she was all along royally feasted, and he, as an ornament of her train, was much caressed. But when she begun to steer course directly to the Palatinate, he not intending that way but declaring his design of passing through Westphalia into the upper parts of Germany, some of the greatest quality who belonged to the princess implored him to go to Heidelberg, where the count palatine kept his court, assuring him, if he sought advancement by his travels, he stood fair for her secretary; such notice her highness had taken of him both by her own observation and by every body's good word. But he answered with his usual modesty, That he aimed at lower things, and was not qualified for such an employment. So he kissed her royal hand, and she graciously bid him farewell, with kind wishes that he might be prosperous in his travels. 9. So he set forward from Amsterdam towards Hamburg, and after he had travelled some days, it happened that he passed through a wood where two or three were hanged on a gibbet in chains. Look yonder, sir, (said the post that went along with him, a one-eyed fellow), these villains so many years ago set upon my wagon, in which was a young English gentleman. They stripped us all and rifled him to his shirt, where they found some gold was quilted. Then they drank up our wine and rode away, neighing at our nakedness in a cold frosty morning. But following the padding trade, they some time after assaulted another wagon, where meeting a stout resistance, they shot three of the passengers: for which they were pursued taken and used as you see. That English youth, said Mr. Ferrar, whom these cut-throats used so barbarously, was my own brother', and when I first saw you I knew you by the story my brother told me of his unlucky adventure with the one-eyed post: but I hope you and I shall have better fortune. 10. Safely arriving at Hamburg, he was kindly welcomed and entertained by the English merchants, upon whom he had bills and letters of credence to deliver him whatever money he demanded; but it was abundantly repaid to his good parents by that excellent character his countrymen gave of him in their letters to their correspondents at London. They observed he would never taste any wine or strong liquor, that he might never be urged to drink with them. At first they tempted him, but he knew how to defend himself, and when they discovered his temperance in eating and drinking, they left importuning him; acknowledging that he was in the right way, though they (they said) could not hit it. Even in these his younger days he understood the art of dialogue well, and without the pedantry of assuming and imposing upon the 1 Probably Richard F., who was at Hamburg when Mrs. Collett wrote to him from Bourne, July 1616, (Collett Letters, MSS. No. 2.) 2 Especially by Mr. Gore, his father's old acquaintance, then deputy governor of the company of merchant adventurers. At Hamburg he took daily lessons in German.-Peckard, 47. company he would lead the discourse to some useful consideration of virtue or vice, and would so delicately array the one and disrobe the other, that his conversation was no less pleasing than it was instructive, ever interlacing some pertinent and remarkable passages out of sacred and civil history; with which new way of conversation they were strangely taken. Passing through several of their cities, he came up to Leipzig in Saxony, where, being in his own element again, he resolved to fix for some time and continue in that learned university. Presently he made inquiries for the ablest masters in every art1, whom he would gain entirely, if gold and good words could gain them, to teach him their mystery. Among other curious arts which he learnt abroad he was taught the skill of artificial memory. The Germans are exquisite mechanics, and to every trade he would, if he could, serve an honourable apprenticeship of a week or a fortnight to each. Their painters weavers dyers and smiths were much at his lodgings, and at his service, which enabled him to treat with artisans in their proper terms: he could maintain a dialogue with an architect in his own phrases; he could talk with the mariners in their sea terms, knowing the word for almost every rope and every pin in a ship. Such was his curiosity in all the fine parts of 1 And, attending all the exercises performed in the public schools, was admired for "the elegant Latin which he spake with the utmost readiness."-Peckard, 50. learning and knowledge; an affection which is last mortified' in a polite and a capacious mind, that now made the great world his other book. He took notes of all in short-hand, when he was by himself; though his memory was so tenacious and so strangely faithful, that many times he could recal the circumstances of time and place with the very words he had heard many years ago. At Leipzig the learned professors courted him to their worthy acquaintance; but his reputation drawing too many visitants, he retired to a neighbour village, where he spent his time in reading the choicest writers on the German affairs. All men concluded he designed greatness and rising in the state by the vast pains he took and by husbanding his time with so scrupulous a care of it. His father, overjoyed at his happy progress, writ him an assurance that he should neither want money or time to perfect his intentions, and therefore charged him not to destroy himself by too much diligence. After he had visited several courts of the lesser dukes and princes of the empire and carefully surveyed the imperial court and city, he bent his course from Vienna towards Italy. II. Many German towns being full of the plague at this time, when he came upon the fron 1 Doubtless an allusion to Tacitus's saying (H. iv. 6): Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur; which Milton (Lycidas) has imitated: Fame, that last infirmity of noble minds. tiers of Italy, the Venetian territory, he was compelled at one passage to make his quarantine (as they call it), a custom on this occasion used to air the passengers for forty days. These fell out to be our forty-days fast of Lent, so that he was forced to do penance both under a restraint from company and from flesh, though neither of these was any great constraint upon one already so mortified. Here he had leisure enough to recollect his thoughts, to revise his notes1, and to reduce his observations into method. He spent this time of fasting and sequestration from the world very agreeably. In the morning he went up into a neighbour mountain, where abundance of wild thyme and rosemary grew; there with a book or two and with his God, Whom he met in the closest walks of his mind, having spent the day in reading, meditation and prayer, he came down in the evening to an early supper (his only set meal) of oil and fish. He omitted not his offices and exercises of devotion morning and evening and at midnight in his travels, for to serve and please his Maker was the travail of his soul. He needed not many books, who was his own concordance, and had the New Testament in a manner without book. And if the time and place would not serve him to kneel, yet then and there he made the lowest prostrations of his soul and spirit. 1 Taken in short-hand.-Peckard, 54. |