the first bâ—gins at Five a Clock in the mâ—rning For at Geneva and all Switzerland over there are daily Sermons which were substituted upâ—n the Reformation to the Mass But the Sermons are generally too long and the Preachers have departed from the fiâ—st dâ—sign of these Sermons which were intended to be an explication of a whole Chapter and an exhortation upon it and if this were so contrived that it were in all not above a quarter of an hour long as it would be heard by the people with less Weariness and more Profit so it would be a vast advantage to the Preachers For as it would oblige them to study the Scriptures much so having once made themselves Masters of the practical parts of the Scripture such short and simple discourses would cost them less pains than those more labâ—ured Sermons do which consume the greatest part of their time and too often to very little purpose Among the Archives of the Dean and Chapter there is a vast collection of Letters written either to Bullinger or by him they are bound up and make a great many Volumes in Folio and out of these no doubt but one might discover a great many particulars relating to the History of the Reformâ—tion For as Bullinger lived long so he was much esteemed He procured a very kind reception to be given to some of our English Exiles in Queen Maries Reign in particular to Sands afterwards Arch-bishop of York to Horn afterwards Bishop of Winchester and to Jewel Bishop of Salisbuâ—y He gave them Lodgings in the Close and used them with all possible kindness and as they presented some Silver Cups to the Colledge with an Inscription acknowledging the kind reception they had found there which I savv so they continued to keep a constant Correspondence with Bullinger after the happy re-establishment of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth Of which I read almost a whole Volume while I was there Most of them contain only the general News but some were more importanâ— and relate to the Disputes then on foot concerning the Habits of the Clergy which gave the first beginnings to our unhappy divisions and by the Letters of which I read the Originals it appears that the Bishops preserved the ancient Habits rather in compliance with the Queens inclinations then out of any liking they had to them so far they were from liking them that they plainly exprest their dislike of them Jewel in a Letter bearing date the Eighth of Februury 1566. wishes that the Vestments together with all the other remnants of Popery might be thrown both out of their Churches and out of the minds of the Peoâ—le and laments the Queens fixedness to them so that she would suffer no change to be made And in January the same year Sands writes to the same purpose Contenditur de vestibus Papisticis utendis vel non utendis dabit Deus his quoque finem Disputes are now on foot concerning the Popish Vestments whether thâ—y should be used or not but God will put an end to those things Horn Bishop of Winchester went farther for in a Letter dated the Sixteenth of July 1565. he writes of the Act concerning tha Habits with great regret and expresses some hopes that it might be repealed next Session of Parliament if the Popish Party did not hinder it and he seems to stand in doubt whether he should conform himself to it or not upon which he desires Bullinger's Advice And in many Letters writ on that Subject it is asserted That both Cranmer and Ridley intended to procure an Act for abolishing the Habits and that they only defended their Lawfulness but not their Fitness and therefore they blamed private Persons that refused to obey the Laws Grindal in a Letter dated the Twenty seventh of August 1566. writes That all the Bishops who had been beyond Sea had at their Return dealt with the Queen to let the matter of the Habits fall but she was so prepossessed that tho' they had all endeavoured to divert her from prosecuting that matter she continued still inflexible This had made them resolve to submit to the Laws and to wait for a fit opportunity to reverse them He laments the ill effects of the opposition that some had made to them which extreamly irritated the Queens Spirit so than she was now much more heated in those matters than formerly He also thanks Bullinger for the Letter that he had writ justifying the lawful use of the Habits which he says had done great Service Cox Bishop of Ely in one of his Letters laments the Aversion that they found in the Parliament to all the Propositions that were made for the reformation of Abuses Jewel in a Letter dated the Two and Twentieth of May 1559 writes That the Queen refused to be called Head of the Church and adds That that Title could not be justly given to any Mortal it being due only to Christ and that such Titles had been so much abused by Antichrist that they ought not to be any longer continued On all these Passages I will make no Reflections here for I set them down only to shew what was the sense of our chief Church-men at that time concerning those matters which have since engaged us into such warm and angry Disputes and this may be no inconsiderable Instruction to one that intends to write the History of that time The last particular with which I intend to end this Letter might