![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The Pisans, Genoveses, and Venetians do bring thee Saphires, Emeralds and Carbuncles from the East: Asia serveth thee with silk and purple, Affrica with Cinamon and Balm, Spain with Gold, and Germanie with Silver: Thy Weaver Flanders doth drape Cloth for thee of thine owne Wooll * Thy Gascoigne doth send thee Wine: Buck and Doe are plentifull in thy Forrests: Droves of Cattell, and Flocks of Sheep are upon thy Hills: All the perfection of the goodliest Land is in thee: Thou hast all the Fowl of the ayr. Britaine, thou art a glorious Isle, extolled and renowned a∣mong all Nations the navies of Tharsis cannot be compared to thy shipping, bringing in all precious commodities of the world: the Sea is thy wall, and strong fortifications do secure thy Ports: Chivalrie, Clergie, and Merchandize do flourish in thee. As for government Ecclesiasticall and Civil, which is the very soul of a kingdome, I need to say nothing, when as I write to home-borne, and not to strangers.īut to praise Britaine according as the dignitie thereof requires, is a matter which may exercise, if not tire the hap∣piest wit furnished with the greatest varietie of learning and some already have busied their brains and pennes herein with no small labour and travell: let therefore these few lines in this behalf suffice, out of an ancient Writer. wooded, provided with all complete provisions of War, beautified with many populous Cities, fair Borroughs, good towns, and well-built Villages, strong Munitions, magnificent Pallaces of the Prince, stately houses of the Nobilitie, frequent Hospitals, beautifull Churches, fair Colledges, as well in other places, as in the two Universi∣ties, which are comparable to all the rest in Christendome, not onely in antiquitie, but also in learning, buildings, and endowments. That I may say nothing of healthfull Bathes, and of Meares stored both with fish and fowl The earth fertile of all kind of grain, manured with good husbandrie, rich in minerall of coals, tinne, lead, copper, not without gold and silver, abundant in pasture, replenished with cattell both tame and wilde, (for it hath more Parks than all Europe besides) plentiful∣ly For water, it is walled and garded with the Ocean most commodious for trafficke to all parts of the world, and watered with plea∣sant fishfull and navigable rivers, which yeeld safe havens and roads, and furnished with shipping and Sailers, that it may rightly be termed the Lady of the Sea. ![]() WHereas I have purposed in all this Treatise to confine my selfe within the bounds of this Isle of Britaine, it cannot be impertinent, at the very entrance, to say somewhat of Bri∣taine, which is the onely subject of all that is to be said, and well known to be the most flourishing and ex∣cellent, most renowned and famous Isle of the whole world: So rich in commodities, so beautifull in situation, so resplen∣dent in all glory, that if the most Omnipotent had fashio∣ned the world round like a ring, as he did like a globe, it might have been most worthily the onely gemme therein.įor the ayre is most temperate and wholsome, fired in the middest of the temperate Zone, subject to no stormes and tempests as the more Southerne and Northerne are but stored with infinite delicate fowle. ![]()
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