then abound with cities, as well as Italy, France, Germany, the Low Countries? because their policy hath been otherwise, and we are not so thrifty, circumspect, industrious. Idleness is the malus genius of our nation. For as [541]Boterus justly argues, fertility of a country is not enough, except art and industry be joined unto it, according to Aristotle, riches are either natural or artificial; natural are good land, fair mines, &c. artificial, are manufactures, coins, &c. Many kingdoms are fertile, but thin of inhabitants, as that Duchy of Piedmont in Italy, which Leander Albertus so much magnifies for corn, wine, fruits, &c., yet nothing near so populous as those which are more barren. [542]England, saith he, London only excepted, hath never a populous city, and yet a fruitful country. I find 46 cities and walled towns in Alsatia, a small province in Germany, 50 castles, an infinite number of villages, no ground idle, no not rocky places, or tops of hills are untilled, as [543]Munster informeth us. In [544]Greichgea, a small territory on the Necker, 24 Italian miles over, I read of 20 walled towns, innumerable villages, each one containing 150 houses most part, besides castles and noblemen's palaces. I observe in [545]Turinge in Dutchland (twelve miles over by their scale) 12 counties, and in them 144 cities, 2000 villages, 144 towns, 250 castles. In [546]Bavaria 34 cities, 46 towns, &c. [547]Portugallia interamnis, a small plot of ground, hath 1460 parishes, 130 monasteries, 200 bridges. Malta, a barren island, yields 20,000 inhabitants. But of all the rest, I admire Lues Guicciardine's relations of the Low Countries. Holland hath 26 cities, 400 great villages. Zealand 10 cities, 102 parishes. Brabant 26 cities, 102 parishes. Flanders 28 cities, 90 towns, 1154 villages, besides abbeys, castles, &c. The Low Countries generally have three cities at least for one of ours, and those far more populous and rich: and what is the cause, but their industry and excellency in all manner of trades? Their commerce, which is maintained by a multitude of tradesmen, so many excellent channels made by art and opportune havens, to which they build their cities; all which we have in like measure, or at least may have. But their chiefest loadstone which draws all manner of commerce and merchandise, which maintains their present estate, is not fertility of soil, but industry that enricheth them, the gold mines of Peru, or Nova Hispania may not compare with them. They have neither gold nor silver of their own, wine nor oil, or scarce any corn growing in those united provinces, little or no wood, tin, lead, iron, silk, wool, any stuff almost, or metal; and yet Hungary, Transylvania, that brag of their mines, fertile England cannot compare with them. I dare boldly say, that neither France, Tarentum, Apulia, Lombardy, or any part of Italy, Valentia in Spain, or that pleasant Andalusia, with their excellent fruits, wine and oil, two harvests, no not any part of