Page:A New Survey of the West Indies or The English American his Travel by Sea and Land.djvu/41

 exhort me to join with him in that Function, which he thought was Apostolical. Nemo Propheta in patria sua, was a great argument with him; sometimes he propounded Martyrdom for the Gospel sake, and the glory after it, to have his life and death Printed, and of poor Frier Antony a Clothiers Son of Segovia to be stiled St. Antony by the Pope, and made Collateral with the Apostles in Heaven; thus did Bacchus make him Ambitious of Honor upon the Earth, and preferment in Heaven. But when he thought his Rhetorick had not prevailed, the would he Act a Midas and Crœsus, fancying the India's Paved with Tiles of Gold and Silver, the Stones to be Pearls, Rubies, and Diamonds, the Trees to be hung with clusters of Nutmegs bigger than the clusters of Grapes of Cancun, the Fields to be Planted with Sugar canes, which should so sweeten the Chocolet, that đe should far exceed the Milk and Hony of the Land of Promise; the Silks of China he conceited so common; that the Sails of the Ships were nothing else; finally he dreamed of Midas happiness, that whatsoever he touched should be turned to Gold: Thus did Xerez Nectar make my friend and mortified Frier, a Covetous Worldling. And yet from a Rich Covetous Merchant did it shape him to a Courtier in pleasures; fancying the Philippinas to be the Eden, where was all joy without tears, mirth without sadness, laughing without sorrow, comfort without grief, plenty without want, no not of Eves for Adams, excepted only that in it should be no forbidden fruit, but all lawful for the tast and sweetening of the palate; and as Adam would have been as God, so conceited Melendez himself a God in that Eden; whom Travelling, Indian Waits and Trumpets should accompany; and to whom, entring into any Town, Nosegaies should be presented, Flowers and Boughs should be strowed in his way, Arches should be erected to ride under, Bells for joy should be rung, and India knees for duty and homage, as to a God, should be bowed to the very ground. From this inducing argument, the representation of a Paradise, he fell into a strong Rhetorical point of curiosity; finding out a Tree of knowledge, and a Philosophical maxim, Omnis homo naturaliter scire  siderat,