seem a little too learned if I were writing to a less knowing Man than your self I have taken some pains in my Travels to examine all the Ancient Manuscripts of the New Testament concerning that doubted Passage of St. John's Epistle There are three that bear Witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one Bullinger doubted much of it because he found it not in an ancient Latin Manuscript at Zurich which seems to be about eight hundred years old for it is written in that hand that began to be used in harles the Great 's time I turned the Manuscript and found the Passage was not there but this was certainly the error or omission of the Copier for before the General Epistles in that Manuscript the Preface of St Jerom's is to be found in which he says that he was the more exact in that Tâ—anslation that so he might discover the Fraud of the Arrians who had struck out that Passage concerning the Trinity This Preface is printed in Lira's Bible but how it came to be left out by Erasmus in his Edition of that Father's Works is that of which I can give no Account for as on the one hand Erasmus's Sincerity ought not to be too rashly censured so on the other hand that Preface being in all the Manuscripts ancient or modern of those Bibles that have the other Prefaces in them that I ever yet saw it is not easie to imagine what made Erasmus not to publish it and it is in the
slightly fortified to hold out against so powerful a Prince and so great an Army that brought Cannon before it I met with nothing remarkable between this and Basile except that I staid sometime at Bern and knew it better and at this second time it was that my Lord Advoyer d'Erlach gave order to shew me the Original Records of the famous Process of the four Dominicans upon which I have retoucht the Letter that I writ to you last year so that I now send it to you with the corrections and enlargements that this second stay at Bern gave me occasion to make Basile is the Town of the greatest extent of all Switzerland but it is not inhabited in proportion to its extent The Rhine maketh a crook before it and the Town is situated on a rising ground which hath a noble effect on the eye when one is on the Bridge for it looketh like a Theater Little Basile on the other side of the Rhine is almost a fourth part of the whole The Town is surrounded with a Wall and Ditch but it is so exposed on so many sides and hath now so dreadful a Neighbour within a quarter of a League of it the Fort of Huningh that it hath nothing to trust to humanly speaking but its Union with the other Cantons The maxims of this Canton have hindred its being better peopled than it is the advantages of the Burgership are such that the Citizens will not share them with strangers and by this means they do not admit them For I was told that during the last War that Alsatia was so often the seat of both Armies Basile having then a neutrality it might have been well filled if it had not been for this maxim And it were a great happiness to all the Cantons if they could have different degrees of Burgership so that the lower degrees might be given to strangers for their encouragement to come and live among them and the higher degrees which qualifie men for the advantagious Employments of the State might be reserved for the ancient Families of the Natives Basile is divided into sixteen Companies and every one of these hath four Members in the little Council so that it consisteth of sixty four But of those four two are chosen by the Company it self who are called the Masters and the other two are chosen by the Councel out of the Company and thus as there are two sorts of Councellers chosen in those different manners there are also two chief Magistrates There are two Burghermasters that Reign by turns and two Zunst-Masters that have also their turns and all is for life And the last are the heads of the Companies like the Roman Tribunes of the people The Fabrick of the Stadt-House is ancient there is very good Painting in fresco upon the Walls one Piece hath given much offence to the Papists though they have no reason to blame the Reformation for it since it was done several years before it in the year 1510. It is a representation of the Day of Judgement and after Sentence given the Devil is represented driving many before him to Hell and among these there is several Ecclesiasticks But it is believed that the Councel which sate so long in this place acting so vigorously against the Pope ingaged the Town into such a hatred of the Papacy that this might give the rise to this representation The more learned in the Town ascribe the beginning of the Custom in Basile of the Clocks anticipating the time a full Hour to the sitting of the Councel and they say that in order to the advancing of business and the shortning their Sessions they ordered their Clocks to be set forward an Hour which continueth to this day The Cathedral is a great old Gothick building the Chamber where the Councel sate is of no great reception and is a very ordinary Room Erasmus's Tomb is only a plain Inscription upon a great brass plate There are many of Holbens's Pictures who was a Native of Basile and was recommended by Erasmus to King Henry the VIII the two best