To Live In The Household Of A Learned Foreigner, As Robert Sidney Did
With Sturm, Or Henry Wotton With Hugo Blotz, Was Of Course Especially
Desirable.
For there were still, in the Elizabethans, remnants of that
ardent sociability among humanists which made Englishmen traverse dire
Distances of sea and land to talk with some scholar on the Rhine - that
fraternizing spirit which made Cranmer fill Lambeth Palace with Martin
Bucers; and Bishop Gardiner, meanwhile, complain from the Tower not only
of "want of books to relieve my mind, but want of good company - the only
solace in this world."[79] It was still as much of a treat to see a wise
man as it was when Ascham loitered in every city through which he
passed, to hear lectures, or argue about the proper pronunciation of
Greek; until he missed his dinner, or found that his party had ridden
out of town.[80] Advice to travellers is full of this enthusiasm. Essex
tells Rutland "your Lordship should rather go an hundred miles to speake
with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town." Stradling,
translating Lipsius, urges the Earl of Bedford to "shame not or disdaine
not to intrude yourself into their familiarity." "Talk with learned men,
we unconsciously imitate them, even as they that walke in the sun only
for their recreation, are colored therewith and sunburnt; or rather and
better as they that staying a while in the Apothecarie shop, til their
confections be made, carrie away the smell of the sweet spices even in
their garments."[81]
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