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"till the Author of the Crudities shall have finished his second travels, who was likely to produce a booke of farre greater bulk."

As the reader may perhaps desire to see a specimen of these burlesque verses, which are written in various languages, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Latin, Welsh, &c., we give one "In the Vtopian Tongue," by Henry Peacham, and in English by James Field:

Nythalonin ythsi Coryate lackmah babowans

Oasiam Europam Americ-werowans
Poph-himgi Sauoya, Hessen, Rhetia, Ragousie
France, Germanien doue Anda-louzie

Not A-rag-on O Coryate, O hone vilascar
Einen tronk Od-combe ny Venice Berga-mascar.

Incipit Jacobus Field.

Explicit Henricus Peacham.

Of all the Toms that euer yet were nam'd
Was neuer Tom like as Tom Coryate fam❜d.
Tom Thumbe is dumbe, vntill the pudding creepe,
In which he was intomb'd then out doth peepe,

Tom Piper is gone out, and mirth bewailes

He neuer wil come in to tell vs tales;

Tom foole may goe to schoole, but nere be taught

Speake Greeke with which our Tom his tongue is fraught:
Tom-Asse may passe, but for al his long eares
No such rich iewels as our Tom he weares.
Tom Tell-Troth is but froth, but truth to tel

Of al Toms this Tom beares away the bel.

Explicit Iacobus Field.

The work is scarce. Mr. Heber had two copies, Bibl, Heber, pt. iv. No. 518 and 519, 198. and 17. 38.; Perry, pt. i. No. 1026, 27. 28.; Freeling, No. 639, 21. 48.; Sir M. M. Sykes, pt. i. No. 735, 27. 168.; White Knights, No. 1150, 27. 188.; Bright, No. 1473, 3l. 3s.; Bibl. Ang. Poet., No. 114, 71. 78.

:

Collation Title A 2; A to F 4, in fours; Sig. A 1 probably blank.
Oldys's copy. Half-bound in Calf.

CORYAT, (THOMAS.) Coryat's Crambe, or his Colwort twise Sodden, and now serued in with other Macaronicke dishes, as the second course to his Crudities.

London, Printed by William Stansby. 1611. 4to.

The title is on an oval within an elaborate woodcut compartment, with figures at the sides, a deer's head surmounted by a crescent at the top, and Diana at the fountain at the bottom. The first part of the volume contains "Certaine Verses written vpon Coryats Crvdities, which should haue beene Printed with the other Panegyricke lines, but then were vpon some occasions omitted, and now communicated to the World." These are by Ben Jonson, "Iohannes à Grandi-Bosco," "N. T.," Laurence Whitaker, Antony Washborne, William Rich and others. And then comes "A Petition made to the Prince (Henry) shortly after the Death of the last Archbishop of Canterburie, concerning the Printing of the Booke of his Travels," for which he had some difficulty in obtaining a licence. The rest of the volume is in prose, and is taken up with "Certaine Orations pronounced by the Author of the Crvdities, to the King, Queene, Prince, Lady Elizabeth, and the Duke of Yorke, at the deliuerie of his Booke to each of them." These are of a most extraordinary nature, some of them delivered on the Sunday, full of the greatest bombast and conceit, and the most ridiculous and incongruous images; as witness the subjoined opening of the one addressed to Prince Henry, in the Privy Chamber at St. James's, upon Easter Monday:

Most scintillant Phosphorous of our British Trinacria, Euen as the Chrystalline deaw, that is exhaled vp into the ayre out of the cauernes and spungie pores of the succulent Earth, doeth by his distillation descend, and disperse itselfe againe vpon the spacious superficies of his mother Earth, and so consequently fecundate the same with his bountifull irrigation: So I, a poore vapour composed of drops, partly naturall, partly literall, partly experimentall, having had my generation within the liquid Wals of this farre-decantated Iland, being drawen vp by the strength of my hungrie and high reaching desire of Trauell, and as it were craned vp with the whirling wheele of my longing appetite to survey exoticke Regions, haue beene hoysed to the altitude of the remote climates of France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, Alemannie, and the Netherlands; and being there in a maner inuolued for a time in the sweatie and humid clouds of industrie capitall, digitall, and pedestriall, did distend the bottle of my braine with the most delectable liquor of Observation, which I now vent and showre downe vpon the yong and tender Plants sprouting out of the same earth from the which like a poore Mushrome I first ascended, &c.

