True indeed, such places as these keepe their neighbours poore, as beeing most barren, but yet they preserve them safe, as being most strong, witnesse our unconquered _Wales_ and _Scotland_, whose greatest protection hath beene the naturall strength of their Countrey, so fortified with Mountaines, that these have alwaies been unto them sure retraites from the violence and oppression of others, wherefore a good Authour doth rightly call them natures bulwarkes cast up at God Almighties owne charges, the scornes and curbs of victorious armies, which made the Barbarians in _Curtius_ so confident of their owne safety, when they were once retired to an inaccessible mountaine, that when _Alexanders_ Legate had brought them to a parley and perswading them to yeeld, told them of his masters victories, what Seas and Wildernesses hee had passed, they replyed that all that might be, but could _Alexander_ fly too? Over the Seas he might have ships, and over the land horses, but hee must have wings before he could get up thither. Such safety did those barbarous nations conceive in the mountaines whereunto they were retyred, certainely then such usefull parts were not the effect of mans sinne, or produced by the Worlds curse the flood, but rather at the first created by the goodnesse and providence of the Almighty. So that if I intend to prove that the Moone is such a habitable world as this is, ’tis requisite that I shew it to have the same conveniences of habitation as this hath, and here if some Rabbi or Chymicke were to handle the point they would first prove it out of Scripture, from that place in _Moses_ his blessing,[1] where hee speakes of the ancient mountaines and lasting hils, _Deut._ 33 הררי קדם וגבעות עולם for having immediately before mentioned those blessings which should happen unto _Ioseph_ by the influence of the Moone, he does presently exegetically iterate thẽ in blessing him with the chiefe things of the ancient Mountaines and lasting hils; you may also see the same expression used in _Iacobs_ blessing of _Ioseph_.[2] [Sidenote 1: Deut. 33. 15] [Sidenote 2: Gen. 49. 26]