And
surely there goes a great deal of conscience to the
compiling of an history: there is no reproach to the
scandal of a story; it is such an authentick kind of
falsehood, that with authority belies our good names to
all nations and posterity.
Sect. 4.--There is another offence unto charity, which
no author hath ever written of, and few take notice of,
and that's the reproach, not of whole professions, mys-
teries, and conditions, but of whole nations, wherein by
opprobrious epithets we miscall each other, and, by an
uncharitable logick, from a disposition in a few, con-
clude a habit in all.
Le mutin Anglois, et le bravache Escossois
Le bougre Italien, et le fol Francois;
Le poltron Romain, le larron de Gascogne,
L'Espagnol superbe, et l'Alleman yvrogue.
St Paul, that calls the Cretians liars, doth it but in-
directly, and upon quotation of their own poet.<88> It is
as bloody a thought in one way as Nero's was in
another.<89> For by a word we wound a thousand, and
at one blow assassin the honour of a nation.
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