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VIATOR. Would I were well down, though! Hoist thee! there's one fair 'scape! these stones are so slippery I cannot stand! yet again! I think I were best lay my heels in my neck and tumble down.

PISCATOR.

If you think your heels will defend your neck, that is the way to be soon at the bottom. But give me your hand at this broad stone, and then the worst is past.

VIATOR. I thank you, Sir, I am now past it, I can go myself. What's here? the sign of a bridge? Do you use to travel with wheelbarrows in this country?

PISCATOR. Not that I ever saw, Sir; why do you ask that question?

VIATOR. Because this bridge certainly was made for nothing else why! a mouse can hardly go over it: 'tis not two fingers broad.

PISCATOR. You are pleasant, and I am glad to see you so; but I have rid over the bridge many a dark night.

VIATOR. Why, according to the French proverb, and 'tis a good one, among a great many of worse sense and sound that language abounds in, Ce que Dieu garde est bien gardé, “They whom God takes care of are in safe protection:" but, let me tell you, I would not ride over it for a thousand pounds, nor fall off it for two and yet I think I dare venture on foot, though, if you were not by to laugh at me, I should do it on all four.

PISCATOR. Well, Sir, your mirth becomes you, and I am glad to see you safe over, and now you are welcome into Staffordshire. VIATOR. How, Staffordshire! What do I there, trow? there is not a word of Staffordshire in all my direction.

PISCATOR. You see you are betrayed into it, but it shall be in order to something that will make amends; and 'tis but an ill mile or two out of your way.

Is

VIATOR. I believe all things, Sir, and doubt nothing. this your beloved river Dove? 'Tis clear and swift, indeed, but a very little one.

PISCATOR. You see it, here, at the worst: we shall come to it anon again, after two miles' riding, and so near as to lie upon the very banks.

VIATOR. Would we were there once but I hope we have no more of these Alps to pass over.

PISCATOR. No, no, Sir, only this ascent before you, which you see is not very uneasy, and then you will no more quarrel with your way.

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VIATOR. Well, if ever I come to London, of which many a man there, if he were in my place, would make a question, I will sit down and write my travels; and, like Tom Coriate,* print them at my own charge. Pray what do you call this hill we came down?

PISCATOR. We call it Hanson-Toot.

VIATOR.

Why, farewell, Hanson-Toot ! I'll no more on thee: I'll go twenty miles about, first. Puh! I sweat, that my shirt

sticks to my back.

PISCATOR. Come, Sir, now we are up the hill; and now how do you?

VIATOR. Why, very well, I humbly thank you, Sir, and warm enough, I assure you. What have we here, a church? As I'm an honest man, a very pretty church! Have you churches in this country, Sir?