are a Corpo or Christ dead which is certainly one of the best in the World There is another Piece of his in the Stadt-House for this is in the publick Library of about three or four foot square in which in six several Cantons the several parts of our Saviours Passion are represented with a life and beauty that cannot be enough admired it is valued at ten thousand Crowns it is in Wood but hath that freshness of Colour on it that seems peculiar to Holbens's Pencil There is also a Dance that he painted on the Walls of an House where he used to drink that is so worn out that very little is now to be seen except shapes and postures but these shew the exquisiteness of the hand There is another longer Dance that runneth all along the side of the Convent of the Augustinians which is now the French Church which is Deaths Dance there are above threescore figures in it at full length of Persons of all ranks from Popes Emperors and Kings down to the meanest sorts of People and of all Ages and Professions to whom Death appeareth in an insolent and surprizing posture and the several passions that they express are so well set out that this was certainly a great design But the fresco being exposed to the Air this was so worn out some time ago that they ordered the best Painter they had to lay new Colour on it but this is so ill done that one had rather see the dead shadows of Holbens's Pencil than this course work There is in Basile a Gun-Smith that maketh Wind-Guns and he shewed me one that as it received at once Air for ten shot so it had this particular to it which he pretends is his own Invention that he can discharge all the Air that can be parcelled out in ten shot at once to give a home blow I confess those are terrible instruments and it seems the interest of Mankind to forbid them quite since they can be imployed to assassinate persons so dextrously that neither noise nor sire will discover from what hand the shot cometh The Library of Basile is by much the best in all Switzerland there is a fine collection of Medals in it and a very handsome Library of Manuscripts the Room is Noble and disposed in a very good method Their Manuscripts are chiefly the Latine Fathers or Latine Translations of the Greek Fathers some good Bibles they have the Gospels in Greek Capitals but they are vitiously writ in many places There is an infinite number of the Writers of the darker Ages and there are Legends and Sermons without number All the Books that were in the seueral Monasteries at the time of the Reformation were carefully preserved and they believe that the Bishops who sate here in the Council brought with them a great many Manuscripts which they never carried away Among their Manuscripts I saw
is said to be the figure of the Body and Blood of Christ here is the language of the whole Church of that time and in the most important part of the divine Office which signifieth more to me than a Thousand Quotations out of particular Writers which are but their private opinions But this is the voice of the whole body in its addresses to God And it seems the Church of Rome when the new Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was received saw that this Prayer of Consecration could not consist with it which made her change such a main part of the Office This gave me a curiosity every where to search for ancient Offices but I sound none in the Abbey of St. Germains that seemed older than the times of Charles the Great so I found none of any great Antiquity in all Italy Those published by Cardinal Bona and since by P. Mabillon that were brought from Heidelberg are the most ancient that are in the Vatican but these seem not to be above Eight hundred Years old There are none of the ancient Roman Offices now to be seen in the Vatican I was amazed to find none of any great Antiquity which made me conclude that either they were destroyed that so the difference between Ancient and Modern Rituals might not be turned against that Church as an undeniable Evidence to prove the Changes that she hath made in divine matters or that they were so well kept that Hereticks were not to be suffered to look into them But to return to the Ambrosian Library there is in it a Manuscript of great Antiquity though not of such great consequence which is Ruffinus's Translation of Josephus that is written in the old Roman hand which is very hard to read But there is a deed in the curious Collection that Count Mascardo hath made at Verona which by the date appears to have been written in Theodosius's time which is the same sort of writing with the Manuscript of Ruffinus so that it may be reckoned to have been writ in Ruffinus's own time and this is the most valuable though the least known curiosity in the whole Library I need not say any thing of the curious Works in Crystal that are to be seen in Milan the greatest quantities that are in Europe are found in the Alps and are wrought here but this is too well known to need any further enlargement It is certain the Alps have much Wealth shut up in their Rocks if the Inhabitants knew how to search for it But I heard of no Mines that were wrought except Iron Mines yet by the colourings that in many places the Fountains make as they run along the Rocks