There are signs that the learned men were not always willing to shine upon admiring strangers who burst in upon them. The renowned DoctorZacharias Ursinus at Heidelberg marked on his doorway these words: "My friend, whoever you are, if you come here, please either go away again, or give me some help in my studies."[82]Sidney foresees the difficulty his brother may have: "How shall I get excellent men to take paines to speake with me? Truly, in few words: either much expense or much humbleness."[83]
If one had not the means to live with famous scholars, it was a good plan to take up lodgings with an eminent bookseller. For statesmen, advocates and other sorts of great men came to the shop, from whose talk much could be learned. By and by some occasion would arise for insinuating oneself into familarity and acquaintance with these personages, and perhaps, if some one of them, "non indoctus," intended journeying to another city, he might allow you to attach yourself to him.[84]
Of course, for observation and experience, there was no place so advantageous as the household of an ambassador, if one was fortunate enough to win an entry there. The English Ambassador in France generally had a burden of young gentlemen more or less under his care. Sometimes theywere lodged independently in Paris, but many belonged to his train, and had meat and drink for themselves, their servants and their horses, at the ambassador's expense.
Sir Amias Paulet'sLetter-Bookof 1577-8 testifies that an ambassador's cares were considerably augmented by writing reports to parents. Mr Speake is assured that "although I dwell far from Paris, yet I am not unacquainted with your sonne's doing in Paris, and cannot commend him enough to you as well for his diligence in study as for his honest and quiet behaviour, and I dare assure you that you may be bold to trust him as well for the order of his expenses, as for his government otherwise."[85]Mr Argall, whose brother could not be taken into Paulet's house, has to be soothed as well as may be by a letter.[86]Mr Throckmorton, after questionable behaviour, is sent home to his mother under excuse of being bearer of a letter to England. "His mother prayeth that his coming over may seeme to proceed of his owne request, because the Queen shall not be offended with it." His mother "hath promised to gett him lycence to travil into Italie." But, says Paulet, "He may not goe into Italie withoute the companie of some honest and wyse man, andso I have tould him, and in manie other things have dealt very playnely with him."[87]
Among these troublesome charges of Paulet's was Francis Bacon. But to his father, the Lord Keeper, Paulet writes only that all is well, and that his son's servant is particularly honest, diligent, discreet and faithful, and that Paulet is thankful for his "good and quiet behaviour in my house"--a fact which appears exceptional.
Sir Dudley Carleton, as Ambassador to Venice, was also pursued by ambitious fathers.[88]Sir Rowland Lytton Chamberlain writes to Carleton, begs only "that his son might be in your house, and that you would a little train him and fashion him to business. For I perceive he means to make him a statesman, and is very well persuaded of him, ... like a very indulgent father.... If you can do it conveniently, it will be a favour; but I know what a business it is to have the breaking of such colts, and therefore will urge no more than may be to your liking."[89]
Besides gaining an apprenticeship in diplomacy, another advantage of travelling with an ambassador was the participation in ambassadorial immunities. It might have fared ill with Sir Philip Sidney, in Paris at the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, if he had not belonged to the household of Sir Francis Walsingham. Many other young men not so glorious to posterity, but quite as much so to their mothers, were saved then by the same means. When news of the massacre had reached England, Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham: "I am glad yet that in these tumults and bloody proscriptions you did escape, and the young gentlemen that be there with you.... Yet we hear say that he that was sent by my Lord Chamberlain to be schoolmaster to young Wharton, being come the day before, was thenslain. Alas! he was acquainted with nobody, nor could be partaker of any evil dealing. How fearful and careful the mothers and parents be here of such young gentlemen as be there, you may easily guess by my Lady Lane, who prayeth very earnestly that her son may be sent home with as much speed as may be."[90]
The dangers of travel were of a nature to alarm mothers. As well as Catholics, there were shipwrecks, pirates, and highway robbers. Moors and Turks lay waiting "in a little port under the hill," to take passenger vessels that went between Rome and Naples. "If we had come by daye as we did by night, we had bin all taken slaves."[91]In dark strait ways up the sides of mountains, or on some great heath in Prussia, one was likely to meet a horseman "well furnyshed with daggs (pistols), who myght well be called a Swarte Ritter--his face was as black as a devill in a playe."[92]Inns were death-traps. A man dared not make any display of money for fear of being murdered in the night.[93]It was wiser to disguise himself as a humble country boyand gall his feet by carrying all his gold in his boots. Even if by these means he escaped common desperadoes, he might easily offend the deadly University students, as did the eldest son of Sir Julius Cæsar, slain in a brawl in Padua,[94]or like the Admirable Crichton, stabbed by his noble pupil in a dark street, bleed away his life in lonely lodgings.[95]Still more dangerous were less romantic ills, resulting from strange diet and the uncleanliness of inns. It was a rare treat to have a bed to oneself. More probably the traveller was obliged to share it with a stranger of disagreeable appearance, if not of disposition.[96]At German ordinaries "every travyler must syt at the ordinary table both master and servant," so that often they were driven to sit with such "slaves" that in the rush to get the best pieces from the common dish in the middle of the table, "a man wold abhor to se such fylthye hands in his dish."[97]Many an eager tourist lay down with small-pox before he had seen anything of the world worth mentioning, or if he gained home, brought a broken constitution with him. The third Lord North was ill for life because of the immoderatequantities of hot treacle he consumed in Italy, to avoid the plague.[98]
Illustration: DUDLEY NORTH, THIRD BARON NORTHDUDLEY NORTH, THIRD BARON NORTHFrom a print of an original picture in the Collection of the Earl of GuildfordIn 1602 he narrowly escaped the plague in Venice by drinking immoderate doses of hot treacle, to which he ascribed his life-long ill-health.
But it was not really the low material dangers of small-pox, quartain ague, or robbers which troubled the Elizabethan. Such considerations were beneath his heroical temper. Sir Edward Winsor, warned against the piratical Gulf of Malta, writes: "And for that it should not be said an Englishman to come so far to see Malta, and to have turned backe againe, I determined rather making my sepulker of that Golfe."[99]It was the sort of danger that weakened character which made people doubt the benefits of travel. So far we have not mentioned in our description of the books addressed to travellers any of the reminders of the trials of Ulysses, and dark warnings against the "Siren-songs of Italy." Since they were written at the same time with the glowing orations in praise of travel, it might be well to consider them before we go farther.
