'Well,' said the Doctor, after his brief inspection, you ought to be in your bed; that's all I can say. You are perfectly mad to think of knocking about like this. Your pulse is at a hundred. and ten; and, if you go across the lake and walk about Cloostedd, you'll be raving before you come back.' Sir Bale told him, apologetically, as if his life were more to his doctor than to himself, that he would take care not to fatigue himself, and that the air would do him good, and that in any case he could not avoid going; and so they parted. Sir Bale took his seat beside Feltram in the boat, the sail was spread, and, bending to the light breeze that blew from Golden Friars, she glided from the jetty under Mardykes Hall, and the eventful voyage had begun. MEDIEVAL ART OF TRAVEL BRIEFLY stated, the medieval art of travel was to stay at home, or, if you were obliged to travel, to get home again as fast as possible. To put this fact, however, in so bald a way would not only convey little amusement or instruction to the readers of BELGRAVIA, but would convey it in so short a paper, as to be hardly worth the trouble of reading it. Let me try to show what they thought themselves, the travellers of the Middle Ages, of travelling either for pleasure or for business. They used to stay at home if they could. We get abroad when we can. The centuries have changed us. Men used to love the town and hate the country. They now hate the town-at certain seasons, mark you-and love the country. Town used to mean safety. Now, when it does not mean society, it means work. Country used to mean robbers and discomfort. Now, when it does not mean canvassing, courtship, or visites de cérémonie, it means holiday, idlesse, or sport. The external world, which now means a change from the monotony of daily life, meant then the country of enemies and cutthroats; and no one brought news of it to the quiet towns but pilgrims, crusaders, and wandering merchants. The roads. were tracks, and the track sometimes got lost on the moor or the mountain. The pack-horse carried the baggage, and the sumptermule the provisions. Presently things got improved, men began to go about again, and in fulness of time even the grand tour was instituted. This used to consist of a series of cities united by a dreary journey in a stifling coach, along roads where you might possibly meet brigands, and mountains where you would be certain to meet some kind of breakdowns. The inns were sure to be wretched, and the prices certain to be exorbitant. Whence comes the taste for the picturesque ? How have we become awakened to the possession of a sense which our forefathers knew nothing of? Yet the ancients had glimmerings of it. Virgil notes how the shadows of the mountains lie lengthening across the plains; it is not alone for coolness that he lies in the shadow of the rock; and his love for the 'Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba' is too deep for us to believe that he was wholly indifferent to the charms of Nature. Nor is Virgil the only one. The medieval poets have lost this sense. There is no trace of it whatever. They love the return of summer and the flight of winter. Spring comes; then the birds sing, the flowers open their blossoms, the trees put on their new leaves. It is the season of love, and hope, and gladness. All poets sing then; not because they want to go roaming over the mountains and through the forests like Jubal-who Even as he travelled he would climb The farthest mountain but because they like to stroll in the garden of Love, with Joy, and Sweet Thought, and Sweet Looks, the dear companions of Love their king. Again, the chief happiness of Horace was in rest and sleep in a flowery shade, even in a cavern, garnished with freshlygathered roses, with which to crown Lalage or decorate the tangles of Neæra's hair. Guillaume de Lorris, on the other hand, cares nothing about caverns, which may possibly harbour wolves or robbers, and delights to stroll up and down a garden well walled and shut in-if fortified, so much the better-bright with roses, soft turf, and blossoming fruit-trees. Here he will indite and sing ballads to his mistress, and, while the summer lasts, bask in the sunshine of her smiles. When winter comes, he will dream of the past, and hope for another spring. The seasons of the year are to him typical of the seasons of love; and the seasons and progress of love he allegorises, when he is in a serious mood, into the spiritual progress of the Christian. It seems as if a certain sense of security is necessary for the development of this sense of the picturesque. When men began to go abroad without fear of wild-beasts, robbers, and enemies-when they could journey singly, instead of in bands-when civilisation, such as that which Horace enjoyed, made the neighbourhood of cities safe-then the feeling would naturally awaken, and the glories of Nature be once more sung. But to the poet of the Middle Ages the mountains were dreadful, painful, horrible. They symbolised the wild regions outside the pale of Christendom, naturally the howling abode of all the devils, where those not occupied in predatory incursions into the enemy's country prowled about hungry to devour; their iceclad sides made the traveller tremble with affright; their dark pine-forests made him look out for uncouth monsters-behind every tree a bear, in every cavern a wolf, and a viper under every heap of leaves; the narrow paths and steep precipices awakened in the pilgrims emotions very much the opposite of those which are supposed to rise in the modern breast; fear, fatigue, and discomfort were the three concomitants of a journey over the mountains. Hear what one of them says-he sings it in a ballad of his journey out of Lombardy to what he calls Hungary; we may suppose that he passed through the Tyrol. The lines are more forcible than poetical: 'Of Paradise I cannot sing or say, Because I ne'er was there: but come with me That leads to Hell. 