Lecture the Eighteenth.

JAMES HOWELL-THOMAS HERBERT-WILLIAM CAMDEN-JOHN SPEED-SIR HENRY SPELMAN-ROBERT COLTON-THOMAS MAY-JOHN HEYWARD-RICHARD KNOLLES -ARTHUR WILSON-RICHARD BAKER-THOMAS HOBBES-EDWARD HERBERT.

TRAV

RAVELLERS' narratives, and descriptions of voyages and other adventures, form so important a part of the literature of the period at present under consideration, that to them we devoted most of the last lecture. To this class of writers Howell and Herbert also, the next authors to be noticed, belong.

JAMES HOWELL, one of the most intelligent travellers and pleasing miscellaneous writers of the early part of the seventeenth century, was the son of the Reverend Thomas Howell, and was born at Abernaut, Carmarthenshire, in 1596. He commenced his education at the free school in Hereford, and after thorough preparation, passed thence to Jesus College, Oxford, where he remained until 1613, when he took his bachelor's degree. Howell's circumstances being now such as to require him to depend upon his own future exertions for success in life, he repaired to London in search of employment. He had not been in London long before Sir Robert Mansel obtained for him the appointment of steward to a patent-glass manufactory, in which capacity he went abroad in 1619, to procure materials, and engage new and skillful workmen. In the course of his travels, which lasted till 1621, he visited many commercial towns in Holland, Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy; and, being of an acute and inquiring mind, laid up a great store of useful observations on men and manners, besides acquiring so extensive a knowledge of modern languages that it was henceforth his boast, 'that he could offer each successive daily prayer during the week in a different language, and on Sunday, pray in seven.' His connection with the glass company ceased soon after his return to England, and he visited France again, in the following year, as travelling companion of a young nobleman. In the latter part of the year 1622, Howell was sent to Spain, as agent for the recovery of an English vessel which had been seized at Sardinia, on a

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charge of smuggling; but all hope of obtaining redress being destroyed by the breaking off of the proposed marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta, he, after two years' absence, returned to England. In 1623, while Howell was abroad on this mission, he was chosen fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, upon the new foundation of Sir Eubule Theloal; and in his letter of thanks to that gentleman, he remarks that he will reserve his fellowship, and lay it by as a good warm garment against rough weather, if any fall on him.' Howell's next appointment was that of secretary to lord Scrope, afterward earl of Sunderland, who had been made president of the north. This position brought him to York; and while he resided there, the corporation of Richmond, without any solicitation on his part, and against several competitors, chose him one of their representatives in the parliament of 1627. He next attached himself to the Earl of Leicester, and when that nobleman was sent, in 1632, as English ambassador to the court of Denmark, he accompanied him to Copenhagen as his secretary. After this, Howell's situation was, for some years, uncertain and embarrassed. At length, however, having meantime complimented Charles the First in two small poems, he obtained, in 1640, the clerkship of the council-an important appointment, but of brief continuance, as, three years afterwards, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, by order of a committee of parliament. Here he remained till after the king's death, supporting himself by translating some works, and composing others. At the Restoration he became historiographerroyal, being the first who ever enjoyed that title; and continued his literary avocations till his death, which occurred in the month of November, 1666.

This lively and sensible writer was the author of more than forty publica tions; none of which, however, are now generally read, excepting his Familiar Letters, first published in 1643, and considered to be the earliest specimen of epistolary literature in the language. The letters are dated from various places at home and abroad; and though some of them are supposed to have been compiled from memory while the author was in the Fleet prison, yet the greater number seem to bear sufficient internal evidence of having been written at the times and places indicated. His remarks upon the leading events and characters of that period, as well as the animating accounts given of what he saw in foreign countries, contribute to render the work one of permanent interest and value. Of these letters we present the following specimen :

TO CAPTAIN THOMAS B.

