Every one knows the tale of him, who reported he had seen a cabbage, under whose leaves a regiment of soldiers were sheltered from a shower of rain. Another, who was no traveller, (yet the wiser man) said, he had passed by a place where there were 400 braziers making of a cauldron-200 within, and 200 without beating the nails in the traveller asking for what use that huge cauldron was? he told him, Sir, it was to boil your cabbage.' 6 "Such another was the Spanish traveller, who was so habituated to hyperbolize, and relate wonders, that he became ridiculous in all companies, so that he was forced at last to give order to his man, when he fell into any excess this way, and report any thing improbable, he should pull him by the sleeve. The master falling into his wonted hyberboles, spoke of a church in China that was ten thousand yards long; his man, standing behind and pulling him by the sleeve, made him stop suddenly. The company asking, I pray, Sir, how broad might that church be?' he replied, but a yard broad, and you may thank my man for pulling me by the sleeve, else I had made it foursquare for you.' "Others have another kind of hyperbolizing vein; as they will say, there is not a woman in Italy, but wears an iron girdle next her skin in the absence of her husband; that for a pistole one may be master of any man's life there: that there is not a gentleman in France but hath his box of plaisters about him: that in Germany every one hath a rouse in his pate once a day: that there are few dons in Spain that eat flesh once a week, or that hath not a mistress besides his wife that Paris hath more courtesans than London honest women, (which may admit a double sense :) that Seville is like a chess-board table, having as many Moriscos as Spaniards: that Venice hath more Maquerelles than Marchands: Portugal more Jews than Christians. Whereas it is far otherwise, for the devil is not so black as he is painted, no more are these noble nations and towns as they are tainted; therefore one should Parcere paucorum diffundere crimen in omnes. And it is a generous kind of civility to report always the best. "Furthermore, there is amongst many others, (which were too long to recite here,) an odd kind of Anglicism, wherein some do frequently express themselves, as to say your boors of Holland, sir; your Jesuits of Spain, sir; your courtesans of Venice, sir: whereunto one answered, (not impertinently)- My courtesans, sir? Pox on them all for me, they are none of my courtesans.' 66 Lastly, some kind of travellers there are, whom their gait and strutting, their bending in the hams and shoulders, and looking upon their legs, with frisking and singing, do speak them travellers. "Others, by a fantastic kind of ribanding themselves, by their modes of habit and clothing, (and touching variety of clothing, there be certain odd ill-favoured old prophecies of this island, which were improper to recite here,) do make themselves known to have breathed foreign air, like Sir Thomas Moore's traveller, whom I will bring here upon the stage : "Amicus et sodalus est Lalus mihi, Totoque denique apparatu Gallico, Nam et unum habet Ministrum, eumque Gallicum, Pressis quibusdam literis, Galli quibus Sic patriam insolens fastidiet suam, Et æmulari Gallicas ineptias, Ex amne Gallo ego hunc opinor ebrium. Ergo ut ex Britanno Gallus esse nititur, Sic Dii jubete, fiat fiat ex Gallo capus." Again, he gives the following cautions, with respect to imitating foreign manners:— "And as the commendablest quality of oil is to smell of nothing, yet it giveth an excellent relish to many sorts of meats; so is he the discreetest traveller, who savoureth of no affectation or strangeness, of no exotic modes at all, after his return, 'either in his carriage or discourse, unless the subject require it, and the occasion and company aptly serve for him to discover himself, and then an application of his knowledge abroad will excellently season his matter, and serve as golden dishes to serve it in. "If any foreigner be to be imitated in his manner of discourse and comportment, it is the Italian, who may be said to be a medium betwixt the gravity of the Spaniard, the heaviness of the Dutch, and levity of our next neighbours; for he seems to allay the one, and quicken the other two; to serve as a buoy to the one, and a ballast to the other. "France useth to work one good effect upon the English: she useth to take away the mother's milk, (as they say;) that blush and bashful tincture which useth to rise up in the face upon sudden salutes and interchange of compliment, and to enharden one with confidence; for the gentry of France have a kind of loose becoming boldness, and forward vivacity, in their carriage, whereby they seem to draw respect from their superiors and equals, and make their inferiors keep a fitting distance. "In Italy, amongst other moral customs, one may learn not to be over prodigal of speech when there is no need; for with a nod, with a shake of the head, and a shrug of the shoulder, they will answer to many questions. "One shall learn, besides, there, not to interrupt one in the relation of his tale, or to feed it with odd interlocutions. One shall learn, also, not to laugh at his own jest, as too many use to do, like a hen, which cannot lay an egg but she must cackle. "Moreover, one shall learn not to ride so furiously as they do ordinarily in England, when there is no necessity at all for it; for the Italians have a proverb, that "a galloping horse is an open sepulchre." And the English, generally, are observed by all other nations, to ride, commonly, with that speed, as if they rode for a midwife, or a physician, or to get a pardon to save one's life as he goeth to execution, when there is no such thing, or any such occasion at all; which makes them call England the hell of horses. "In these hot