one sees cause to believe that there are Mines and Minerals shut up within them Gold hath been often found in the River of Arve that runs by Geneva The last Curiosity that I shall mention of the Town of Milan is the Cabinet of the Chanoine Settala which is now in his Brothers hands where there are a great many very valuable things both of Art and Nature there is a lump of Ore in which there is both Gold Silver Emeralds and Diamonds which was brought from Peru. There are many curious motions where by an unseen Spring a Ball after it hath rowled down through many winding descents is thrown up and so it seems to be a perpetual motion This is done in several forms and is well enough disguised to deceive the vulgar Many motions of little Animals that run about by Springs are also very pretty There is a Loadstone of a vast force that carries a great Chain There is also a monstrous Child that was lately born in the Hospital which is preserved in Spirit of Wine It is double below it hath one Breast and Neck two pair of Ears a vast Head and but one Face As for the Buildings in Milan they are big and substantial but they have not much regular or beautiful Architecture The Governors Palace hath some noble apartments in it The chief Place of the Town is that of the Homodei which was built by a Bankier There is one inconvenience in Milan which throws down all the pleasure that one can find in it they have no Glass Windows so that one is either exposed to the Air or shut up in a Dungeon and this so universal that there is not one house of ten that hath Glass in their Windows The same defect is in Florence besides all the small Towns of Italy which is an effect of their poverty For what by the oppression of the Government what by the no less squeezing oppression of their Priests who drain all the rest of their Wealth that is not eat up by the Prince to inrich their Churches and Convents the People here are reduced to a poverty that cannot be easily believed by one that sees the Wealth that is in their Churches and this is going on so constantly in Milan that it is scarce accountable from whence so vast a treasure can be found but Purgatory is a fond not easily exhausted The Wealth of the Milanese consists chiefly in their Silks and that Trade falls so mightily by the vast Importations that the East-India Companies bring into Europe that all Italy feels this very sensibly and languishes extreamly by the great fall that is in the Silk-Trade There is a great magnificence in Milan the Nobility affect to make a noble appearance both in their Cloaths their Coaches and their Attendants and the Women go abroad with more freedom here than in any Town of Italy And thus I have told you all that hath hitherto occurred to me that I thought worth your knowledge I am Yours Postscript IN the account that I gave you of Geneva I forgot to mention a very extraordinary Person that is there Mrs. Walkier her Father is of Shaff House she lost her sight when she was but a Year old by being too near a Stove that was very hot There rests in her Eye so much sight that she distinguishes Day from Night and when any Person stands between her and the light she will distinguish by the Head and its dress a Man from a Woman but when she turns down her Eyes she sees nothing she hath a vast memory besides the French that is her natural language she speakes both High Dutch Italian and Latine she hath all the Psalms by heart in French and many of them in Dutch and Italian the understands the Old Philosophy well and is now studying the New she hath studied the body of Divinity well and hath the Text of the Scriptures very ready On all which matters I had long conversations with her she not only sings well but she plays rarely on the Organ and I was told she played on the Violin but her Violin was out of order But that which is most of all is she writes legibly in order to her learning to write her Father who is a worthy Man and hath such tenderness for her that he
furnisheth her with Masters of all sorts ordered Letters to be carved in Wood and she by feeling the Characters formed such an Idea of them that she writes with a Crayon so distinctly that her writing can be well read of which I have several Essays I saw her write she doth it more nimbly than can be imagined she hath a Machine that holds the Paper and keeps her always in line But that which is above all the rest she is a person of extraordinary Devotion great resignation to the Will of God and a profound humility The Preceptor that the Father kept in the house with her hath likewise a wonderful faculty of acquiring Tongues When he came first to Geneva for he is of Zurich he spoke not a word of French and within Thirteen months he Preacht in French correctly and with a good accent He also began to study Italian in the month of November and before the end of the following February he preacht in Italian his accent was good and his stile was florid which was very extraordinary for the Italian language is not spoken in Geneva though the Race of the Italians do keep up still an Italian Church there THE THIRD LETTER Florence the 5th of November I Have now another Month over my head since I writ last to you and so I know you expect an account of