the which stand united all corporeall or bodily natures It is not ingendred nor it doth not corrupt for so the union and pacificall
to be worthy of so great an honour out of which consideration grew pride which augmenting the raging fire of her mother ambition caused the Angell to forget the respect and honour due unto his creator and to become the heire of contempt These two fierce monsters of nature Pride and contempt made such a slaughter of that faire creature that they left not in him the least signe of perfection and goodnesse yea they did so deprave and pervert his will that seeing himselfe banished out of heaven and condemned to a perpetuall privaâ—ion of God and â—o the terrible habitation of those darkesome prisons of hell hee enragedly protested to be revenged And being unable to execute his vengeance against God his infinite perfection and greatnesse being not to be reached unto he purposed to wreake his vengeance upon man as the creature in most favour not being able to endure those particular favours and prerogatives wherewith he perceived God did intend to honour him Out of which consideration sprung envie the Divels spouse and mother of death With such weapons doth this fierce Leviathan persecute mankinde and with them he brings to an end all his pretences subjecting unto his empire and command all the Provinces of the earth It being most certaine that cities subject to discord and dissension cannot be free from the divels bondage and consequently subject to ruine The epithets which the Prophet Nahum gives unto the citie of Niniveh shall be sufficient and faithfull witnesses for me herein when he cals it the citie of blood the citie of misery the city of death and perdition attributing the cause of these wretched effects to nothing but to the discord and division of her inhabitants And he doth with so much efficacy insist upon this point that he pronounces an infallible curse upon that citie which shall stand divided and in discord The same doth the Prophet Hosea concluding by an enthymeme the ruine which comes through dissension saying Their heart is divided and therefore they shall perish And if this be not sufficient let us consider that wretched tricke he served our first fathers in the beginning of the world where it being a hard taske to beat downe such knowledge and wisedome so perfectly infused as Adam his wives was he used no other weapons then these perswading them that God had enjoyned upon paine of death not to taste of the tree of life onely through an artificiall malice because that none should be so wise as himselfe which he could so well and with such lively reasons perswade them that being already moved with an ambition and desire of knowledge they conceived such enmity and hatred against God that casting away the respect and obedience which they knew was due unto him they did contrary to that which was commanded them remaining thereby subject unto death and their posterity to an abysse of miseries Let him that is curious observe for the confirmation of this truth the sentence which God pronounced against the Serpent when as being willing to punish him by way of retaliation or as they say in Latine poena talionis He tooke for a meanes of the punishment the same way as the Serpent had taken to make man fall from his originall justice and state of innocency saying unto the Serpent I will set enmity betweene thee and the woman as if he should more plainly say thou hast procured through thine accursed perswasions and lyes to set hatred and enmity betweene the woman and I to make her a slave and all her posterity subject to thy will and tyranny And I say unto thee that thou shalt be chastized with the same punishment for I will sowe such terrible hatred and deadly antipathy betwixt you that you shall alwayes live in continuall warre and enmity she endeavouring with all her might to breake thine head and thou to set snares for her heele Finally by meanes of enmity and hatred the divell did catch Cain never letting him rest untill he tooke away his brother Abels life By meanes of these two he stirred up Esau his anger against Iacob Saul his revenge against guiltlesse Duvid Pharaohs hardnesse against the children of Israel And with dissention discord and ambition the divell hath brought under his dominion and obedience the most noble and fruitfull Provinces of the earth burning up the fruits of peace respect feare reverence and zeale of the publike welfare towards them to whom they were subject by divine and humane lawes Many times have I considered that excellent and admirable invention which Samson used to revenge himselfe upon the Philistines and I truely finde that it is the same as the divell useth to be revenged upon man since if that I well remember the story Samson having sought all the surest wayes to be revenged of the wrongs he had received could finde none more effectuall then division verily beleeving that thereby he should ruine all his enemies goods and wealth and to that end he tooke a number of Foxes and binding firebrands to their tailes he let them run into the Philistines corne fields The beasts feeling themselves loose began to sever and divide themselves in the fields with such disorder that there were not two left together all taking severall wayes fixing their eyes towards their owne homes and terriers Which division was the cause that all the corne was burnt up leaving the land spoyled and Samson revenged With such like industry doth the Divell subject unto his Empire all the countries of the world overthrowing the best things he can finde in them and leaving them utterly unable to helpe themselves Seeing that to turne a quiet and peaceable citie into a citie of bloud and wretchednesse the first thing he doth is to stirre up ambition in them whom he findes most disposed thereunto and alluring them with their owne proper interests he kindles the fire of discord and dissention in such sort that it being impossible to pacifie and unite it the feare of God the zeale of publicke welfare the respect and obedience due to the Prince and the charity towards ones neighbour are all beaten down whence immediatly followeth the totall perdition and ruine of the common-wealth By all this which we have said we may surely inferre that since discord and division produce no other fruit but bloud ruine perdition and death they cannot be positive effects of God to whom is repugnant to be the authour of evill Nor yet of nature whose treasure consists in unitie but meerly the Divels who seekes nothing but to oppose himselfe to all goodnesse and perfection which God or nature brings forth in this world The contrary effects also which are found in both may beare sufficient witnesse to this truth since that all which God and Nature pretend is nothing but peace and union that which the Divel professeth is nothing but warres and dissention Nature loves preservation the Divell ruine that to generate this to destroy Nature finally desires to make every thing like
