know, as well as I, that logicians, who went under the name of Sophisters, were the first lawyers that

ever were.

I shall be upon uncertain removes hence, until I come to Rouen in France, and there I mean to cast anchor a good while; I shall expect your letters there with impatience. I pray present my service to sir James Altham, and to my good lady your mother, with the rest to whom it is due, in Bishopsgate Street and elsewhere: so I am yours in the best degree of friendship.

LETTER XLVII.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO CAPT. FRANCIS BACON. SIR, Paris, 30th March, 1620. I RECEIVED two of yours in Rouen, with the bills of exchange there inclosed; and, according to your directions, I sent you those things which you wrote for.

I am now newly come to Paris, this huge magazine of men, the epitome of this large populous kingdom, and rendezvous of all foreigners. The structures here are indifferently fair, though the streets generally foul of all four seasons of the year; which I impute first to the position of the city, being built upon an isle (the isle of France, made so by the branching and serpentine course of the river of Seine), and having some of her suburbs seated high, the filth runs down the channel, and settles in many places within the body of the city, which lies upon a flat; as also for a world of

coaches, carts, and horses of all sorts, that go toaud-fro perpetually, so that sometimes one shall meet with a stop half a mile long of those coaches, carts, and horses, that can move neither forward nor backward, by reason of some sudden encounter of others coming a cross-way: so that often-times it will be an hour or two before they can disentangle. In such a stop the great Henry was so fatally slain by Ravillac. Hence comes it to pass, that this town (for Paris is a town, a city, and an university) is always dirty, and it is such a dirt, that by perpetual motion is beaten into such black unctuous oil, that where it sticks no art can wash it off of some colours; insomuch, that it may be no improper comparison to say, that an ill name is like the crot (the dirt) of Paris, which is indelible; besides the stain this dirt leaves, it gives also so strong a scent, that may be smelt many miles off, if the wind be in one's face as he comes from the fresh air of the country: this may be one cause why the plague is always in some corner or other of this vast city, which may be called, as once Scythia was, vagina populorum, or (as mankind was called by a great philosopher) a great molehill of ants; yet I believe this city is not so populous as she seems to be, for her form being round (as the whole kingdom is) the passengers wheel about, and meet oftener than they use to do in the long continued streets of London, which makes London appear less populous than she is indeed; so that London for length (though not for latitude), including Westminster, exceeds Paris, and hath in Michaelmas term more souls moving within her in all places. It is under one hundred

years that Paris is become so sumptuous and strong in buildings; for her houses were mean, until a mine of white stone was discovered hard by, which runs in a continued vein of earth, and is digged out with ease, being soft, and is between a white clay and chalk at first: but being pulleyed up with the open air, it receives a crusty kind of hardness, and so becomes perfect free-stone; and before it is sent up from the pit, they can reduce it to any form of this stone, the Louvre, the king's palace, is built, which is a vast fabric, for the gallery wants not much of an Italian mile in length, and will easily lodge three thousand men; which, some told me, was the end for which the last king made it so big; that, lying at the fag-end of this great mutinous city, if she perchance should rise, the king might pour out of the Louvre so many thousand men unawares into the heart of her.

I am lodged here hard by the Bastile, because it is furthest off from those places where the English resort; for I would go on to get a little language as soon as I could. In my next, I shall impart unto you what state-news France affords; in the interim, and always, I am your humble servant.

LETTER XLVIII.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO MR. THOMAS PORTER,

After Captain Porter, from Barcelona.

MY DEAR TOM,

Barcelona, 10th Nov. 1620.

I HAD no sooner set foot upon this soil, and breathed Spanish air, but my thoughts presently reflected

upon you; of all my friends in England, you were the first I met here; you were the prime object of my speculation; methought the very winds in gentle whispers did breathe out your name and blow it on me; you seemed to reverberate upon me with the beams of the sun, which you know hath such a powerful influence, and indeed too great a stroke in this country. And all this you must ascribe to the operations of love, which hath such a strong virtual force, that when it fasteneth upon a pleasing subject, it sets the imagination in a strange fit of working; it employs all the faculties of the soul, so that not one cell in the brain is idle: it busieth the whole inward man, it affects the heart, anfuseth the understanding; it quickeneth the fancy, and leads the will as it were by a silken thread to co-operate them all: I have felt these motions often in me, especially at this time that my memory is fixed upon you. But the reason that I fell first upon you in Spain was, that I remember I had heard you often discoursing how you have received part of your education here, which brought you to speak the language so exactly well. I think often of the relations I have heard you make of this country, and the good instruction you pleased to give me.

I am now in Barcelona, but the next week I intend to go on through your town of Valentia to Alicant, and thence you shall be sure to hear from me farther, for I make account to winter there, The duke of Ossuna passed by here lately, and having got leave of grace to release some slaves, he went aboard the Cape galleys, and passing

through the churma of slaves, he asked divers of them what their offences were: every one excused himself; one saying, that he was put in out of malice, another by bribery of the judge, but all of them unjustly; amongst the rest there was one little sturdy black man, and the duke asking him what he was in for; "Sir," said he, "I cannot deny but I am justly put in here, for I wanted money, and so took a purse hard by Tarragone, to keep me from starving." The duke, with a little staff he had in his hand, gave him two or three blows upon the shoulders, saying, "You rogue, what do you do amongst so many honest innocent men? get you gone out of their company." So he was freed, and the rest remained still in statu quo prius, to tug at the oar.

I pray commend me to signior Camillo, and Mazalao, with the rest of the Venetians with you: and when you go aboard the ship behind the Exchange, think upon yours.

LETTER XLIX.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO DR. FRANCIS MANSEL, From Valentiu.

SIR,

Valentia, 1st March, 1621. THOUGH it be the same glorious sun that shines upon you in England, which illuminates also this part of the hemisphere: though it be the sun that ripeneth your pippins, and our pomegranates: your hops, and our vineyards here; yet he dispenseth his heat in different degrees of strength; those