and of age wretched, the city’s sack and the country’s beggary:  she is the captain’s pride and the captive’s sorrow, the throat of blood and the grave of flesh.  She is the woe of the world, the punishment of sin, the passage of danger, and the messenger of destruction.  She is the wise man’s warning and the fool’s payment, the godly man’s grief and the wicked man’s game.  In sum, so many are her wounds, so mortal her cures, so dangerous her course, and so devilish her devices, that I will wade no further in her rivers of blood, but only thus conclude in her description:—­She is God’s curse and man’s misery, hell’s practice and earth’s hell.

VALOUR.

Valour is a ’virtue in the spirit which keeps the flesh in subjection, resolves without fear, and travails without fainting:  she vows no villainy nor breaks her fidelity:  she is patient in captivity and pitiful in conquest.  Her gain is honour and desert her mean, fortune her scorn and folly her hate; wisdom is her guide and conquest her grace, clemency her praise and humility her glory:  she is youth’s ornament and age’s honour, nature’s blessing and virtue’s love.  Her life is resolution and her love victory, her triumph truth, and her fame virtue.  Her arms are from antiquity and her coat full of honour, where the title of grace hath her heraldry from heaven.  She makes a walk of war and a sport of danger, an ease of labour and a jest of death:  she makes famine but abstinence, want but a patience, sickness but a purge, and death a puff.  She is the maintainer of war, the general of an army, the terror of an enemy, and the glory of a camp.  She is the nobleness of the mind and the strength of the body, the life of hope and the death of fear.  With a handful of men she overthrows a multitude, and with a sudden amazement she discomfits a camp.  She is the revenge of wrong and the defence of right, religion’s champion and virtue’s choice.  In brief, let this suffice in her commendation:—­She strengthened David and conquered Goliath, she overthrows her enemies and conquers herself.

RESOLUTION.

Resolution is the honour of valour, in the quarrel of virtue, for the defence of right and redress of wrong.  She beats the march, pitcheth the battle, plants the ordnance, and maintains the fight.  Her ear is stopped for dissuasions, her eye aims only at honour, her hand takes the sword of valour, and her heart thinks of nothing but victory.  She gives the charge, makes the stand, assaults the fort, and enters the breach.  She breaks the pikes, faceth the shot, damps the soldier, and defeats the army.  She loseth no time, slips no occasion, dreads no danger, and cares for no force.  She is valour’s life and virtue’s love, justice’s honour and mercy’s glory.  She beats down castles, fires ships, wades through the sea, and walks through the world.  She makes wisdom her guide and will