In like manner King James is called "the refulgent Carbuncle of Christendome," and the Duke of York "most glittering Chrysolite of our English Diademe," and to the former he offers

A farre-growne but a home spunne present, made indeede of coarse Wooll, but plucked from the backes of the glorious Palaces, the loftie cloud-threatuing towers and decrepit mountaines of France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Heluetia, Alemannie, and

the Netherlands; spunne into a threed by the wheele of my braine, the spindle of my Perine, and the Oyle of my industrie in my natiue Cell of Odcombe in the County of Somerset, and now wouen into a piece of rawe cloth in the Printers Presse of the most famigerated Citie of London. The lists of this Cloth are the Verses at both the ends of my Booke. In the beginning whereof some of the most singular and selected wits of your Maiesties triangular Monarchie doe combate in the listes of Helicon and Parnassus; and in the end my Fathers Ghost alone doeth diuerberate the enthusiasticke ayre of Pierian poesie.

In his oration to the Duke of York on the Sunday, at St. James's, he says:

Loe, I here present vnto your Grace the fruites of my furious Trauels; which I therefore intitle with such an epithete, because I performed my iourney with great celeritie, compassed and atchieued my designes with a kind of fortune not much unlike that of Cæsar, Veni, Vidi, Vici. I came to Venice, and quickly tooke a suruey of the whole modell of the Citie together with the most remarkable matters thereof; and shortly after my arriuall in England, I ouercame my adversaries of the Towne of Euill in my natiue Countrey of Somerset, who thought to haue suncke mee in a bargaine of Pilchards, as the wise men of Gotham once went about to drowne an Eele.

After these orations comes Coryat's "Answere to the most Scandalous, Contumelious, and Hybristicall Bill of Ioseph Starre of Euill in the Countie of Somerset, Linen Draper," who had exhibited a bill in Chancery against him on his arrival in England against a debt of a hundred marks due from Starre to Coryat on his bond. In this answer Coryat appears more annoyed at the abuse and vilification of his travels than at the loss of his money. He says:

Well may I apply to Starre Ciceroes speech against Marcus Antonius, Miror eum quorum facta imitetur, illorum exitus non perhorrescere. I maruaille that Starre is not afraid lest hee should make such an end, that is, die such a death as they do whose example in lying he imitateth. He coaceruateth and conglomerateth a meere farrago of lyes. Also hee traduceth me about the smalnesse and commonnesse of my Voyage, as hauing beene out of England but fiue moneths. Can he iustly call this a smal and common Voyage, to passe almost two thousand miles by land? to expose ones body to such a world of iminent dangers both by Sea and Land as I did? to passe those stupendious mountaines of the snowie Alpes? to dispatch my iourney with such a compendious celeritie? to performe it with such a dispendious disaduantage to my estate? and after the consumation of my trauels to be thus opposed by a Vilipendious Linnen Draper? to walke aboue the clouds ouer hils that are at least seuen miles high? For indeede so high is the mountaine Senys I passed ouer, which disterminateth Sauoy and Piemont: the danger whereof is such, that if in some places the traueller should but trip aside in certaine narrow wayes that are scarce a yard broad, he is precipitated into a very Stygian Barathrum or Tartarean

lake sixe times deeper then Pauls tower is high. Continually to stand in feare of the Alpine cutthroates called Bandits? Being entred into Italy, to passe throgh that carnificina, that excruciating and excarnificating torture of the Spanish Inquisition, which is more cruel then Phalaris his brasen Bull, or the exquisitest torturs that the Sicilian tyrants were wont to inflict vpon offenders? These dangers and many more I was exposed vnto, and like to be circumcised in Venice amongst the Lewes for maintaining the cause of my Sauiour and Redeemer against their refractorie obstinacie, as that Honourable and completely accomplished Knight Sir Henry Wotton our Kings Leager Ambassadour in Venice, that was an eye witnes of the conflict betwixt them and me, can testifie. At last being as desirous to see my natiue countrey as Vysses after his ten yeares trauels was to see his ITHACA, which is so deare vnto me, that I preferre the very smoake of England before the fire of Italy, I walked alone afoote with one onely paire of shooes through many fierce and warlike nations betwixt Venice and Flushing in Zealand, hauing my throate like to be cut neere the Citie of Worms in Germanie, and my body to bee turned into wormes meate onely for plucking a poore cluster of Grapes in a Vineyard. These perils beeing considered, I hope your Lordship wil say I haue as hardly gotten my money as poore laborious Brickmakers eight pence a day for making Brick.

