[1] After the death of this duke,A great pesti|lence. by reason of great heat and distemperance of aire, happened so fierce & quicke a pestilence, that fiftéene yeares warre past consumed not the third part of the people, that one|lie foure moneths miserablie and pitifullie dispatched & brought to their graues. So that if the number had béene kept by multiplieng of vnities, & out of them to haue raised a complet number, it would haue mooued matter of verie great admiration. But it should séeme that they were infinit, if consideration be had of the comparison, inferred for the more effectuall set|ting foorth of that cruell and ceaselesse contagion. And suerlie it soundeth to reason, that the pestilence should fetchawaie so manie thousands, as in iudge|ment by proportion of fiftéene yeares warre one maie gather; and manie more too. For euerie man knoweth that in warres, time, place, persons, and meanes are limited: time of warre begun and en|ded; place circumscribed; persons imbattelled, and weapons also whereby the fight is tried: so that all these haue their limitations, beyond which they haue no extent. But the pestilence, being a generall infection of the aire, an element ordeined to main|teine life, though it haue a limitation in respect of the totall compasse of the world; yet whole climats maie be poisoned: and it were not absurd to saie, that all and euerie part of the aire maie be pestilentlie cor|rupted; and so consequentlie not limited: wherefore full well it maie be said of the pestilence (procuring so great a depopulation) as one saith of surfetting:

Ense cadunt multi, perimit sed crapula plures.Auson.