The traveller newly returned from foreign lands was a great butt for the satirists. In Elizabethan times his bows and tremendous politeness, his close-fitting black clothes from Venice, his French accent, his finicky refinements, such as perfumes and pick-tooths, were highly offensive to the plain Englishman. One was always sure of an appreciative audience if he railed at the "disguised garments and desperate hats" of the "affectate traveller" how; his attire spoke French or Italian, and his gait cried "behold me!" how he spoke his own language with shame and loathing.[100]"You shall see a dapper Jacke, that hath beene but over at Deepe,[101]wring his face round about, as a man would stir up a mustard-pot, and talke English through the teeth, like ... Monsieur Mingo de Moustrap."[102]Nash was one of the best at describing some who had lived in France for half-a-dozen years, "and when they came home, they have hyd a littlewéerish leane face under a broad French hat, kept a terrible coyle with the dust in the stréete in their long cloaks of gray paper, and spoke English strangely. Naught else have they profited by their travell, save learnt to distinguish of the true Burdeaux Grape, and know a cup of neate Gascoygne wine from wine of Orleance; yea, and peradventure this also, to esteeme of the poxe as a pimple, to weare a velvet patch on their face, and walke melancholy with their armes folded."[103]
The Frenchified traveller came in for a good share of satire, but darker things were said of the Italianate Englishman. He was an atheist--a creature hitherto unknown in England--who boldly laughed to scorn both Protestant and Papist. He mocked the Pope, railed on Luther, and liked none, but only himself.[104]"I care not," he said, "what you talk to me of God, so as I may have the prince and the laws of the realm on my side."[105]In politics he allied himself with the Papists, they being more of his way of living than the Puritans, but he was faithless to all parties.[106]In private life he was vicious, and practised "such villainy as is abominable to declare," for in Italyhe had served Circes, who turns men into beasts.[107]"But I am afraid," says Ascham, "that over many of our travellers unto Italy do not eschew the way to Circe's Court: but go and ryde and runne and flie thether, they make great hast to cum to her; they make great sute to serve her: yea, I could point out some with my finger that never had gone out of England, but onlie to serve Circes in Italie. Vanitie and vice and any licence to ill living in England was counted stale and rude unto them."[108]
It is likely that some of these accusations were true. Italy more than any other country charmed the Elizabethan Englishman, partly because the climate and the people and the look of things were so unlike his own grey home. Particularly Venice enchanted him. The sun, the sea, the comely streets, "so clean that you can walk in a Silk Stockin and Sattin Slippes,"[109]the tall palaces with marble balconies, and golden-haired women, the flagellants flogging themselves, the mountebanks, the Turks, the stately black-gowned gentlemen, were new and strange, and satisfied his sense of romance. Besides, the University of Padua was still one of the greatest universities in Europe. Students from all nations crowded to it.William Thomas describes the "infinite resorte of all nacions that continually is seen there. And I thinke verilie, that in one region of all the worlde againe, are not halfe so many straungers as in Italie; specially of gentilmen, whose resorte thither is principallie under pretence of studie ... all kyndes of vertue maie there be learned: and therfore are those places accordyngly furnisshed: not of suche students alone, as moste commonly are brought up in our universitees (meane mens children set to schole in hope to live upon hyred learnyng) but for the more parte of noble mens sonnes, and of the best gentilmen: that studie more for knowledge and pleasure than for curiositee or luker: ... This last wynter living in Padoa, with diligent serche I learned, that the noumbre of scholers there was little lesse than fiftene hundreth; whereof I dare saie, a thousande at the lest were gentilmen."[110]
The life of a student at Padua was much livelier than the monastic seclusion of an English university. He need not attend many lectures, for, as Thomas Hoby explains, after a scholar has been elected by the rectors, "He is by his scholarship bound to no lectures, nor nothing elles but what he lyst himselfe to go to."[111]So being a gentleman andnot a clerk, he was more likely to apply himself to fencing or riding: For at Padua "there passeth no shrof-tide without rennyng at the tilte, tourneiyng, fighting at the barriers and other like feates of armes, handled and furnisshed after the best sort: the greatest dooers wherof are scholers."[112]
Then, too, the scholar diversified his labours by excursions to Venice, in one of those passenger boats which plied daily from Padua, of which was said "that the boat shall bee drowned, when it carries neither Monke, nor Student, nor Curtesan.... the passengers being for the most part of these kinds"[113]and, as Moryson points out, if he did not, by giving offence, receive a dagger in his ribs from a fellow-student, he was likely to have pleasant discourse on the way.[114]Hoby took several trips from Padua to Venice to see such things as the "lustie yong Duke of Ferrandin, well accompanied with noble menn and gentlemen ... running at the ring with faire Turks and cowrsars, being in a maskerie after the Turkishe maner, and on foote casting of eggs into the wyndowes among the ladies full of sweete waters and damaske Poulders," or like the Latin Quarter students who frequent "La Morgue," went toview the body of a gentleman slain in a feud, laid out in state in his house--"to be seen of all men."[115]In the outlandish mixture of nations swarming at Venice, a student could spend all day watching mountebanks, and bloody street fights, and processions. In the renowned freedom of that city where "no man marketh anothers dooynges, or meddleth with another mans livyng,"[116]it was no wonder if a young man fresh from an English university and away from those who knew him, was sometimes "enticed by lewd persons:" and, once having lost his innocence, outdid even the students of Padua. For, as Greene says, "as our wits be as ripe as any, so our willes are more ready than they all, to put into effect any of their licentious abuses."[117]Thus arose the famous proverb, "An Englishman Italianate is a devil incarnate."