The remainder of the volume is occupied with two more orations, spoken to the "Euillians," or inhabitants of the town of Evill, three miles distant from Odcombe, his native place, on their mutual visits to each other, chiefly on the solemnities used in ancient times, on Church-ales and other such subjects. And the book closes with an address "To the 'Reader" respecting his former publication, “a Booke lately printed in huggermugger intituled The Odcombian banquet:" in order to clear himself of two very scandalous imputations, the first relating to the motto in the first leaf in the booke, Asinus portans mysteria; the other at the ende in his Noverint universi, &c. He says:

It hapned that after I had presented my Booke at Royston to the King, and returned backe to London for Bookes to present to Noblemen of the Court, I did determine for conceite sake, and to minister occasion of merriment to the King, to get me an Asse to carrie my Bookes, with this Latin inscription in faire Capitall Romane Letters upon that which should haue contained them, Asinus portans mysteria; being indeede taken out of Alciats Emblemes, and spoken of an Asse that caried the Image of the goddesse Isis. But heere the diuulger of the said Odcombian Banquet most sinisterly and malignantly applied it (as all the Readers doe interprete it) to my selfe, and thereby very peruersly wrested it from that allusion which I intended.

As for the second imputation contained in his Noverint vniversi:

It farre exceeded the first in spiteful bitternesse. For whereas he writeth that hee 3 R

VOL. II. PART. II.

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could not melt out of the whole lumpe of my Booke so much matter worthy the reading as would fill foure pages, I will boldly affirme for the better iustification of my Obseruations, and by way of opposition against the malicious censure of that hypercriticall Momus, that of the sixe hundred fiftie and foure pages (for indeede so many are in the booke) he shall find at the least fiue hundred worthy the reading, especially in my descriptions of these Cities, Paris, Lyons, Milan, Padua, Venice, Verona, Brixia, Bergomo, Zurich, both the Badens, Basil, Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Spira, Wormes, Mentz, Franckefort, Colen, &c.

He challenges any one in the "whole Kingdome of Great Brittaine to shew both larger Annotations for quantitie and better for qualitie (absit dicto inuidia) gathered in fiue moneths Trauels by any Englishman since the incarnation of Christ," and concludes by observing that "my unparalled friend, that voluble linguist and sound Scholler M. Laurence Whitaker, who (I thinke) doth as farre excell in learning my antagonist the Author of the Noverint vniuersi, as a rose doth a nettle, or a Pearle a Pebble-stone in price, hath vouchsafed to confirme the authoritie of my booke with his no lesse learned then elegant Elogie that preceedeth my owne Observations."

Nothing can shew the vainglorious and conceited character of Coryat more forcibly than the contents of this book, and its ludicrous laudation of himself and his travels. It is exceedingly rare, and sold in Sir M. M. Sykes's sale, part i. No. 734, for 17. 158.; Inglis's, No. 381, 27. 10s.; White Knights, No. 1151, 5. 108.; Bright's, No. 1472, 6l.; Bibl. Ang. Poet., No. 115, 10/. 10s.

Collation: Sig. a. and b. four leaves each; then A to C four leaves; D eight leaves; E and F, in fours; G and H three leaves each. The Heber and Freeling copy. In Red Morocco..

COTTON, (ROGER.) A Direction to the waters of lyfe. Come and beholde, how Christ shineth before the Law, in the Law, and in the Prophetes: and withall the iudgements of God upon all Nations for the neglect of his holy worde, wherein they myght haue scene the same: Both which are layd before your eyes in this little discourse, by Roger Cotton Draper.

Imprinted at London, for Gabriell Simson and William White, and are to be solde at their house in Fleete lane. 1590. 4to, blk. lett., pp. 108.

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