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enormous bell which served to embellish that ancient city. To another, to give an account of the high belfry at Strasburg; and to another, to give the history of the ancient tun at Heidelbergh. If he were not able to enliven his tale with the same vein of drollery which the facetious Peter Pindar did the visit of George III. (as the courtiers say, "of ever-blessed memory") to Whitbread's brew-house, it might, at any rate, be interesting enough to his dowager grandmother, who, after the hearty laugh, would the more readily be induced to unloosen her purse overflowing with her ample dowery, when the appeal was made to her for some little assistance, being necessary to settle some odd reckonings that were not proper to meet the severe scrutinizing eye of the perhaps needy or more cautious

noble sire.

The list of land travellers are not very numerous. As Dante says, a little stuff will furnish out their cloaks."

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But there was one in particular who seemed to consider "that travelling furnishes present pleasure; it delights the remembrance, and indirectly is a perpetual source of joy and animation. Everything which occurs beautiful, curious, picturesque, or sublime, incessantly recalls corresponding themes to the memory and the imagination. The advantages of travel are important and many. By comparison alone man may justly estimate the climate, the political and scientific rank of his country and its people."*

The inimitable Goethe says: "My study of the nature of mountains, and the stones they produced, has greatly assisted me in my examination of works of art. The little knowledge I have acquired relative to the productions of nature which man employs as materials for various objects, has proved very useful in enabling me to understand the labours both of mechanics and artists."t

Lord Byron observes: "Where I see the superiority of England, I am pleased; where I find her inferior, I am enlightened." In fact, "he who, like the hero of the Odyssey, has

'Discovered various cities, and the mind

And manners learned of men in lands remote,'

is the only person who can form a true judgment of the world." These, or similar ideas, were no doubt the heart-cheering and leg-inspiring motives of the author of "The Crudities." Thomas Coryate, born at Oldcombe, Somersetshire, in 1577, acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin at Oxford, but he knew no other language. Bacon says: "He who has not made some progress in the language of the country through which he + Tour in Italy. ‡ Independent Man.

* Ensor.

passes, goes to school, not to.travel." But the indefatigable Tom thought "the wise and good conquer difficulties by daring to attempt them; sloth and folly shiver and shrink at sights of toil and dangers, and make the impossibilities they fear."*

He was a great peripatetic. In 1608 he took a journey on foot, and published his travels under the curious title of “ Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months' travel in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhotia, Helvetia, some parts of Germany, and the Netherlands." London, 1611.

"He travell'd not for lucre sotted,

But went for knowledge, and he got it."

In 1612 he set out again, intending to spend ten years more; but he died drinking sack, at Surat, in the East Indies, 1617, of the flux.

"Peace to the memory of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too."

Purchas and Terry were his tent-mates. whetstone of the wits of his day;"

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Cowper.

"He was the

They called him "the leg stretcher" and the "furcifer," for it was through him that the fork became mate to the knife. Knives had been used many ages, but the wedding between it and the fork was now regularly solemnized; no one forbid the bans, and this stirring gentleman was the father on the occasion, without a possibility of a divorce. I must observe, that among the many presents which were continually flowing in to Queen Elizabeth, she had one presented to her by her lord keeper, Sir John Puckering, when on a visit to him at Kew, 1595; which had "a fair agate handle," but it was laid by in her cabinet of oddities. Tom, in his "Crudities," tells his readers: "I

* Lord Byron relates the following anecdote in his detached thoughts: "When Brummel was obliged (by that affair of poor M-, who thence acquired the name of Dick the dandy-killer, it was about money, and debt, and all that) to retire to France, he knew no French; and, having obtained a grammar for the purpose of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummel had made in French; he responded, that Brummel had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the elements."

In the wardrobe account of King Edward I. is mentioned "a pair of knives with sheathes of silver enamelled, and a fork of crystal." Before forks were introduced, I should think it was often needful to remind the younger part of a family of the following lines, from Ovid :

"Your meat genteelly with your fingers raise ;
And, as in eating there is a certain grace,
Beware with greasy hands, lest you besmear your

face."

observed a custom in all these Italian cities. The Italians, and almost all strangers that are cormorants, do always use a little fork when they eat their meat: for while with their knife, which they hold in one hand, they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten their fork, which they hold in their other hand; so that whatsoever he be that, sitting in the company of any other at meals, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meat with his fingers from which all at the table do eat, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good manners; insomuch that for his errors he shall be at least brow-beaten. They were of iron and steel, and some of them of silver, but those only used by gentlemen. Being once equipped for that frequent using of my fork by a certain learned gentleman, Mr. Laurence Whittaker, who, in his merry humour, doubted not to call me at table Furcifer, only for using a fork at table, but for no other cause.