*Tom Coriate lived in the reign of King James the First; and, as Anthony Wood calls him, was the whetstone of all the wits of that age: and indeed the allusions to him, and to the singular oddness of his character, are numberless. He travelled almost over Europe on foot; and in that tour walked 900 miles with one pair of shoes, which he got mended at Zurich. Afterwards he visited Turkey, Persia, and the Great Mogul's dominions, travelling in so frugal a manner, that-as he tells his mother, in a letter to her-in his ten months' travels, between Aleppo and the Mogul's court, he spent but three pounds sterling; living remarkably well for about twopence sterling a day; and of that three pounds he elsewhere says, he was cozened of no less than ten shillings sterling by certain Christians of the Armenian nation; so that, indeed, he spent but fifty shillings in his ten months' travels. In these his travels, he attained to great proficiency both in the Persian and Indostan languages; in the former, he made and pronounced an oration to the Great Mogul; and his skill in the latter, he took occasion to manifest in the following very signal instance. In the service of the English ambassador, then resident, was a woman of Indostan, a laundress, whose frequent practice it was to scold, brawl, and rail, from sunrising to sunset. This formidable shrew did Coriate one day undertake to scold with, in her own language; and succeeded so well in the attempt, that, by eight of the clock in the morning, he had totally silenced her, leaving her not a word to speak. See A Voyage to East India, by Edward Terry, chaplain to Sir Tho. Row, ambassador to the Great Mogul, 12m0, 1655. Further, it appears that he was a zealous champion for the Christian religion against the Mahometans and Pagans; in the defence whereof he sometimes risked his life. In Turkey, when a priest, as the custom is, was proclaiming from a mosque tower that Mahomet was a true prophet, Tom, in the fury of his zeal, and in the face of the whole city, told the priest he lied, and that his prophet was an impostor; and at a city called Moltan, in the East Indies, he, in public, disputed with a Mahometan, who had called him Giaur, or infidel, in these words: But I pray thee, tell me, thou Mahometan! dost thou, in sadness, call me Giaur? That I do, quoth he. Then, quoth I, in very sober sadness, I retort that shameful word in thy throat; and tell thee plainly, that I am a Mussulman, and thou art a Giaur." He concludes thus: "Go to then, thou false believer, since by thy injurious imputation laid on me, in that thou calledst me Giaur, thou hast provoked me to speak thus. I pray thee, let this mine answer be a warning for thee not to scandalise me in the like manner any more: for the Christian religion, which I profess, is so dear and tender unto me, that neither thou, nor any other Mahometan, shall, scot free, call me Giaur, but that I shall quit you with an answer much to the wonder of those Mahometans. Dixi." He died of the flux, occasioned by drinking sack at Surat, in 1617: having published his European travels in a quarto volume, which he called his Crudities: and to this circumstance the passage in the text is a manifest allusion. See Athen. Oxon. by Bliss, vol. ii. p. 208; Purchas's Pilgrims, part i. book 4, chap. 17: Coriate's Letter from the Court of the Great Mogul, 4to, 1616; and, above all, Terry's Voyage, before cited, the author whereof was, as he himself asserts, his chamber-fellow, or tent-mate, in East India.-H.

PISCATOR. You see we have: but had you seen none, why should you make that doubt, Sir?

VIATOR. Why, if you will not be angry, I'll tell you; I thought myself a stage or two beyond Christendom.

PISCATOR. Come! come! we'll reconcile you to our country, before we part with you; if showing you good sport with angling will do it.

VIATOR. My respect to you, and that together, may do much, Sir otherwise, to be plain with you, I do not find myself much inclined that way.

PISCATOR. Well, Sir, your raillery upon our mountains has brought us almost home; and look you where the same river of Dove has again met us to bid you welcome, and to invite you to a dish of Trouts to-morrow.

VIATOR. Is this the same we saw at the foot of PenmenMaure? It is much a finer river here.

PISCATOR. It will appear yet much finer to-morrow.

But look you, Sir, here appears the house that is now like to be your inn, for want of a better.

VIATOR. It appears on a sudden, but not before 'twas looked for; it stands prettily, and here's wood about it too, but so young as appears to be of your own planting.

PISCATOR. It is so. Will it please you to alight, Sir? And now permit me, after all your pains and dangers, to take you in my arms, and to assure you that you are infinitely welcome.

VIATOR. I thank you, Sir and am glad with all my heart I am here; for in downright truth, I am exceeding weary.

PISCATOR. You will sleep so much the better; you shall presently have a light supper, and to bed. Come, Sirs, lay the cloth, and bring what you have presently, and let the gentleman's bed be made ready in the meantime in my father Walton's chamber. And now, Sir, here is my service to you; and once more, welcome!

VIATOR. I marry, Sir, this glass of good sack has refreshed And I'll make as bold with your meat; for the trot has got me a good stomach.

me.

PISCATOR. Come, Sir, fall to then; you see my little supper is always ready when I come home, and I'll make no stranger of you. VIATOR. That your meal is so soon ready, is a sign your servants know your certain hours, Sir; I confess I did not expect it so soon but now 'tis here, you shall see I will make myself no stranger.

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