OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF BRITAIN. 325 



cannot be between people of differing valour ; and 

 again because in them men are as oft bought as 

 vanquished. But in case of foreign wars, you shall 

 scarcely find any of the great monarchies of the 

 world, but have had their foundations in poverty and 

 contemptible beginnings, being in that point also 

 conform to the heavenly kingdom, of which it is pro 

 nounced, &quot; Regnum Dei non venit cum observatione.&quot; 

 Persia, a mountainous country, and a poor people in 

 comparison of the Medes and other provinces which 

 they subdued. The state of Sparta, a state wherein 

 poverty was enacted by law and ordinance ; all use 

 of gold and silver and rich furniture being inter 

 dicted. The state of Macedonia, a state mercenary 

 and ignoble until the time of Philip. The state of 

 Rome, a state that had poor and pastoral be 

 ginnings. The state of the Turks, which hath 

 been since the terror of the world, founded upon 

 a transmigration of some bands of Sarmatian 

 Scythes, that descended in a vagabond manner 

 upon the province that is now termed Turco- 

 mania ; out of the remnants whereof, after great 

 variety of fortune, sprang the Otoman family. But 

 never was any position of estate so visibly and sub 

 stantially confirmed as this, touching the pre-emin 

 ence, yea and predominancy of valour above treasure, 

 as by the two descents and inundations of necessitous 

 and indigent people, the one from the east, and the 

 other from the west, that of the Arabians or Sara 

 cens, and that of the Goths, Vandals, and the rest : 

 who, as if they had been the true inheritors of the 