Hence the warnings against Circes by even those authors most loud in praise of travel. Lipsius bids his noble pupil beware of Italian women: " ... inter fæminas, formæ conspicuæ, sed lascivæ et procaces."[118]Turler must acknowledge "an auntient complaint made by many that our countrymen usually bring three thinges with themout of Italye: a naughty conscience, an empty purse, and a weak stomache: and many times it chaunceth so indeede." For since "youth and flourishing yeeres are most commonly employed in traveill, which of their owne course and condicion are inclined unto vice, and much more earnestly imbrace the same if it be enticed thereto," ... "many a time pleasures make a man not thinke on his returne," ... but he is caught by the songs of Mermaids, "so to returne home with shame and shame enough."[119]
It was necessary also to warn the traveller against those more harmless sins which we have already mentioned: against an arrogant bearing on his return to his native land, or a vanity which prompted him at all times to show that he had been abroad, and was not like the common herd. Perhaps it was an intellectual affectation of atheism or a cultivated taste for Machiavelli with which he was inclined to startle his old-fashioned countrymen. Almost the only book Sir Edward Unton seems to have brought back with him from Venice was theHistorie of Nicolo Machiavelli, Venice, 1537. On the title page he has written: "Macchavelli Maxima / Qui nescit dissimulare / nescit vivere / Vive et vivas / Edw. Unton. /"[120]Perhapsit was only his display of Italian clothes--"civil, because black, and comely because fitted to the body,"[121]or daintier table manners than Englishmen used which called down upon him the ridicule of his enemies. No doubt there was in the returned traveller a certain degree of condescension which made him disagreeable--especially if he happened to be a proud and insolent courtier, who attracted the Queen's notice by his sharpened wits and novelties of discourse, or if he were a vain boy of the sort that cumbered the streets of London with their rufflings and struttings.
In making surmises as to whom Ascham had in his mind's eye when he said that he knew men who came back from Italy with "less learning and worse manners," I guessed that one might be Arthur Hall, the first translator of Homer into English. Hall was a promising Grecian at Cambridge, and began his translation with Ascham's encouragement.[122]Between 1563 and 1568, when Ascham was writingThe Scolemaster, Hall, without finishing for a degree, or completing the Homer, went to Italy. It would have irritated Ascham to have a member of St John's throw over his task and his degree to go gadding. Certainly Hall'safter life bore out Ascham's forebodings as to the value of foreign travel. On his return he spent a notorious existence in London until the consequences of a tavern brawl turned him out of Parliament. I might dwell for a moment on Hall's curious account of this latter affair, because it is one of the few utterances we have by an acknowledged Italianate Englishman--of a certain sort.
Hall, apparently, was one of those gallants who ruffled about Elizabethan London and used
"To loove to play at DiceTo sware his blood and hartTo face it with a Ruffins lookAnd set his Hat athwart."[123]
The humorists throw a good deal of light on such "yong Jyntelmen." So does Fleetwood, the Recorder of London, to whom they used to run when they were arrested for debt, or for killing a carman, making as their only apology, "I am a Jyntelman, and being a Jyntelman, I am not thus to be used at a slave and a colion's hands."[124]Hall, writing in the third person, in the assumed character of a friend, describes himself as "a man not wholly unlearned, with a smacke of the knowledge of diverse tongues ... furious when he is contraried ... as yourselfe is witnesse ofhis dealings at Rome, at Florence, in the way between that and Bollonia ... so implacable if he conceyve an injurie, as Sylla will rather be pleased with Marius, than he with his equals, in a maner for offences grown of tryffles.... Also spending more tyme in sportes, and following the same, than is any way commendable, and the lesse, bycause, I warrant you, the summes be great are dealte for."[125]
This terrible person, on the 16th of December 1573, at Lothbury, in London, at a table of twelve pence a meal, supped with some merchants and a certain Melchisedech Mallerie. Dice were thrown on the board, and in the course of play Mallerie "gave the lye with harde wordes in heate to one of the players." "Hall sware (as he will not sticke to lende you an othe or two), to throw Mallerie out at the window. Here Etna smoked, daggers were a-drawing ... but the goodman lamented the case for the slaunder, that a quarrel should be in his house, ... so ... the matter was ended for this fitte."
But a certain Master Richard Drake, attendingon my Lord of Leicester, took pains first to warn Hall to take heed of Mallerie at play, and then to tell Mallerie that Hall said he used "lewde practices at cards." The next day at "Poules"[126]came Mallerie to Hall and "charged him very hotly, that he had reported him to be a cousiner of folkes at Mawe." Hall, far from showing that fury which he described as his characteristic, denied the charge with meekness. He said he was patient because he was bound to keep the peace for dark disturbances in the past. Mallerie said it was because he was a coward.
Mallerie continued to say so for months, until before a crowd of gentlemen at the "ordinary" of one Wormes, his taunts were so unbearable that Hall crept up behind him and tried to stab him in the back. There was a general scuffle, some one held down Hall, the house grew full in a moment with Lord Zouche, gentlemen, and others, while "Mallerie with a great shreke ranne with all speede out of the doores, up a paire of stayres, and there aloft used most harde wordes againste Mr Hall."
Hall, who had cut himself--and nobody else--nursed his wound indoors for some days, during which time friends brought word that Mallerie would "shewe him an Italian tricke, intendingthereby to do him some secret and unlooked for mischief." Then, with "a mufle half over his face," Hall took post-horses to his home in Lincolnshire. Business called him, he tells the reader. There was no ground whatever for Mallerie to say he fled in disguise.
After six months, he ventured to return to London and be gay again. He dined at "James Lumelies--the son, as it is said, of old M. Dominicke, born at Genoa, of the losse of whose nose there goes divers tales,"--and coming by a familiar gaming-house on his way back to his lodgings, he "fell to with the rest."
But there is no peace for him. In comes Mallerie--and with insufferably haughty gait and countenance, brushes by. Hall tries a pleasant saunter around Poules with his friend Master Woodhouse: "comes Mallerie again, passing twice or thrice by Hall, with great lookes and extraordinary rubbing him on the elbowes, and spurning three or four times a Spaniel of Mr Woodhouses following his master and Master Hall." Hall mutters to his servants, "Jesus can you not knocke the boyes head and the wall together, sith he runnes a-bragging thus?" His three servants go out of the church by the west door: when Mallerie stalks forth they set upon him and cut him down the cheek.
We will not follow the narrative through the subsequent lawsuit brought by Mallerie against Hall's servants, the trial presided over by Recorder Fleetwood, the death of Mallerie, who "departed well leanyng to the olde Father of Rome, a dad whome I have heard some say Mr Hall doth not hate" or Hall's subsequent expulsion from Parliament. This is enough to show the sort of harmless, vain braggarts some of these "Italianates" were, and how easily they acquired the reputation of being desperate fellows. Mallerie's lawyer at the trial charged Hall with "following the revenge with an Italian minde learned at Rome."