countries, also, one shall learn to give over the habit of an odd custom, peculiar to the English alone, and whereby they are distinguished from other nations: which is, to make still towards the chimney, though it be in the dog-days.” There is a rich and pleasing passage on patriotism, as the fruit of foreign travel: "Amongst many other fruits of foreign travel, besides the delightful ideas, and a thousand various thoughts, and self-contentments, and inward solaces, it raiseth in the memory of things past, this is one; that when one hath seen the tally and taillage of France, the millstone of Spain, the assise of Holland, the gabels of Italy, where one cannot bring an egg or root to the market, but the prince his part lies therein; when he hath felt the excess of heat, the dangerous serains, the poverty of soil, in many places; the homeliness and incommodity of lodging, the coarse clothing of the best sort of peasants, their wooden shoes and straw hats, their canvass breeches and buckram petticoats; their meagre fare, feeding commonly upon grass, herbs, and roots, and drinking water, near the condition of brute animals, who find the cloth always ready laid, and the buttery open; when he hath observed what a hard shift some make to hew out a dwelling in the holes of the rocks, others to dig one under the sea; when he feels how in some climes the heaven is as brass, in others as a dropping sponge, in others as a great bellows, most part of the year; how the earth, in many places, is ever and anon sick of a fit of the palsy: when he sees the same sun which only cherisheth and gently warms his countrymen, half-parboil and tan other people; and those rays which scorch the adusted soils of Calabria and Spain, only varnish and gild the green honey-suckled plains and hillocks of England; when he hath observed what hard shifts some make to rub out in this world, in divers countries what speed nature makes to finish her course in them; how their best sort of women, after forty, are presently superannuated, and look like another Charingcross, or caracks that have passed the line in three voyages to the Indies when he hath observed all this, at his return home, he will bless God, and love England better ever after, both for the equality of the temper in the clime, where there is no where the like, take all the seasons of the year together, (though some would wish she might be pushed a little nearer the sun;) for the free condition of the subject, and equal participation of the wealth of the land; for the unparalleled accommodation of lodging, and security of travel; for the admirable hospitality; for the variety and plenty of all sorts of firm food; for attendance and cleanliness; for the rare fertility of sea and shore, of air, earth, and water; for the longevity, well-favouredness, and innate honesty of the people; and, above all, for the moderation and decency in celebrating the true service of God, being far from superstition one way, and from profaneness the other way, though (with a quaking heart I speak it,) there have been strange insolencies committed of late: I when he hath well observed all this, he will sing, as once I did to a noble friend of mine from Denmark, in this Sapphic: say, Dulcior fumus patriæ forensi Herba Britannæ mage transmarino We learn from the following lines the scantiness of the assistance which a traveller could expect from books. The concluding part presents a trait of the manners of the period. "It were very requisite to have a book of the topographical description of all places, through which he passeth; and I think Bertius, or the epitome of Ortelius, which are small and portable, would be the best. At his first coming to any city, the should repair to the chief church (if not idolatrous,) to offer up his sacrifice of thanks, that he is safely arrived thither; and then some have used to get on the top of the highest steeple, where one may view, with advantage, all the country circumjacent, and the site of the city, with the avenues and approaches about it; and so take a landscape of it." The erudite Howell seems to have had an agreeable notion of the quickest mode of learning a language. The contrivance of the grate is admirable and beyond all praise. "Some have used it as a prime help to advance language, to have some ancient nun for a Divota, with whom he may chat at the grates, when he hath little else to do; for the nuns speak a quaint dialect, and, besides, they have, most commonly, all the news that passes, and they will entertain discourse till one be weary, if he bestow on them, now and then, some small bagatelles, as English gloves or knives, or ribbons; and, before he go over, he must furnish himself with such small curiosities; but this I dare not advise him to, in regard the hazard one way may be greater than the advantage the other way." His mode of composing the mind, and of banishing the melancholy attendant upon separation from country, friends, and habits, is expressed in a very pleasing passage. "His closet, also, must be his rendezvous, whensoever he is surprised with any fit of pensiveness (as thoughts of country and kindred will often affect one), for no earthly thing exhilarates the heart more, and raiseth the spirits to a greater height of comfort, than conversation with God, than peace with heaven, than spiritual meditation, whereby the soul melts into an inconceivable sweetness of delight, and is delivered from all distempers, from all tumultuary confusion and disturbance of thoughts: and there is none, let him have the humours never so well balanced within him, but is subject unto anxiety of mind sometimes; for, while we are composed of four differing elements, wherewith the humours within us symbolize, we must have perpetual ebbings and flowings of mirth and melancholy, which have their alternate turns |