[129] [Naked, i.e., unarmed.] William Lithgow, a Scotsman, whose sufferings by imprisonment and torture at Malaga, and whose travels on foot over Europe, Asia, and Africa, seem to raise him almost to the rank of a martyr and a hero, published an account of his peregrinations and adventures, 1614; reprinted in 1616, &c., with additions. At the conclusion of this work he says, "Here is the just relation of nineteene yeares travells, perfited in three deare bought voyages: the generall computation of which dimmensions spaces in my goings, traversings, and returnings through kingdomes, continents, and ilands, which my payneful feet traced over (besides my passages of seas and rivers) amounteth to thirty-six thousand and odde miles; which draweth neare to twice the circumference of the whole earth." [A list of his other works may be found in Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, in v.]
[130] The celebrated Thomas Coriat who, except Lithgow, is supposed to have travelled more miles on foot than any person of his times, or indeed in any period since. From his writings, and many parts of his conduct, he cannot be supposed to have been in his perfect senses. He was, notwithstanding, a man of considerable learning, and rendered himself ridiculous, chiefly by dwelling with too much attention on the trifling accidents which happened to him during his journey. In the year 1608 he left England and went to Venice and back again; a journey performed on foot in five months. On his return, he published an account of it in a large quarto volume, 1611, containing 655 pages, besides more than 100 filled with commendatory verses by Ben Jonson and other wits of the age, who both laughed at and flattered him at the same time. He afterwards travelled into Persia, and from thence into the East Indies (still on foot), and died at Surat in the year 1617.
[131] Sir John Mandevile, Knight, born at St Albans. He was a traveller for the space of thirty-four years, visiting in that time Scythia, Armenia the Greater and Less, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria, Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldæa, Greece, Illyrium, Tartary, and divers other kingdoms. He died at Liege, November 17, 1371. An edition of his travels was printed in 8o, 1725, from a MS. in the Cotton Library.
[132] ["The leavings of what has been drawn for others"—Gifford (edit. of Ben Jonson, vii. 433).] So in Jonson's "Masque of Augurs:" "The poor cattle yonder are passing away the time with a cheat loaf and a bumbard of broken beer."
Again, in the "Masque of Gypsies:" "He were very carefully carried at his mother's back, rocked in a cradle of Welsh cheese, like a maggot, and there fed with broken beer and blown wine of the best daily."
And in Scot's "Belgicke Pismire," 1622, p. 76: "Having before fed themselves full with the sweat of other mens browes, even to gluttonie, drunkenesse, and surfetting, may releeve with their scraps, crummes, bones and broken beere, the necessities of such as they or their predecessors have before undone and made beggers."
[133] [Old copy, paguim.]
[134] Qy. breadth, i.e., stopped a breach by his person.—Collier.
[135] [Reasons or policies of state.]
[136] German clocks were about this time much in use. They are frequently mentioned by Ben Jonson and other writers.—See "Epicæne," act iv. sc. 2.