'Tis out of Lombardy, To Hungary. There, all the long year round, The roadway spans a foot on either hand- One must the other hurl from off the ground; Verdure is none: no boar, nor stag, nor doe- O'er all his subject devils is enthroned; And there a hell on this fair world is found.' I submit the foregoing not as a poem of merit, but as a tolerably graphic account of the frame of mind in which a traveller crossed the Alps, and of the memories which his journey left upon him. worse. As for seafaring-going down in great ships-this was still 'Have you ever,' asks a speaker in one of Erasmus's colloquies have you ever seen the Alps?' 'I have,' returns the other. 'Well,' says the first interlocutor-mindful, perhaps, of that great exaggerator, Virgil, 'Hi summo in fluctu pendent, his unda dehiscens 'well, those mountains are like warts, if you compare them with the waves of the sea. For when you are on the top of a wave, you may touch the moon with your finger; and when you are at the bottom, you think you are going straight to Tartarus.' Obviously we are living in a degenerate age, and can show few storms to compare with those of our ancestors. Robbers, storms, and wild-beasts are of course the staple discomforts in medieval travelling; but to these was added the general discomfort of the inns. Thus there is a well-known contrast between German and French inns in Erasmus. Speaking of an inn at Lyons, Gulielmus says: What a jolly place it was! It must be the identical spot where the Sirens lived, whence Ulysses could not drag his companions; for at table there was always some pretty woman present, brightening us up with jokes and fun. First came the mother, bidding us welcome; then her daughter, polite and accomplished, who might have cheered even Cato himself. And they do not talk with you like a stranger, but like an old friend. Then, because they cannot be always with you, having to look after other guests, there is another girl ready for every kind of joke, and able to hold her own against all comers till the daughter comes back. Everywhere girls and women to wait on you, wash and brush your clothes, and bring them back to you clean and neat. Everywhere but in the stable, perhaps. And sometimes even they are found there.' His friend, who rejoices in the name of Butulphus, says that he admires the German inns more. Their customs, he maintains, with a delicious irony, are more masculine. In a German inn no one would ever dream of saluting a traveller. This would be a courtesy unworthy of the severity of Germany-tristis cultu aspectuque, as Tacitus hath it. You get under the windows of the inn and bawl for some one to come. When you are quite hoarse, a surly head is poked out. You ask the head if there is any room. Probably he does not give you any answer. That means that there is room; and you go round to the stables, which he indicates to you by a gesture. Finding out these, you proceed to rub down your horse with your own hands, for none of the servants will stir hand or foot for you. After looking to the welfare of your beast, you make the best of your way to the common room, where the stove is, with boots, baggage, saddle and all. Here, if you like, you may take off your wet clothes and hang them up to dry. There is water to wash in, it is true; but, after using it, it is necessary to call for more water to wash off the stains of the last. When all the guests have arrived, and not before, supper is served. all the answer you get is: Go to another inn. come in, an old servant proceeds to heap upon the is hot or cold, as many logs as there are guests. Presently supper is served. Everybody pays alike, whether he drinks much or little. And if any one is tired and wants to go to bed, he is told to wait till all the rest want to go too.' If you complain, When all have stove, whether it The whole scene has been taken almost word for word and most admirably utilised by Mr. Charles Reade in his novel, The Cloister and the Hearth. For when a man writes of the times of Erasmus, he must use the writings of Erasmus. Few men moved abroad who could stay at home. No one walked who could find a horse to carry him; and no one went alone who could get a companion to go with him. To get from town to château and from chateau to town was as much as any one cared to do; and even in the château life was not tolerable, unless enlivened by plenty of company, bright weather, and summer. Eustache Deschamps, who is glib enough in his praises of those châteaux where he gets good company and lots of singing and dancing, complains bitterly of the loneliness and dulness of his own. " Early in the morning,' he says, 'before daybreak, the crows begin asking each other when the sun is going to |