Liege, Spinola, Mets, Frise, Gueldres, Hongry, L’empyre, Salbourg, Prusse, Provinces Unies wt this, concordia res parvae crescunt, Ferrare and then of Turquie, which is the best gold of them al, its so fine it wil ply like wax:  the armes wtin consistes of a number of caracters iust like the Hebrew.  Thus for the Gold.  As to mony it hath al the several realles of the Spaniard, as of al the Dolles or Dollers of the Empire wt the silver of al their neighbouring nations.  Our shiling[195] is ordained to passe for 11 souse.

    [193] Enhance the price of.

    [194] For a comparison of these values, see Introduction, p. xliii.

    [195] Here the shilling sterling.

Goropius Becanus in hes Origines Antwerpianae would wery gladly have the world beleive that the Cimbrick or Low Dutch is the first language of the world, that which was spoken in Paradise; finally that the Hebrew is but a compond ishue of it because the Hebrew seimes to borrow some phrases and words of it when in the interim[196] it borrows of none.  This he layes doune for a fondement and as in confesso, which we stiffly and on good ground denieng, al his arguments wil be found to split on the sophisme petitionis principii.

    [196] When in fact.  So again p. 85.

The ground upon which the Phrygians vendicats their langage for the anciennest is not worth refuting, to wit that these 2 Children that Psammeticus King of Egypt caused expose so that they never hard the woice of man:  the first thing ever they cried was bec, which in the Phrygian language, as also in old Low Dutch (so that we have to do wt Goropius heir also, who thinks this to make mutch to his cause) signifies bread, is not worth refuting, since they might ether light on that word by chance, or they had learned it from the baying of the sheip wt whom they had conversed.

To abstract from the Antiquitie of tongues, the most eloquent language at present is the French, which gets such acceptance every wheir and relishes so weill in eaches pallat that its almost universal.  This it ounes to its beauxs esprits, who hath reformed it in such a faschion that it miskeens the garbe it had 50 or 60 years ago, witnesse l’Historie du Serre (francion),[197] Montaign’es Essayes and du Barta’es Weeks,[198] who wt others have written marvelously weill in the language of their tyme, but at present is found no ways smooth nor agriable.  We have sein the works of Du Bartas, which, tho in langage at present ancient, is marvelously weill exprest, large better than his translator Joseph Sylvester hath done.  Amongs his works their was one which I fancied exceidingly, La Lepanthe de Jacques 6, Roy d’Ecosse, which he tornes in French, containing a narration of that bloody wictory the Christians gained over the Turk, Octobre 1571, the year before the massacre at Paris, on the Lepanto, which Howel in his History of Venise describes at large.  He speaks wt infinite respect of our King, calling him among other stiles Phoenix Ecossois.