e proper for this
purpose. And if as I said, it was necessary, desiring to see Moses his
vertue, that the children of Israel should be inthrald in AEgypt; and to
have experience of the magnanimity of Cyrus his mind, that the Persians
should be oppress'd by the Medes; and to set forth the excellency of
Theseus, that the Athenians should be dispersed; so at this present now
we are desirous to know the valor of an Italian spirit, it were
necessary Italy should be reduc'd to the same termes it is now in, and
were in more slavery than the Hebrews were; more subject than the
Persians, more scatterd than the Athenians; without head, without order,
battered, pillaged, rent asunder, overrun, and had undergone all kind of
destruction. And however even in these later dayes, we have had some
kind of shew of hope in some one, whereby we might have conjectur'd,
that he had been ordained for the deliverance hereof, yet it prov'd
afterwards, that in the very height of all his actions he was curb'd by
fortune, insomuch that this poore countrey remaining as it were without
life, attends still for him that shall heal her wounds, give an end to
all those pillagings and sackings of Lombardy, to those robberies and
taxations of the Kingdome, and of Tuscany, and heal them of their soars,
now this long time gangren'd. We see how she makes her prayers to God,
that he send some one to redeem her from these Barbarous cruelties and
insolencies. We see her also wholly ready and disposed to follow any
colours, provided there be any one take them up. Nor do we see at this
present, that she can look for other, than your Illustrious Family, to
become Cheiftain of this deliverance, which hath now by its own vertue
and Fortune been so much exalted, and favored by God and the Church,
whereof it now holds the Principality: and this shall not be very hard
for you to do, if you shall call to mind the former actions, and lives
of those that are above named. And though those men were very rare and
admirable, yet were they men, and every one of them began upon less
occasion than this; for neither was their enterprize more just than
this, nor more easie; nor was God more their friend, than yours. Here is
very great justice: for that war is just, that is necessary; and those
armes are religious, when there is no hope left otherwhere, but in them.
Here is an exceeding good disposition thereto: nor can there be, where
there is a good disposition, a giant difficulty,