Among other Italianified Cambridge men whom Ascham might well have noticed were George Acworth and William Barker. Acworth had lived abroad during Mary's reign, studying civil law in France and Italy. When Elizabeth came to the throne he was elected public orator of the University of Cambridge, but through being idle, dissolute, and a drunkard, he lost all his preferments in England.[127]Barker, or Bercher, who was educated at St John's or Christ's, was abroad at the same time as Ascham, who may have met him as Hoby did in Italy.[128]Barker seems tohave been an idle person--he says that after travels "my former fancye of professenge nothinge partycularly was verye muche encreased"[129]--and a papistical one, for on the accession of Mary he came home to serve the Duke of Norfolk, whose Catholic plots he betrayed, under torture, in 1571. It was then that the Duke bitterly dubbed him an "Italianfyd Inglyschemane," equal in faithlessness to "a schamlesse Scote";[130]i.e.the Bishop of Ross, another witness.
Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, famous for his rude behaviour to Sir Philip Sidney, whom he subsequently tried to dispatch with hired assassins after the Italian manner,[131]might well have been one of the rising generation of courtiers whom Ascham so deplored. In Ascham's lifetime he was already a conspicuous gallant, and by 1571, at the age of twenty-two, he was the court favourite. The friends of the Earl of Rutland, keeping him informed of the news while he was fulfilling in Paris those heavy duties of observation which Cecil mapped out for him, announce that "There is no man of life and agility in every respect in Court, but the Earl ofOxford."[132]And a month afterwards, "Th' Erle of Oxenforde hath gotten hym a wyffe--or at the leste a wyffe hath caught hym--that is Mrs Anne Cycille, whearunto the Queen hath gyven her consent, the which hathe causyd great wypping, waling, and sorowful chere, of those that hoped to have hade that golden daye."[133]Ascham did not live to see the development of this favorite into an Italianate Englishman, but Harrison's invective against the going of noblemen's sons into Italy coincides with the return of the Earl from a foreign tour which seems to have been ill-spent.
At the very time when the Queen "delighted more in his personage and his dancing and valiantness than any other,"[134]Oxford betook himself to Flanders--without licence. Though his father-in-law Burghley had him brought back to the indignant Elizabeth, the next year he set forth again and made for Italy. From Siena, on January 3rd, 1574-5, he writes to ask Burghley to sell some of his land so as to disburden him of his debts, and in reply to some warning of Burghley's that his affairs in England needattention, replies that since his troubles are so many at home, he has resolved to continue his travels.[135]Eight months afterwards, from Italy, he begs Burghley's influence to procure him a licence to continue his travels a year longer, stating as his reason an exemplary wish to see more of Germany. (In another letter also[136]he assures Cecil that he means to acquaint himself with Sturmius--that educator of youth so highly approved of by Ascham.) "As to Italy, he is glad he has seen it, but cares not ever to see it again, unless to serve his prince or country." The reason they have not heard from him this past summer is that his letters were sent back because of the plague in the passage. He did not know this till his late return to Venice. He has been grieved with a fever. The letter concludes with a mention that he has taken up of Baptista Nigrone 500 crowns, which he desires repaid from the sale of his lands, and a curt thanks for the news of his wife's delivery.[137]
From Paris, after an interval of six months, he declares his pleasure at the news of his being a father, but makes no offer to return to England. Rather he intends to go back to Venice. He"may pass two or three months in seeing Constantinople and some part of Greece."[138]
However, Burghley says, "I wrote to Pariss to hym to hasten hym homewards," and in April 1576, he landed at Dover in an exceedingly sulky mood. He refused to see his wife, and told Burghley he might take his daughter into his own house again, for he was resolved "to be rid of the cumber."[139]He accused his father-in-law of holding back money due to him, although Burghley states that Oxford had in one year £5700.[140]Considering that Robert Sidney, afterwards Earl of Leicester, had only £1OO a year for a tour abroad,[141]and that Sir Robert Dallington declares £200 to be quite enough for a gentleman studying in France or Italy--including pay for a servant--and that any more would be "superfluous and to his hurte,"[142]it will be seen that the Earl of Oxford had £5500 "to his hurte."
Certain results of his travel were pleasing to his sovereign, however. For he was the first person to import to England "gloves, sweete bagges, a perfumed leather Jerkin, and otherpleasant things."[143]The Queen was so proud of his present of a pair of perfumed gloves, trimmed with "foure Tufts or Roses of coloured Silk" that she was "pictured with those Gloves upon her hands, and for many yeeres after, it was called the Earle of Oxford's perfume."[144]His own foreign and fashionable apparel was ridiculed by Gabriel Harvey, in the much-quoted description of an Italianate Englishman, beginning:
"A little apish hat couched faste to the pate, like an oyster."[145]
Arthur Hall and the Earl of Oxford will perhaps serve to show that many young men pointed out as having returned the worse for their liberty to see the world, were those who would have been very poor props to society had they never left their native land. Weak and vain striplings of entirely English growth escaped the comment attracted by a sinner with strange garments and new oaths. For in those garments themselves lay an offence to the commonwealth. I need only refer to the well-known jealousy, among English haberdashers and milliners, of the superior craft of Continental workmen, behind whom English weavers lagged: Henry the Eighth used to have to wear hose cut out of pieces ofcloth--on that leg of which he was so proud--unless "by great chance there came a paire of Spanish silke stockings from Spaine."[146]Knit worsted stockings were not made in England till 1554, when an apprentice "chanced to see a pair of knit worsted stockings in the lodging of an Italian merchant that came from Mantua."[147]Harrison's description of England breathes an animosity to foreign clothes, plainly founded on commercial jealousy: "Neither was it ever merrier in England than when an Englishman was known abroad by his own cloth, and contented himself at home with his fine carsey hosen, and a mean slop: his coat, gown, and cloak of brown, blue, or puke, with some pretty furniture of velvet or of fur, and a doublet of sad tawny, or black velvet, or other comely silk, without such cuts and garish colours, as are worn in these days, and never brought in but by the consent of the French, who think themselves the gayest men when they have most diversities of rags and change of colours about them."[148]
Wrapped up with economic acrimony there was a good deal of the hearty old English hatred of a Frenchman, or a Spaniard, or any foreigner, which was always finding expression. Either itwas the 'prentices who rioted, or some rude fellow who pulls up beside the carriage of the Spanish ambassador, snatches the ambassador's hat off his head and "rides away with it up the street as fast as he could, the people going on and laughing at it,"[149]or it was the Smithfield officers deputed to cut swords of improper length, who pounced upon the French ambassador because his sword was longer than the statutes allowed. "He was in a great fury.... Her Majestie is greatly offended with the officers, in that they wanted judgement."[150]