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He also thus speaks of umbrellas :

"Also many of them do carry other things of a far greater price, which will cost at the least a ducat; they call it an umbrella-that is, a thing which minister shadow unto them, for shelter against the scorching heat of the sun. These are made of leather, something answering to the form of a little canopy, and hooped in the inside with divers little wooden hoops, that extend the umbrella in a pretty large compass. They are used especially by horsemen when they ride, by fastening the end of the handle upon one of their thighs and supporting it by the hand they impart so long a shadow unto them, that it keepeth the heat of the sun from the upper part of their bodies."

How slow do some useful things become in general use. The umbrella, although thus mentioned in 1611, was only used by a few females about the middle of last century: it was then called a parapleiu. The meek and amiable Jonas Hanway first used them in London a few years before his death, which happened in 1786. They were first used at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1781.

In the "Crudities" there is also mentioned another oddity which was in use-a champinny. He observed them "at Venice. They are made of wood, covered over with leather, which they wear under their shoes, and which raise the wearer as high as half a yard." They were in use in England; for Shakspeare,† in Hamlet, says:

*

According to Ritson, (Notes on Shakspeare's "Timon of Athens,") "it was usual to carry knives about the person. There was often a stone hanging behind the door to whet them on." In Elizabeth's regulation about apprentices, they were not to have any sharp instrument about them except a knife. t He calls them a choppine.

"By 'r lady, your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw
You last, by the altitude of a choppine."

If cruel, covetous, all-conquering death had not thus early snatched bustling Tom away, he would have visited China, to examine that queer people, who say

"Their backs have borne eight thousand years

The birch and the bamboo."

With one more extract from the learned Ensor, altering, or rather adding, one word, and I will finish this chapter on foreign travel.

"What principally renders the English Americans' most intelligent and liberal? They are the greatest travellers; the nature of their government effects much; but that curiosity and enterprise which sends them about in all directions, tends eminently to assure them that proud rank which they enjoy in the intellectual world. Would to God that their attention in distant nations was more directed to the substantial interests of knowledge! This is my wish; but it is my supplication that my countrymen conduct themselves abroad with marked decorum; and, according to their deportment, they not only are received well or ill, but they raise or depreciate the reputation of their country."

FEMALE EDUCATION.

"We are permitted no books but such as tend to the weakening and effeminating our minds. We are taught to place all our art in adorning our persons, while our minds are entirely neglected."

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE.

If ever there was a period in English history that may be said to be a test of the female character and its capabilities, it surely was the period prior to the reign of the Stuarts. For the previous two reigns the government was not a monarchy, but (as the present under Victoria) a gynarchy, which produced several excellent women; and so also did the period of the commonwealth, in which the bravery of the women equalled that of the men. If there are those who still doubt the powers of the female mind, perhaps it would be proper for them to consider whether their conduct is not dishonourable: they exclaim that women are impotent beings, yet they will scarcely admit them a tolerable education; and a literary woman is their

everlasting scorn. However, the perusal of any popular biography would undeceive them.

"Look back who list unto the former ages,

And call to count what is of them become;
Where be those learned wits and antique sages

Which of all whisdome knew the perfect somme?" SPENSER.

I will give a short account of a few, to stimulate farther inquiry.

The following is an account of Lady Fanshawe, who was the wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, treasurer of the navy under Prince Rupert, and translator of the works of Louis de Camoens. She accompanied him in his embassies, and compiled memoirs of her own life, which have as yet never been published, and which is to be regretted, as they contain many interesting anecdotes of the time, told with a cheerful simplicity. "In the spring of 1649 I accompanied my husband on a voyage from Galway to Malaga: we pursued our way with prosperous winds, but a most tempestuous master, a Dutchman, (which is enough to say,) but truly I think the greatest beast I ever saw of his kind. When we had just passed the straits we saw coming toward us a Turkish galley, well manned, and we believed we should be carried away for slaves; for our man had so ladened his ship with goods for Spain, that his guns were useless, although she carried sixty. He called for brandy, and, after he and his men, who were near 200, had well drunken, he called for arms, and cleared the deck as well as he could, resolving to fight rather than lose his ship, worth £30,000. This was sad for us passengers; but my husband bid us to be sure to keep in the cabin, and not appear, which would make the Turk think we were men-of-war; but that, if they saw women, they would board us. He went up on deck, taking with him a gun and a sword. This beast of a captain had locked me up in my cabin; I knocked, and called to no purpose, until the cabin-boy came and opened the door. I, all in tears, desired him to give me his thrum cap and tarred coat, which he did; I gave him half a crown, and, flinging away my night-clothes, put them on: I crept softly on deck, and stood by my husband's side, as free from sickness and fear as, I confess, I was from discretion; but it was the effect of that passionate love for him which I could never master. By this time the two vessels were engaged in close parley, and so well satisfied with each other's force, that the Turk's man-of-war tacked about, and we continued our course. But when your father saw it convenient to retreat, looking upon me, he blessed himself, and snatched me up in his arms, saying, "Good God! that love can make this change!' and, though he

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