the most considerable things that have occurred to me since my last from Milan Twenty miles from Milan we past through Lodi a miserable Garrison though a Frontier Town but indeed the Frontiers both of the Spaniards and the Venetians as well as those of other Princes of Italy shew that they are not very apprehensive of one another and when one passes through those places which are represented in History as places of great strength capable of resisting a long Siege he must acknowledge that the sight of them brings the Idea that he had conceived of them a great many degrees lower For Lombardy which was so long the seat of War could not stand out a good Army now for so many Days as it did then for Years The Garrison of Crema which is the first of the Venetian Territory is no better than that of Lodi only the People in the Venetian Dominion live happier than under the Spaniard The Senate sends Podesta's much like the Bailifs of the Switzers who order the Justice and the Civil Government of the Jurisdiction assigned them There is also a Captain General who hath the Military Authority in his hands and these two are checks upon one another as the Bassa's and the Cadi's are among the Turks But here in Crema the Town is so small that both these are in one Person We were there in the time of the Fair Linnen Cloath and Cheese which though it goes by the name of Parmesan is made chiefly in Lodi are the main Ingredients of the Fair. The magnificence of the Podesta appeared very extraordinary for he went through the Fair with a great train of Coaches all in his own Livery and the two Coaches in which he and his Lady ride were both extraordinary rich his was a huge Bed-coach all the out side black Velvet and a mighty rich Gold fringe lined with black Damask flowred with Gold From Crema it is Thirty miles to Brescia which is a great Town and full of Trade and Wealth here they make the best Barrils for Pistols and Muskets of all Italy There are great Iron Works near it but the War with the Turk had occasioned an Order that none be sold without a permission from Venice They are building a Noble Dome at Brescia I was shewed a Nunnery there which is now under a great disgrace some years ago a new Bishop coming thither began with the Visitation of that Nunnery he discovered two Vaults by one Men came ordinarily into it and by another the Nuns that were big went and lay-in of Child-bed when he was examining the Nuns severely concerning those Vaults some of them told him that his own Priests did much worse He shut up the Nuns so that those who are professed live still there but none come to take the Vail and by this means the House will soon come to an end The Cittadel lies over the Town on a Rock and commands it absolutely Both here and in Crema the Towns have begun a Complement within these last Ten or Twelve Years to their Podesta's which is a matter of great Ornament to their Palaces but will grow to a vast charge for they erect Statues to their Podesta's and this being once begun must be carried on otherwise those to whom the like Honour is not done will resent it as a high affront and the revenges of the Noble Venetians are dreadful things their to Subjects This name of Podesta is very ancient for in the Roman times the chief Magistrates of the lesser Towns was called the Potestas as appears by that of Juveral-Fidenarum Gabiorumve esse potestas From Brescia the beauty of Lombardy is a little interrupted for as all the way from Milan to Brescia is as one Garden so here on the one side we come under the Mountains and we pass by the Lake of Guarda which is Forty miles long and where it is broadest is Twenty miles broad The miles indeed all Lombardy over are extream short for I walkt often four or five miles in a walk and I found a Thousand paces made their common mile but in Tuscany and the Kingdom of Naples the mile is Fifteen Hundred paces We pass through a great Heath for Seven or Eight miles on this side of Verona which begins to be cultivated Verona is a vast Town and much of it well built there are many rich Churches in it but there is so little Trade stirring and so little money going that it is not easie here to change a Pistol without taking their coin of base alloy which doth not pass out of the Veronese for this seems a strange maxim of the Venetians to suffer those small states to retain still a coin peculiar to them which is extream inconvenient for Commerce The known Antiquity of Verona is the Amphitheater one of the least of all that the Romans built but the best preserved for though most of the great stones of the out-side are pickt out yet the great flopping Vault on which the rows of the seats are also intire they are four and forty rows every row is a foot and half high and as much in breadth so that a Man sits conveniently in them under the feet of those of the higher row and allowing every Man a foot and a half the whole Amphitheater can hold Twenty three thousand persons In the Vaults under the rows of seats were the Stalls for the Beasts that were presented to entertain the Company the thickness of the building from the outward Wall to the lowest row of seats is ninety foot But this Noble remnant of Antiquity is so often and so copiously described