Noble Captain,-Yours of the 1st of March was delivered me by Sir Richard Scot, and I hold it no profanation of this Sunday evening, considering the quality of my subject, and having (I thank God for it) performed all church duties, to employ some hours to meditate on you, and send you this friendly salute, though I confess in an unusual monitory way. My dear Captain, I love you perfectly well; I love both your person and parts, which are not vulgar; I am in love with your disposition, which is generous, and I verily think that you were never guilty of any pusillanimous act in your life. Nor is this love of mine conferred upon you gratis, but you may

challenge it as your due, and by way of correspondence, in regard of those thousand convincing evidences you have given me of yours to me, which ascertain me that you take me for a true friend. Now, I am of the number of those that had rather commend the virtue of an enemy than soothe the vices of a friend; for your own particular, if your parts of virtue and your infirmities were cast into a balance, I know the first would much outpoise the other; yet give me leave to tell you that there is one frailty, or rather ill-favoured custom, that reigns in you, which weighs much; it is a humour of swearing in all your discourses, and they are not slight but deep far-fetched oaths that you are wont to rap out, which you use as flowers of rhetoric to enforce a faith upon the hearers, who believe you never the more; and you use this in cold blood when you are not provoked, which makes the humour far more dangerous. I know many (and I cannot say I myself am free from it, God forgive me), that, being transported with choler, and as it were, made drunk with passion by some sudden provoking accident, or extreme ill-fortune at play, will let fall oaths and deep protestations; but to belch out, and send forth, as it were, whole volleys of oaths and curses in a calm humour, to verify every trivial discourse, is a thing of horror. I knew a king that, being crossed in his game, would amongst his oaths fall on the ground, and bite the very earth in the rough of his passion; I heard of another king, (Henry IV. of France,) that in his highest distemper would swear but 'Ventre de Saint Gris,' ['By the belly of St. Gris ;'] I heard of an Italian, that, having been much accustomed to blaspheme, was weaned from it by a pretty wile, for, having been one night at play, and lost all his money, after many execrable oaths, and having offered money to another to go out to face heaven and defy God, he threw himself upon a bed hard by, and there fell asleep. The other gamesters played on still, and finding that he was fast asleep, they put out the candles, and made semblance to play on still; they fell a wrangling, and spoke so loud that he awaked; he hearing them play on still, fell a rubbing his eyes, and his conscience presently prompted him that he was struck blind, and that God's judgment had deservedly fallen down upon him for his blasphemies, and so he fell to sigh and weep pitifully; a ghostly father was sent for, who undertook to do some acts of penance for him, if he would make a vow never to play again or blaspheme, which he did; and so the candles were lighted again, which he thought were burning all the while; so he became a perfect convert. I could wish this letter might produce the same effect in you. There is a strong text, that the curse of heaven hangs always over the dwelling of the swearer, and you have more fearful examples of miraculous judgments in this particular, than of any other sin.

There is a little town in Languedoc, in France, that hath a multitude of the pictures of the Virgin Mary up and down; but she is made to carry Christ in her right arm, contrary to the ordinary custom, and the reason they told me was this, that two gamesters being at play, and one having lost all his money, and bolted out many blasphemies, he gave a deep oath, that that jade upon the wall, meaning the picture of the Blessed Virgin, was the cause of his ill luck; hereupon the child removed imperceptibly from the left arm to the right, and the man fell stark dumb ever after; thus went the tradition there. This makes me think upon the Lady Southwell's news from Utopia, that he who sweareth when he playeth at dice, may challenge his damnation by way of purchase. This infandous custom of swearing, I observe, reigns in England lately, more than anywhere else; though a German in his highest puff of passion swear a hundred thousand sacraments, the Italian, by * * *, the French by God's death, the Spaniard by his flesh, the Welshman by his sweat, the Irishman by his five wounds, though the Scot commonly bids the devil ha'e his soul, yet, for variety of oaths, the English roarers put down all. Consider well what a dangerous thing it is to tear in pieces that dreadful name, which makes the vast fabric of the world to tremble, that holy name wherein the whole hierarchy of heaven doth triumph, that blissful name, wherein consists the fullness of all felicity. I know

this custom in you yet is but a light disposition; 'tis no habit, I hope; let me, therefore, conjure you by that power of friendship, by that holy league of love which is between us, that you would suppress it, before it come to that; for I must tell you that those who could find it in their hearts to love you for many other things, do disrespect you for this; they hate your company, and give no credit to whatsoever you say, it being one of the punishments of a swearer, as well as of a liar, not to be believed when he speaks the truth.

