"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 in
matters 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, whose
Precepts 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 seeing
whatever 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]
His Precepts for Travellers are 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 should interrupt 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.
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