There was also a dislike of the whole new order of things, of which the fashion for travel was only a phase: dislike of the new courtier who scorned to live in the country, surrounded by a huge band of family servants, but preferred to occupy small lodgings in London, and join in the pleasures of metropolitan life. The theatre, the gambling resorts, the fence-schools, the bowling alleys, and above all the glamor of the streets and the crowd were charms only beginning to assert themselves in Elizabethan England. But the popular voice was loud against the nobles who preferred to spend their money on such things instead of on improving their estates, and whosquandered on fine clothes what used to be spent on roast beef for their retainers. Greene'sQuip for an Upstart Courtierparodies what the new and refined Englishman would say:--
"The worlds are chaungde, and men are growne to more wit, and their minds to aspire after more honourable thoughts: they were dunces in diebus illis, they had not the true use of gentility, and therefore they lived meanely and died obscurely: but now mennes capacities are refined. Time hath set a new edge on gentlemen's humours and they show them as they should be: not like gluttons as their fathers did, in chines of beefe and almes to the poore, but in velvets, satins, cloth of gold, pearle: yea, pearle lace, which scarce Caligula wore on his birthday."[151]
On the whole, we may say that the objections to foreign travel rose from a variety of motives. Ascham doubtless knew genuine cases of young men spoiled by too much liberty, and there were surely many obnoxious boys who bragged of their "foreign vices." Insular prejudice, jealousy and conservatism, hating foreign influence, drew attention to these bad examples. Lastly, there was another element in the protest against foreign travel, which grew more and more strong towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth and the beginningof James the First's, the hatred of Italy as the stronghold of the Roman Catholic Church, and fear of the Inquisition. Warnings against the Jesuits are a striking feature of the next group of Instructions to Travellers.
The quickening of animosity between Protestants and Catholics in the last quarter of the sixteenth century had a good deal to do with the censure of travel which we have been describing. In their fear and hatred of the Roman Catholic countries, Englishmen viewed with alarm any attractions, intellectual or otherwise, which the Continent had for their sons. They had rather have them forego the advantages of a liberal education than run the risk of falling body and soul into the hands of the Papists. The intense, fierce patriotism which flared up to meet the Spanish Armada almost blighted the genial impulse of travel for study's sake. It divided the nations again, and took away the common admiration for Italy which had made the young men of the north all rush together there. We can no longer imagine an Englishman like Selling coming to the great Politian at Bologna and grappling him to his heart--"arctissima sibi conjunxit amicum familiaritate,"[152]as the warm humanistic phrase has it. In the seventeenthcentury Politian would be a "contagious Papist," using his charm to convert men to Romanism, and Selling would be a "true son of the Church of England," railing at Politian for his "debauch'd and Popish principles." The Renaissance had set men travelling to Italy as to the flower of the world. They had scarcely started before the Reformation called it a place of abomination. Lord Burghley, who in Elizabeth's early days had been so bent on a foreign education for his eldest son, had drilled him in languages and pressed him to go to Italy,[153]at the end of his long life left instructions to his children: "Suffer not thy sonnes to pass the Alps, for they shall learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy, and atheism. And if by travel they get a few broken languages, that shall profit them nothing more than to have one meat served on divers dishes."[154]
The mother of Francis Bacon affords a good example of the Puritan distrust of going "beyond seas." She could by no means sympathize with her son Anthony's determination to become versed in foreign affairs, for that led him into intimacy with Roman Catholics. All through his prolonged stay abroad she chafed and fretted, while Anthony perversely remained in France, gainingthat acquaintance with valuable correspondents, spies, and intelligencers which later made him one of the greatest authorities in England on continental politics. He had a confidential servant, a Catholic named Lawson, whom he sent over to deliver some important secret news to Lord Burghley. Lady Bacon, in her fear lest Lawson's company should pervert her son's religion and morals, had the man arrested and detained in England. His anxious master sent another man to plead with his mother for Lawson's release; but in vain. The letter of this messenger to Anthony will serve to show the vehemence of anti-Catholic feelings in a British matron in 1589.
"Upon my arrival at Godombery my Lady used me courteously until such time I began to move her for Mr Lawson; and, to say the truth, for yourself; being so much transported with your abode there that she let not to say that you are a traitor to God and your country; you have undone her; you seek her death; and when you have that you seek for, you shall have but a hundred pounds more than you have now.
"She is resolved to procure Her Majesty's letter to force you to return; and when that should be, if Her Majesty give you your right or desert, she should clap you up in prison. She cannot abide to hear of you, as she saith, nor ofthe other especially, and told me plainly she should be the worse this month for my coming without you, and axed me why you could not have come from thence as well as myself.
"She saith you are hated of all the chiefest on that side and cursed of God in all your actions, since Mr Lawson's being with you....
"When you have received your provision, make your repair home again, lest you be a means to shorten her days, for she told me the grief of mind received daily by your stay will be her end; also saith her jewels be spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of seven several persons.
"Thus much I must confess unto you for a conclusion, that I have never seen nor never shall see a wise Lady, an honourable woman, a mother, more perplexed for her son's absence than I have seen that honourable dame for yours."[155]
It was not only a general hatred of Roman Catholics which made staunch Protestants anxious to detain their sons from foreign travel towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, but a very lively and well-grounded fear of the Inquisition and the Jesuits. When England was at war with Spain, any Englishman caught on Spanish territory was a lawful prisoner for ransom; and sinceSpanish territory meant Sicily, Naples, and Milan, and Rome was the territory of Spain's patron, the Pope, Italy was far from safe for Englishmen and Protestants. Even when peace with Spain was declared, on the accession of James I., the spies of the Inquisition were everywhere on the alert to find some slight pretext for arresting travellers and to lure them into the dilemma of renouncing their faith, or being imprisoned and tortured. There is a letter, for instance, to Salisbury from one of his agents on the Continent, concerning overtures made to him by the Pope's nuncio, to decoy some Englishman of note--young Lord Roos or Lord Cranborne--into papal dominions, where he might be seized and detained, in hope of procuring a release for Baldwin the Jesuit.[156]William Bedell, about to go to Italy as chaplain to Sir Henry Wotton, the Ambassador to Venice, very anxiously asks a friend what route is best to Italy. "For it is told me that the Inquisition is in Millaine, and that if a man duck not low at every Cross, he may be cast in prison.... Send me, I pray you, a note of the chief towns to be passed through. I care not for seeing places, but to go thither the shortest and safest way."[157]
Bedell's fears were not without reason, for the very next year occurred the arrest of the unfortunate Mr Mole, whose case was one of the sensations of the day. Fuller, in hisChurch History, under the year 1607, records how--
"About this time Mr Molle, Governour to the Lord Ross in his travails, began his unhappy journey beyond the Seas.... He was appointed by Thomas, Earl of Exeter, to be Governour in Travail to his Grandchilde, the Lord Ross, undertaking the charge with much reluctance (as a presage of ill successe) and with a profession, and a resolution not to passe the Alpes.
