New-York tribune., 1907-12-28

AN ITINERARY. Containing His Ten Yeeres
many BohmerIand. Switzerland, Netherland,
Denmarke. Poland, Italy. Turky. France Eng
Moryson. Gent. In four volumes. Vols and
II Svo. PIP. XIV. 467: vi. 467- The Macmillan
Company.
This is a welcome addition to the library OF
old travels in which the books of Coryat and
I,ithgow have already been printed. Fynes
Moryson was more prosaic Of temperament than
either Of those worthies and his Itinerary" is
wanting in the romantic, adventurous note
which expect, almost as a matter of course,
III the earlier literature Of travel But IL he
was not a connoisseur OF experience. & man
quick to enter into the human side Of the E'.co-
pean spectacle. he at least an assiduous - i'd
careful compiler OF facts. Sometimes he IS
positively exasperating in his failure to tell the
reader what he would most like to hear. Thus
he observes that when he in Paris he de
sired to see the French King Henrie the fourth,
and his Court" and as we read on, confident
of the first-hand portrait OF that monarch which
we could not but prize he calmly continues, "the
next day after had scene the King, returned
on foote eight leagues to Some" The passage
is characteristic This pilgrim has an almost
uncanny faculty for leaving untouched the sub
jects on which most travellers would naturally
enlarge Yet as we have indicated. he is not
r1nhelpful to the reader who wishes to gain some
idea Of the surface appearance OF Europe In the
sixteenth century. Moreover, though his mar
rative is often curiously bald, he was not by
any means without a certain gusto for the sheer
Measure of journeying up and down the world
From my tender youth" he tells us, Il had
a great desire TO see lorraine Countries" and the
fates were kind. giving him his wish fairly
early in his career This younger son OF
Lincolnshire member Of Parliament was IN his
eighteenth year when being student of Peter
house, at Cambridge, he "tooke the degree OF
BacheIar Of Arts, and shortly after was chosen
Fellow of the said Colledge by Queene Eliza
beths mandat' In due course he was CHOSEN
ito vacant place Of Priviledge TO studie the
Civil Lawes," and this promotion proved indeed
a boon "As vel! for the ornament OF this pro-
fession," he tells US. "as out Of my innated de-
sire to game experience by travelling into for
raigne parts upon the privilege of our Statutes
permitting two of the Society to travel, OBJ
tanned license to that purpose Of the said Mas
ter and Fellowes IN the yeere 1882 being theh
full % yeeres old" He appears, in spite or his
rowing disposition. to have been devoted STU
dent acquiring excellent education HIS
az ,inerary" he wrote in Latin, before he put IL
into English It seems strange that, pelng
man of parts he did not make Of his op-
nortunities- abroad. Though his scholarship
crops out here and there 1t does so. on the whole
10 go on foot some thirteen miles to Arqua TO
seq 2 monument of Petrarch, and when he gets
there he is at great pains to copy the inscfip-
tions On the poets sepulchre, "of red marble
snotted" but the scene inspires him to only this
brief comment:
Petrarch dweit at Arqua, and here in me same
house wherein they say he dwelt the hs.oIie ~ ~
potrerchas life is painted, where the owner OF
the house showed some househoio Slutie pgdoaSS S
ing to him and the Zsd veTy and still keepe Here
did see his Studio. "a pleasant roome especiay e! 2
for the sweet prospecp ada no No Situation can be
Imagined more pleasant then that on Ai9a. ;3h
ing in the mouth Of 9oon fruitful
rIaine on the East and North sides inns piallls
yeeldeth nothing in for the he e. corrupting Of
10 19oo,nfha,s .Iaa Arrny But il is needles worke to
praise the Euganian hills whch SO many i0
and Writers have magnhed
Tn +he bulk of his text Moryson follows his
-,,,a of uainstaking description, but at efnes
evan his staid humor is pricked by an amusing
o;oas and he is fain to say something about It.
WHEN he is In the Holy Land with his orother'
one of the servants in their carafan acc'oeh'any
sats a field afiame. Whereupon the Oo'eihou
- ,he Province dwelling upon the Mountaine'
and heholding the fields on fer, sent TO US one
Ianizarv armed onely with cudgeh' VINO ZEN
,nor the men OF our Caravan, being some hum
,.aa ,n number. beating them with his cudgeih
"a, ,,ev fell upon the fer with the upper long
~,erts they used TO weare, and SO e4tia-
s,>ad If The solemn Fynes confesses on TINS
s..oeior To having been moved to fts OF lauen-
pe records too. his amusement over an
s;sent in Italy about which he writes TO an
yush friend of his at Pisa 1t may not strike
the modern reader as being precisely uproarlous'