like mad men. The processe of this enterprised worke, and the circumstance of the season require vs to examine the causes of these accidents. We ought to seeke out comfort for those that are dismayed, and extinguish mighty feare. For what security can a man promise himselfe if the world it selfe be shaken, and the most solid parts thereof quake, if that which is wholly immoueable and setled, to the end it may sustaine all other things on it bee shattered heere and there? If the earth looseth that which she hath propper in her, which is to be firme; whereupon may we assure our dismay and feare? What retreat shal there be for our bodies? Whether shall they retire in danger, if feare issueth and be drawne from the bottom of the earth? All men are amazed with feare hea∣ring the houses cracke, and the ruine hath giuen a signe; then euery one flyeth headlong from the place, and forsaketh his home and houshold-goods, and set∣leth himselfe in the open fields. What retreate discouer we? What succour appeareth if the world it selfe fall into ruine? If she that keepeth and sustaineth vs, whereon our Cities are builded, which some haue said to be the foundation of the world sinketh and trembleth? What support, or rather what solace may a man hope for, when as feare i•• selfe hath lost the meanes of flight? Is there a∣ny assured retreat or firme safegard, say I, eyther for a mans selfe or another? I may repulse mine enemy from the breach; high Rampiers and Bulwarkes will stay great armies from approaching very easily. The heauens preserue vs from shipwracke: the corners of our houses resist the violence of raging raines, and d••fence vs from the continuall fall of showers: the fire followeth not those that flie it: the houses vnder ground, and deepe digged caues serue for a shelter against thunders and the threatnings of heauen. The lightning penetrateth not the earth, but is repulsed by a little obiect of the same. In the plague time a man may change his habitation. There is no euill but may be auoyded. Neuer did lightnings burne vp whole Nations. The pestilent ayre hath desolated Cities, but not destroyed them: this euill extendeth it selfe euery way, and is vnauoydably greedie, and publiquely harmefull. For it not onely deuoureth houses, or families, or priuate Cities, but ouerturneth whole Nations and Regi∣ons, and sometime couereth them in her ruines, sometimes hideth them in a bottomlesse gulfe of confusion. Neyther leaueth it so much whereby it may appeare that that was at leastwise, which now is not. But the earth extendeth it selfe aboue noble Cities, without any appearance of the former condition: neyther want there some men that feare this kinde of death, more then any o∣ther, whereby both they and their houses are swallowed vp, and are carried a∣way aliue from the number of the liuing, as if all sorts of death conducted vs not to one and the same end. Amongst all other rites that nature pretendeth in iustice, this is the principall, that drawing neere vnto death we are all equall. There is no difference therfore whether a stone crush me, or a whole mountain smother me, whether the burthen of one house fall vpon me, or I breath my last vnder a little heape of the dust thereof, or whether the whole earth hide my head; if I die by day and before all men, or if some obscure and vast yawning of the earth couer me, if I fall alone into such a bottomlesse pit, or if many Nations keepe me companie. What care I if they make a great noyse about me when I shall depart? The death is alwayes death in what part soeuer I meete it. Let vs therefore fortifie our courages again••t this ruine, which neyther can be auoy∣ded nor preuented. Let vs listen no more to those men, who haue renounced Campania, and who after this accident haue forsaken the countrie, and vow that they will neuer visit that Region againe; for who will promise them that