"But a Vagari took the Lord Ross to go to Rome, though some conceive this notion had its root in more mischievous brains. In vain doth Mr Molle dissuade him, grown now so wilfull, he would in some sort govern his Governour. What should this good man doe? To leave him were to desert his trust, to goe along with him were to endanger his own life. At last his affections to his charge so prevailed against his judgment, that unwillingly willing he went with him. Now, at what rate soever they rode to Rome, the fame of their coming came thither before them; so that no sooner had they entered their Inne, but Officers asked for Mr Molle, took and carried him to the Inquisition-House, wherehe remained a prisoner whilest the Lord Ross was daily feasted, favoured, entertained: so that some will not stick to say, That here he changed no Religion for a bad one."[158]
No threats could persuade Mr Mole to renounce his heresy, and though many attempts were made to exchange him for some Jesuits caught in England, he lay for thirty years in the prison of the Inquisition, and died there, at the age of eighty-one.
It was part of the policy of the Jesuits, according to Sir Henry Wotton, to thus separate their tutors from young men, and then ply the pupils with attentions and flattery, with a view to persuading them into the Church of Rome. Not long after the capture of Mole, Wotton writes to Salisbury of another case of the same sort.
"My Lord Wentworthe[159]on the 18th of May coming towards Venice ... accompanied with his brother-in-law Mr Henry Crafts, one EdwardLichefeld, their governor, and some two or three other English, through Bologna, as they were there together at supper the very night of their arrival, came up two Dominican Friars, with the sergeants of the town, and carried thence the foresaid Lichefeld, with all his papers, into the prison of the Inquisition where he yet remaineth.[160]Thus standeth this accident in the bare circumstances thereof, not different, save only in place, from that of Mr Mole at Rome. And doubtlessly (as we collect now upon the matter) if Sir John Harington[161]had either gone the Roman Journey, or taken the ordinary way in his remove thitherwards out of Tuscany, the like would have befallen his director also, a gentleman of singular sufficiency;[162]for it appeareth a new piece of council (infused into the Pope by his artisans the Jesuits) to separate by some device their guidesfrom our young noblemen (about whom they are busiest) and afterwards to use themselves (for aught I can yet hear) with much kindness and security, but yet with restraint (when they come to Rome) of departing thence without leave; which form was held both with the Lords Rosse and St Jhons, and with this Lord Wentworthe and his brother-in-law at their being there. And we have at the present also a like example or two in Barons of the Almaign nation of our religion, whose governors are imprisoned, at Rome and Ferrara; so as the matter seemeth to pass into a rule. And albeit thitherto those before named of our own be escaped out of that Babylon (as far as I can penetrate) without any bad impressions, yet surely it appeareth very dangerous to leave our travellers in this contingency; especially being dispersed in the middle towns of Italy (whither the language doth most draw them) certain nimble pleasant wits in quality of interceptors, who deliver over to their correspondents at Rome the dispositions of gentlemen before they arrive, and so subject them both to attraction by argument, and attraction by humour."[163]
Illustration: JOHN HARINGTON, SECOND BARON HARINGTON OF EXTONJOHN HARINGTON, SECOND BARON HARINGTON OF EXTON His letters during his travels in 1604 were considered exemplary
Wotton did not overrate the persuasiveness of the Jesuits. Lord Roos became a papist.[164]
Wotton's own nephew, Pickering, had been converted in Spain, on his death-bed, although he had been, according to the Jesuit records, "most tenacious of the corrupt religion which from his tender youth he had imbibed."[165]In his travels "through the greater part of France, Italy, Spain and Germany for the purpose of learning both the languages and the manners, an ancient custom among northern nations, ... he conferred much upon matters of faith with many persons, led either by inclination or curiosity, and being a clever man would omit no opportunity of gaining information."[166]Through this curiosity he made friends with Father Walpole of the Jesuit College at Valladolid, and falling into a mortal sickness in that city, Walpole had come to comfort him.