mother to give him all the pap at once This thing made mee laugh so heartily that for two houres after I did nothing but laugh and wonder at it But if I should particularize unto you the broiles the decepts and cousenings which the inkeepers used towards mee I should never have done I never came into an Inne but I came out of it with a quarrell was cousoned and yet forced to aske all those that were present forgivenesse The quart descu in my hands or rather in their handes was worth ten sols a relon of ten sols was converted into a halfe quart d'escu and this into a royall and that of five royalls into five sols and if I chanced to reply any thing they would turn towards me like Lions chiding me and saying that if I did not know what value coynes were of I should learne and not contest with honest people that feared God and caried a good conscience and they would tell me I had no skill in Arithmeticke and especially in subtraction Many times I should buy some wares which I knew would not waste at the ayre nor the fire yet within a quarter of an houre in a pound I should finde foure ounces wanting With these and the like deceipts I passed my first dayes till knowledge and practice of the countrey shewed me what meanes I should use to free me from these evils CHAP. XI The contrariety and antipathy of the soule and body of the Spaniards and the French I Have thought a thousand times to aske the midwife in what manner the French came out of their mothers bellies for seeing the contrariety that is betweene them and the Spaniards mee thinkes it is impossible for them â—o be borne in the same manner seeing one can hardly presume â—hat having the middle and the end the body and the soule yea â—nd their very death contrary they should have their naturall beginning which is their birth alike This contrariety is so great and so remarkable that to define a Frenchman one cannot doe it more properly then to say he is a Spaniard the contrary way For there the Spaniard makes an end where the Frenchman begins as I shall shew in the following chapters As for the soule I must confesse that they are all created in tempore and that they are all of the same species and that God doth with one action create and infuse them into the organicall body And if faith did not teach me I should never beleeve that French and Spanish soules were of the same nature Yet I finde that if we consider the soule of it selfe and without any reference to the body of either Nation the soule it selfe is neither French nor Spanish And this specificall unitie which Divinity admits between them is not against that which I say for considering the soule within the body it is no more indifferent but determined to bee either Spanish or French Wherefore I say that the soule determined into a French body hath her powers quite contrary to a Spanish one First the French understanding hath its apprehension very quicke and with a great deale of ease will goe through any difficulty that can be proposed unto it yet it goeth no further nor entreth into deeper discourses which depend upon the same difficulty But with the same speedinesse as hee did apprehend it with the same it goeth away and is forgotten Contrariwise the Spaniards understanding is slow in apprehending the difficulty but having once understood it he will hold it fast drawing a thousand consequences out of it and sifting every point of it The Spaniard his understanding is altogether speculative since that in all his actions his end is no other but the contemplation of things without afterwards directing or settling of it upon any servile or mechanicall worke Wherefore you shall finde few naturall Spaniards of any mechanick trade as Shoomaker Taylor Cobler Joyner Inne-keeper or the like For which I call the French to witnesse who goe into Spaine and come backe againe offended because they finde no Alehouses nor Innes as they have in France so that sometimes they may travell three dayes and not come at an Inne whereby they are constrained to carry meat with them in their bags and wine in their bottles The French understanding is altogether practicall being it is not content with the only knowledge of things but learnes them for to make use of them therein where he may reap some profit by it and so is not idle but to avoid idlenesse employes it selfe in any manner of exercise and thence growes the variety of trades in that Nation The greatest part of your French wits addict themselves to the studie of the Law and Canons and very few study Positive or Schoole Divinitie Amongst the Spaniards few study the Law and almost all Divinitie The French understanding though it receive and hold things concerning Faith and Religion for infallible yet it cannot stay and fixe it selfe on them but will see consider and also judge whether that which faith sayes is as he meanes and finding some difficulty he runs his boat a ground beleeving himselfe onely and denying that which others hold The Spaniard his understanding is fearfull and humble in that which concernes faith and determination of the Church So that as soone as any Article of faith is propounded unto him he presently sets bounds to all his knowledge wisedome and discourse and not onely strives not to know whether that bee so or no which the faith sets downe but useth all the meanes hee can to avoid speculation thereon fearing to fall into some errour through the frailty of his understanding Whence groweth the punctuall obedience which the Spaniards yeeld to the Church of Rome and the difference and dissention that is thereupon amongst the French The French man will resolve upon businesses of greatest importance when he is in most company being not disturbed by any tumult noise or outcrie so that I have noted in this nation that your Princes Lords and other persons of quality will dispatch their commissions and other weighty businesses sitting at table the eating being no disturbance to the audience which they give to a thousand people and sometimes they will sit at meales and have one of each side of them who at the same time will talke to them and they will answer them all as punctually as if they were shut up privately in a chamber without any disturbance and had nothing to doe but to hearken to them which speake to them All this is contrary to the Spanish understanding who if hee have any businesse of consequence retires himself into some solitary place and is such an enemy of company and tumult that if a fly comes buzzing by his eare when he is in the depth of his businesse it is enough to hinder his resolution In the second power of the soul which is the memory there is contradiction antipathy since the French mans is altogether concerning the present I