viros solitos ita dicere, cum maiorum imagines intuerentur, vehementissime
animum sibi ad virtutem accendi. Scilicet non ceram illam, neque figuram,
tantam vim in sese habere, sed memoria rerum gestarum flammam eam egregijs
viris in pectore crescere, neque prius sedari, quam virtus eorum famam et
gloriam adaquauerit. I haue often heard (quoth he) how Quintus maximus,
Publius Scipio, and many other worthy men of our citie were woont to say,
when they beheld the images and portraitures of their ancestors, that they
were most vehemently inflamed vnto vertue. Not that the sayd wax or
portraiture had any such force at all in it selfe, but that by the
remembring of their woorthy actes, that flame was kindled in their noble
breasts, and could neuer be quenched, vntill such time as their owne valure
had equalled the fame and glory of their progenitors. So, though not in
wax, yet in record of writing haue I presented to the noble courages of
this English Monarchie, the like images of their famous predecessors, with
hope of like effect in their posteritie. And here by the way if any man
shall think, that an vniuersall peace with our Christian neighbours will
cut off the emploiment of the couragious increasing youth of this realme,
he is much deceiued. For there are other most conuenient emploiments for
all the superfluitie of euery profession in this realme. For, not to meddle
with the state of Ireland, nor that of Guiana, there is vnder our noses the
great and ample countrey of Virginia; the In-land whereof is found of late
to bee so sweete, and holesome a climate, so rich and abundant in siluer
mines, so apt and capable of all commodities, which Italy, Spaine, and
France can affoord, that the Spaniards themselues in their owne writings
printed in Madrid 1586, and within few moneths afterward reprinted by me in
Paris, [Footnote: This no doubt refers to the "History of the West Indies,"
which appears further on in this edition.] and in a secret mappe of those
partes made in Mexico the yeere before; for the king of Spaine, (which
originall with many others is in the custodie of the excellent
Mathematician M. Thomas Hariot) as also in their intercepted letters come