Whilst our Prince has such a Burthen upon his Mind, he can hardly sleep for a whole Night together; he watches for the good of the Commonwealth; so great a Concern requires a perpetual Vigilance and constant Care. Do not think I flatter him: what I write is true. He hath but few Assistants in his Government, but those are very good Men; the chief of whom, not unknown to you by Name, are, Johannes Trantzen, Rudolphus a Harrach, both eminent for their Faithfulness and Prudence.
I shall detain you no longer than to give you some Account of our Prince’s private Deportment. He rises every Day at Five o’Clock in the Morning, even in the coldest Winter Months; and first, he performs his Devotion to God, then he goes to the Council to consult of Matters tending to the Public Good, ’till Dinner-time; he follows the same Course in the Afternoon, till Supper-time; I mean the Time of his Counsellors Supper, not his own: he never sups, he eats but once a Day, and that sparingly too; and is as abstemious in Drinking; he closes his Dinner with a double Glass of Wine: He passes the Night chastly, ever since the Loss of his Royal Consort: He cannot endure the trifling Amusements which many are taken with, and will have nothing to do with Jesters, Jugglers, Buffoons, Parasites, the common Delights, and yet Plagues, of Courts. He hates Idleness, is a very great Husband of his Time; if he has any to spare from public Business, which but rarely happens, he spends it in Conferences with good and learned Men, who (as I told you before) are his chief Delight, and usual Attendants whilst he is at Dinner. I believe that several of the Commons would not change their Life for his, ’tis so thrifty and severe: What Man is there that does not set apart some small Portion of his Time to indulge himself? Who would willingly deprive himself of all Delights? To whom would it not seem irksom to grow old in perpetual Care and Business. This looks more like Servitude than Sovereignty: But our Prince is of another Mind; neither doth he dissemble it in his ordinary Discourse: He says, he was advanced to so great an Office by God, not for his own Sake; that the Reins of Government were not put into his Hands, to wallow in Pleasures and Delights: The case of Succession in Kingdoms and Empires differs from the Condition of private Inheritances; in these latter, no Man is denied to indulge himself in the Conveniencies of his Patrimony. But so many Nations are intrusted to him by God, that he might have the Care and Labour, and they the Benefit of his Care, so as to obtain Rest and Quiet by his Sweat.
In Hunting only he spends a little Time, not so much for Pleasure, as for Health; for when he finds his Body fall away, and his Spirits flag by continual sitting for many Days together, he chooses one Day to refresh himself with the freer Air in the open Field; and in Summer very early in the Morning, and in Winter some Hours before Sun-rising, what Weather soever it be, he goes Abroad to Hunting, and sometimes he does so in the Afternoon; for I remember when I attended him at Dinner, I heard him say, I have done my Duty this Day; I have dispatched all Business that are on the File; I may now spend the rest of the Day for the Health of my Body. Thus he returns late at Night from the Death of a Boar, Stag, or Bear, and betakes his wearied Limbs to rest, without Eating or Drinking. Let no Man then upbraid us with the want of Trajans, Varus’s, and Theodosius’s; those Miracles of the Ancients in our Days: I dare take my Oath, that there is more true Vertue in our Emperor, than there was in all of them put together. But the Admiration of so great a Man transports me: ’Tis not my Design to speak of his Merits, they would make up a Volume rather than an Epistle; besides, they require an Ingenuity far exceeding mine; and, therefore, my Aim was only to give you some Hints, That you may know what a Master I serv’d. I close all with this public Prayer, That he may return late to Heaven, whose vertuous and holy Presence alleviates the Miseries of our Age.
As to the Greek Books which you enquire after, and the Rarities, and the wild Beasts of a strange Kind, which you hear I have brought back, they are hardly worth mentioning: Among them, there is one Ichneumon very gentle, which is known for its deadly Quarrels with the Crocodile and the Asp. I had also a Weesel of that kind they call an Ermine, very beautiful; but I lost it on the Way. I have many brave Horses, such as no Man ever brought from thence before, and six She-Camels. I brought back no Shrubs nor Herbs, but in Painting, which I left to the Care of Matthiolus, with some other Things, many Years ago. I sent him Tapestry and Linnen after the Babylonian Fashion, with Swords, Bows, and other Trappings: I have also many other Things made of Horses-hides, curiously wrought after the Turkish Fashion, or rather I may say, I had them; for in so great an Assembly of principal Men and Women at Francfort, one beg’d one Thing, and another another; so that I have but a small Matter left. The rest of my Gifts was well bestowed; but I am very sorry that I was lavish of one Balsam, because Physicians call the Truth of it in question, as not answering all the Marks that Pliny gives of it: Whether it be that the Virtue of those ancient Plants from whence it flows, be weakned by Age, or from any other Cause; this I know for certain, that it trickles down from Shrubs in the Mattarcan Gardens near Cairo.
Before I left Constantinople, I sent one Albacarus, a Spanish Physician, into Lemnos, on the sixth Day of August, to be present at the digging out that famous Earth, desiring him to write me the Certainty of its Place, Origin, manner of Extracting and Use; which I know he will do, if he is not hindered. I had a Mind to go thither my self to be an Eye-witness of it; but, the Turks not giving me leave, I deputed him in my Stead. I have brought back also abundance of old Coins, the chief of which I shall present my Master with. Besides, I have whole Waggon-loads, if not Ship-loads, of Greek Manuscripts, and about 240 Books, which I sent by Sea to Venice, from thence to be carried to Vienna: I design them for Cæsar’s Library; there are many of them common, but some choice; I rummaged every Corner to procure such Kind of Merchandize, as my last gleaning.
I left one very old Manuscript behind me at Constantinople, all very well written in large Characters; it was Diascorides, with the Figures of Plants, wherein there were some few Things of Crativa, and the Book of Birds; ’tis in the Possession of a Jew, the Son of Hammon, who in his Life-time was Solyman’s Physician: I desir’d to buy it, but the Price frightned me; he rated it at 100 Ducats, a Price fit for Cæsar’s Purse, not mine. However, I will not cease to press Cæsar to redeem so famous an Author from that Bondage: ’tis very much injur’d by Time, and so eaten with Worms on the out-side, that a Man would hardly take it up, if it lay in the Streets.
But to conclude, you may expect me in a very short Time. I shall reserve what remains, till we meet: In the mean Time, do you take Care to provide some good and learned Men, by whose Conversation I may drive away the dull Thoughts remaining in my Mind, from my long Aboad among the Turks. Farewell!
FINIS.