Excuse me that I am so free with you; what I write proceeds from the clear current of a pure affection, and I shall heartily thank you, and take it for an argument of love, if you tell me of my weaknesses, which are (God wot) too, too many; for my body is but a Cargazon of corrupt humours, and being not able to overcome them all at once, I do endeavour to do it by degrees, like Sertorius his soldier, who, when he could not cut off the horse's tail at one blow with his sword, fell to pull out the hair one by one. And touching this particular humour from which I dissuade you, it hath raged in me too often by contingent fits, but I thank God for it, I find it much abated and purged. Now, the only physic I used was a precedent fast, and recourse to the holy sacrament the next day, of purpose to implore pardon for what had passed, and power for the future to quell those exorbitant motions, those ravings and feverish fits of the soul; in regard there are no infirmities more dangerous, for at the same instant they have being, they become impieties. And the greatest symptom of amendment I find in me is, because whensoever I hear the holy name of God blasphemed by any other, it makes my heart to tremble within my breast, now, it is a penitential rule, that if sins present do not please thee, sins past will not hurt thee. All other sins have for their object either pleasure or profit, or some aim or satisfaction to body or mind, but this hath none at all; therefore fie upon 't, my dear Captain; try whether you can make a conquest of yourself in subduing this execrable custom. Alexander subdued the world, Cæsar his enemies, Hercules monsters, but he that o'ercomes himself is the true valiant captain.

From another of Howell's works, entitled Instructions for Foreign Travel, published in 1642, and which, like his letters, contains many acute and humorous observations on men and things, we extract the following passage on the

TALES OF TRAVELLERS.

Others have a custom to be always relating strange things and wonders (of the humour of Sir John Mandeville), and they usually present them to the hearers through multiplying-glasses, and thereby cause the thing to appear far greater than it is in itself; they make mountains of mole-hills, like Charenton-Bridge-Echo, which doubles the sound nine times. Such a traveller was he that reported the Indian fly to be as big as a fox; China birds to be as big as some horses, and their mice to be as big as monkeys; but they have the wit to fetch this far enough off, because the hearer may rather believe it than make a voyage so far to disprove it.

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.'

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 hyperboles, 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 four-square for you.'

THOMAS HERBERT, the only other traveller of much celebrity of this period, was born at York about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and commenced his collegiate studies at Jesus College, Oxford; but before he took his degree he removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained, however, only for a comparatively short time. Immediately after he left the university, he applied to his kinsman, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, for aid to enable him to travel abroad to acquire those accomplishments of mind and manners which were then an indispensable part of a gentleman's education. The Earl, being much pleased with his young relative, sent him, in 1626, to the continent, and having hastened to the East, he there spent four years, chiefly in Asia and Africa; after which, returning to England, he waited on his patron at Baynard's castle in London, and communicated to him the result of his travels. From his reception by the Earl his expectations of preferment were of the liveliest kind; but the sudden death of his noble friend blasted all his hopes, and he again left England for the purpose of visiting those parts of Europe which, in his first tour, he had not seen.

On his second return Herbert published, in 1634, A Relation of some Years' Travels into Africa and the Greater Asia, especially the Territory of the Persian Monarchy, and some parts of the Oriental Indies and Isles Adjacent. These travels had a great reputation at the time at which they were published, and have since been considered the best that appeared in England previous to the close of the seventeenth century. In the civil wars Herbert sided with the parliament, and when the king was required to dismiss his own servants, was chosen, by his majesty, one of the grooms of the bed-chamber. He then became much attached to the king, served him with great zeal and assiduity, and was on the scaffold when that illfated monarch was brought to the block. After the Restoration, Herbert was rewarded by Charles the Second with a baronetcy, and subsequently devoted much of his time to literary pursuits. In 1678, he wrote Threnodia Carolina, containing an Historical Account of the Two Last Years of the Life of King Charles II., which was afterward reprinted in a collection of 'Memoirs' of the same period of that unfortunate monarch's life.

Sir Thomas Herbert died at York on the first of March, 1682. The following is a brief extract from his travels

DESCRIPTION OF ST. HELENA.

St. Helena was so denominated by Juan de Nova, the Portugal, in regard he first discovered it on that saint's day. It is doubtful whether it adhere to America or Afric, the vast ocean bellowing on both sides, and almost equally; yet I imagine