Another conversion of the same sort had been made by Father Walpole at Valladolid, the year before. Sir Thomas Palmer came to Spain both for the purpose of learning the language and seeing the country. "Visiting the English College, he treated familiarly with the Fathers, and began to entertain thoughts in his heart of the Catholic religion." While cogitating, he was "overtaken by a sudden and mortal sickness. Therefore, perceiving himself to be in danger of death, he set to workto reconcile himself with the Catholic Church. Having received all the last Sacraments he died, and was honourably interred with Catholic rites, to the great amazement also of the English Protestants, who in great numbers were in the city, and attended the funeral."[167]
There is nothing surprising in these death-bed conversions, when we think of the pressure brought to bear on a traveller in a strange land. As soon as he fell sick, the host of his inn sent for a priest, and if the invalid refused to see a ghostly comforter that fact discovered his Protestantism. Whereupon the physician and apothecary, the very kitchen servants, were forbidden by the priest to help him, unless he renounced his odious Reformed Religion and accepted Confession, the Sacrament, and Extreme Unction. If he died without these his body was not allowed in consecrated ground, but was buried in the highway like a very dog. It is no wonder if sometimes there was a conversion of an Englishman, lonely and dying, with no one to cling to.[168]
We must remember, also, how many reputed Protestants had only outwardly conformed to theChurch of England for worldly reasons. They could not enter any profession or hold any public office unless they did. But their hearts were still in the old faith, and they counted on returning to it at the very end.[169]Sometimes the most sincere of Protestants in sickness "relapsed into papistry." For the Protestant religion was new, but the Roman Church was the Church of their fathers. In the hour of death men turn to old affections. And so in several ways one can account for Sir Francis Cottington, Ambassador to Spain, who fell ill, confessed himself a Catholic; and when he recovered, once more became a Protestant.[170]
The mere force of environment, according to Sir Charles Cornwallis, Ambassador to Spain from 1605-9, was enough to change the religion of impressionable spirits. His reports to Englandshow a constant struggle to keep his train of young gentlemen true to their national Church.[171]
The Spanish Court was then at Valladolid, in which city flourished an especially strong College of Jesuits. Thence Walpole, and other dangerous persuaders, made sallies upon Cornwallis's fold. At first the Ambassador was hopeful:--
"Much hath that Creswell and others of that Societie" (the Jesuits) "bestir'd themselves here in Conference and Persuasion with the Gentlemen that came to attend his Excellencie[172]and do secretly bragg of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found corrupted, the one in such sorte as he refused to come to Prayers, whom I presently discharged; the other being an honest and sober young Gentleman, and one that denieth not to be present both at Prayers and Preachinge, I continue still, having good hope that I shall in time reduce him."[173]
But within a month he has to report the conversion of Sir Thomas Palmer, and within another month, the loss of even his own chaplain. "Were God pleased that onlie young and weak ones did waver, it were more tollerable," he laments, "but I am put in some doubte of my Chaplaine himself."He had given the chaplain--one Wadesworth, a good Cambridge Protestant--leave of absence to visit the University of Salamanca. In a week the chaplain wrote for a prolongation of his stay, making discourse of "a strange Tempest that came upon him in the way, of visible Fire that fell both before and behind him, of an Expectation of present Death, and of a Vowe he made in that time of Danger." This manner of writing, and reports from others that he has been a secret visitor to the College of the Jesuits, make Cornwallis fear the worst. "I should think him borne in a most unfortunate hower," he wails, "to become the occasion of such a Scandall."[174]But his fears were realized. The chaplain never came back. He had turned Romanist.
The reasons for the headway of Catholicism in the reign of James I. do not concern us here. To explain the agitated mood of our Precepts for Travellers, it is necessary only to call attention to the fact that Protestantism was just then losing ground, through the devoted energy of the Jesuits. Even in England, they were able to strike admiration into the mind of youth, and to turn its ardour to their own purposes. But in Spain and in Italy, backed by their impressive environment and surrounded by the visible powerof the Roman Church, they were much more potent. The English Jesuits in Rome--Oxford scholars, many of them--engaged the attentions of such of their university friends or their countrymen who came to see Italy, offering to show them the antiquities, to be guides and interpreters.[175]By some such means the traveller was lured into the company of these winning companions, till their spiritual and intellectual power made an indelible impression on him.[176]
How much the English Government feared the influence of the Jesuits upon young men abroad may be seen by the increasing strictness of licences for travellers. The ordinary licence which everyone but a known merchant was obliged to obtain from a magistrate before he could leave England, in 1595 gave permission with the condition that the traveller "do not haunte or resorte unto the territories or dominions of any foreine prince or potentate not being with us in league or amitie,nor yet wittinglie kepe companie with any parson or parsons evell affected to our State."[177]But the attempt to keep Englishmen out of Italy was generally fruitless, and the proviso was too frequently disregarded. Lord Zouche grumbled exceedingly at the limitations of his licence. "I cannot tell," he writes to Burghley in 1591, "whether I shall do well or no to touch that part of the licence which prohibiteth me in general to travel in some countries, and companioning divers persons.... This restraint is truly as an imprisonment, for I know not how to carry myself; I know not whether I may pass upon the Lords of Venis, and the Duke of Florens' territories, because I know not if they have league with her Majesty or no."[178]Doubtless Bishop Hall was right when he declared that travellers commonly neglected the cautions about the king's enemies, and that a limited licence was only a verbal formality.[179]King James had occasion to remark that "many of the Gentry, and others of Our Kingdom, under pretence of travel for their experience, do pass the Alps, and not contenting themselves to remain in Lombardy or Tuscany, to gain the language there, do daily flock toRome, out of vanity and curiosity to see the Antiquities of that City; where falling into the company of Priests and Jesuits ... return again into their countries, both averse to Religion and ill-affected to Our State and Government."[180]
To come to our Instructions for Travellers, as given in the reign of James I., they abound, as we would expect, in warnings against the Inquisition and the Jesuits. Sir Robert Dallington, in hisMethod for Travell,[181]gives first place to the question of remaining steadfast in one's religion:
"Concerning the Traveliers religion, I teach not what it should be, (being out of my element;) only my hopes are, he be of the religion here established: and my advice is he be therein well settled, and that howsoever his imagination shall be carried in the voluble Sphere of divers men's discourses; yet his inmost thoughts like lines in a circle shall alwaies concenter in this immoveable point, not to alter his first faith: for that I knowe, that as all innovation is dangerous in a state; so is this change in the little commonwealth of a man. And it is to be feared, that he which is of one religion in his youth, and of another in his manhood, will in his age be of neither....
"I will instance in a Gentleman I knew abroade, of an overt and free nature Zealously forward in the religion hee carried from home, while he was in France, who had not bene twentie dayes in Italy, but he was as farre gone on the contrary Byas, and since his returne is turned againe. Now what should one say of such men but as the Philosopher saith of a friend, 'Amicus omnium, Amicus nullorum,' A professor of both, a believer in neither.[182]
"The next Caveat is, to beware how he heare anything repugnant to his religion: for as I have tyed his tongue; so must I stop his eares, least they be open to the smooth incantations of an insinuating seducer, or the suttle arguments of a sophisticall adversarie. To this effect I must precisely forbid him the fellowship or companie of one sort of people in generall: these are the Jesuites, underminders and inveiglers of greene wits, seducers of men in matter of faith, and subverters of men inmatters of State, making of both a bad christian, and worse subject. These men I would have my Travueller never heare, except in the Pulpit; for[183]being eloquent, they speake excellent language; and being wise, and therefore best knowing how to speake to best purpose, they seldome or never handle matter of controversie."
