the weasels of the nation.  Consider how numerous they are, and that every day they add much or little to their hoards, and that as they increase in number so the amount of their hoarded wealth must increase without end.  None of them of either sex make monastic vows, but all marry and multiply, for thrifty living is a great promoter of fecundity.  They are not wasted by war or excessive toil; they plunder us in a quiet way, and enrich themselves with the fruits of our patrimonies which they sell back to us.  They have no servants, for they all wait upon themselves.  They are at no expense for the education of their sons, for all their lore is but how to rob us.  From the twelve sons of Jacob, who entered Egypt, as I have heard, there had sprung, when Moses freed them from captivity, six hundred thousand fighting men, besides women and children.  From this we may infer how much the Moriscoes have multiplied, and how incomparably greater must be their numbers.

Scip. Means have been sought for remedying the mischiefs you have mentioned and hinted at; and, indeed, I am sure that those which you have passed over in silence, are even more serious than those which you have touched upon.  But our commonwealth has most wise and zealous champions, who, considering that Spain produces and retains in her bosom such vipers as the Moriscoes, will, with God’s help, provide a sure and prompt remedy for so great an evil.  Go on.

Berg. My master being a stingy hunks, like all his caste, I lived like himself chiefly on maize bread and buckwheat porridge; but this penury helped me to gain paradise, in the strange manner you shall hear.  Every morning, by daybreak, a young man used to seat himself at the foot of one of the many pomegranate trees.  He had the look of a student, being dressed in a rusty suit of threadbare baize, and was occupied in writing in a note book, slapping his forehead from time to time, biting his nails, and gazing up at the sky.  Sometimes he was so immersed in reverie, that he neither moved hand nor foot, nor even winked his eyes.  One day I drew near him unperceived, and heard him muttering between his teeth.  At last, after a long silence, he cried out aloud, “Glorious!  The very best verse I ever composed in my life!” and down went something in his note book.  From all this, it was plain that the luckless wight was a poet.  I approached him with my ordinary courtesies, and when I had convinced him of my gentleness, he let me lie down at his feet, and resumed the course of his thoughts, scratching his head, falling into ecstacies, and then writing as before.

Meanwhile there came into the garden another young man, handsome and well dressed, with papers in his hand, at which he glanced from time to time.  The new comer walked up to the pomegranate tree, and said to the poet, “Have you finished the first act?”

“I have just this moment finished it in the happiest manner possible,” was the reply.