Our best authority in this period of travelling is Fynes Moryson, whosePrecepts for Travellers[184]are particularly full. Moryson is well known as one of the most experienced travellers of the late Elizabethan era. On a travelling Fellowship from Peterhouse College, Cambridge, in 1591-1595 he made a tour of Europe, when the Continent was bristling with dangers for Englishmen. Spain and the Inquisition infected Italy and the Low Countries; France was full of desperate marauding soldiers; Germany nourished robbers and free-booters in every forest. It was the particular delight of Fynes Moryson to run into all these dangers and then devise means of escaping them. He never swerved from seeingwhatever his curiosity prompted him to, no matter how forbidden and perilous was the venture. Disguised as a German he successfully viewed the inside of a Spanish fort;[185]in the character of a Frenchman he entered the jaws of the Jesuit College at Rome.[186]He made his way through German robbers by dressing as a poor Bohemian, without cloak or sword, with his hands in his hose, and his countenance servile.[187]His triumphs were due not so much to a dashing and magnificent bravery, as to a nice ingenuity. For instance, when he was plucked bare by the French soldiers of even his inner doublet, in which he had quilted his money, he was by no means left penniless, for he had concealed some gold crowns in a box of "stinking ointment" which the soldiers threw down in disgust.[188]
HisPrecepts for Travellersare characteristically canny. Never tell anyone you can swim, he advises, because in case of shipwreck "others trusting therein take hold of you, and make you perish with them."[189]Upon duels and resentment of injury in strange lands he throws cold common sense. "I advise young men to moderate their aptnesse to quarrell, lest they perish with it. We are not all like Amadis or Rinalldo,to incounter an hoste of men."[190]Very thoughtful is this paragraph on the night's lodging:
"In all Innes, but especially in suspected places, let him bolt or locke the doore of his chamber: let him take heed of his chamber fellows, and always have his Sword by his side, or by his bed-side; let him lay his purse under his pillow, but always foulded with his garters, or some thing hee first useth in the morning, lest hee forget to put it up before hee goe out of his chamber. And to the end he may leave nothing behind him in his Innes, let the visiting of his chamber, and gathering his things together, be the last thing he doth, before hee put his foote into the stirrup."[191]
The whole of the Precepts is marked by this extensive caution. Since, as Moryson truly remarks, travellers meet with more dangers than pleasures, it is better to travel alone than with a friend. "In places of danger, for difference of Religion or proclaimed warre, whosoever hath his Country-man or friend for his companion doth much increase his danger, as well for the confession of his companion, if they chance to be apprehended, as for other accidents, since he shall be accomptable and drawne into danger, as well as by his companion's words or deeds,as by his owne. And surely there happening many dangers and crosses by the way, many are of such intemperate affections, as they not only diminish the comfort they should have from this consort, but even as Dogs, hurt by a stone, bite him that is next, not him that cast the stone, so they may perhaps out of these crosses grow to bitterness of words betweene themselves."[192]Instead of a companion, therefore, let the traveller have a good book under his pillow, to beguile the irksome solitude of Inns--"alwaies bewaring that it treat not of the Commonwealth, the Religion thereof, or any Subject that may be dangerous to him."[193]Chance companions of the road should not be trusted. Lest the traveller should become too well known to them, let him always declare that he is going no further than the next city. Arrived there, he may give them the slip and start with fresh consorts.
Moryson himself, when forced to travel in company, chose Germans, kindly honest gentlemen, of his own religion. He could speak German well enough to pass as one of them, but in fear lest even a syllable might betray his nationality to the sharp spies at the city gates, he made an agreement with his companions that when he was forced to answer questions they shouldinterrupt him as soon as possible, and take the words out of his mouth, as though in rudeness. If he were discovered they were to say they knew him not, and flee away.[194]
Moryson advised the traveller to see Rome and Naples first, because those cities were the most dangerous. Men who stay in Padua some months, and afterwards try Rome, may be sure that the Jesuits and priests there are informed, not only of their coming, but of their condition and appearance by spies in Padua. It were advisable to change one's dwelling-place often, so to avoid the inquiries of priests. At Easter, in Rome, Moryson found the fullest scope for his genius. A few days before Easter a priest came to his lodgings and took the inmates' names in writing, to the end that they might receive the Sacrament with the host's family. Moryson went from Rome on the Tuesday before Easter, came to Siena on Good Friday, and upon Easter eve "(pretending great business)" darted to Florence for the day. On Monday morning he dodged to Pisa, and on the folowing, back to Siena. "Thus by often changing places I avoyded the Priests inquiring after mee, which is most dangerous about Easter time, when all men receive the Sacrament."[195]
The conception of travel one gathers from Fynes Moryson is that of a very exciting form of sport, a sort of chase across Europe, in which the tourist was the fox, doubling and turning and diving into cover, while his friends in England laid three to one on his death. So dangerous was travel at this time, that wagers on the return of venturous gentlemen became a fashionable form of gambling.[196]The custom emanated from Germany, Moryson explains, and was in England first used at Court and among "very Noble men." Moryson himself put out £100 to receive £300 on his return; but by 1595, when he contemplated a second journey, he would not repeat the wager, because ridiculous voyages were by that time undertaken for insurance money by bankrupts and by men of base conditions.
Sir Henry Wotton was a celebrated product of foreign education in these perilous times. As a student of political economy in 1592 he led aprecarious existence, visiting Rome with the greatest secrecy, and in elaborate disguise. For years abroad he drank in tales of subtlety and craft from old Italian courtiers, till he was well able to hold his own in intrigue. By nature imaginative and ingenious, plots and counterplots appealed to his artistic ability, and as English Ambassador to Venice, he was never tired of inventing them himself or attributing them to others. It was this characteristic of Jacobean politicians which Ben Jonson satirized in Sir Politick-Would-be, who divulged his knowledge of secret service to Peregrine in Venice. Greatly excited by the mention of a certain priest in England, Sir Politick explains:
"He has received weekly intelligenceUpon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,For all parts of the world, in cabbages;And these dispensed again to ambassadors,In oranges, musk-melons, apricocks--,Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like: sometimesIn Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles."[197]
Later on Sir Politick gives instructions for travellers:
"Some few particulars I have set down,Only for this meridian, fit to be knownOf your crude traveller....First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious,Very reserv'd and lock'd; not tell a secretOn any terms; not to your father: scarceA fable, but with caution: make sure choiceBoth of your company, and discourse; bewareYou never speak a truth--Peregrine.How!Sir P.Not to strangers,For those be they you must converse with most;Others I would not know, sir, but at distance,So as I still might be a saver in them:You shall have tricks eke passed upon you hourly.And then, for your religion, profess none,But wonder at the diversity of all."[198]