rays that do but warm you in England, do half roast us here; those beams that irradiate only and gild your honeysuckle fields, do scorch and parch this chinky gaping soil, and so put too many wrinkles upon the face of our common mother the earth. O blessed clime! O happy England! where there is such a rare temperature of heat and cold, and all the rest of elementary qualities, that one may pass (and suffer little) all the year long, without either shade in summer or fire in winter!

I am now in Valentia, one of the noblest cities in all Spain, situate in a large vega or valley, above sixty miles compass: here are the strongest silks, the sweetest wines, the excellentest almonds, the best oils, and beautifulest females of all Spain, for the prime courtesans in Madrid and elsewhere are had hence. The very brute animals make themselves beds of rosemary, and other fragrant flowers, hereabouts; and when one is at sea, if the wind blow from the shore, he may smell this soil before he come in sight of it, many leagues off, by the strong odoriferous scent it casts. As it is the most pleasant, so it is also the temperatest clime of all Spain; and they commonly call it the second Italy, which made the Moors, whereof many thousands were disterred and banished hence to Barbary, to think that paradise was in that part of the heavens which hung over this city. Some twelve miles off is old Sagunto, called New Morviedre, through which I passed, and saw many monuments of Roman antiquities there; amongst others, there is the temple dedicated to Venus, when the snake came about her neck, a little before Hannibal came thither. No more now, but

that I heartily wish you were here with me, and I believe you would not desire to be a good while in England. So I am yours.

LETTER L.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO CHRISTOPHER JONES, ESQ. At Gray's-Inn.

Alicant, 27th March, 1621. I AM now (thanks be to God!) come to Alicant, the chief rendezvous I aimed at in Spain; for I am to send hence a commodity called barilla to sir Robert Mansel, for making of crystal glass; and I have treated with signior Andriotti, a Genoa merchant, for a good round parcel of it, to the value of 20001. by letters of credit from master Richant; and upon his credit I might have taken many thousand pounds more, he is so well known in the kingdom of Valentia. This barilla is a strange kind of vegetable, and it grows nowhere upon the surface of the earth in that perfection as here. The Venetians have it hence, and it is a commodity whereby this maritime town doth partly subsist: for it is an ingredient that goes to the making of the best Castile soap. It grows thus: it is a round thick earthy shrub that bears berries, like barberries, betwixt blue and green; it lies close to the ground, and when it is ripe they dig it up by the roots, and put it together in cocks, where they leave it to dry many days like hay; then they make a pit of a fathom deep in the earth, and with an instrument like one of our prongs,

they take the tuffs and put fire to them, and when the flame comes to the berries, they melt and dissolve into an azure liquor, and fall down into the pit till it be full; then they dam it up, and some days after they open it, and find this barilla juice turned to a blue stone, so hard that it is scarcely malleable; it is sold at one hundred crowns a ton, but I had it for less. There is also a spurious flower, called gazull, that grows here, but the glass that is made of that is not so resplendent and clear. I have been here now these three months, and most of my food hath been grapes and bread, with other roots, which have made me so fat that I think if you saw me you would hardly know me, such nutriture this deep sanguine Alicant grape gives. I have not received a syllable from you since I was in Antwerp, which transforms me to wonder and engender odd thoughts of jealousy in me, that as my body grows fatter, your love grows lanker towards me. I pray take off those scruples, and let me hear from you, else it will make a schism in friendship, which I hold to be a very holy league, and no less than a piacle to infringe it; in which opinion I rest your constant friend.

LETTER LI.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO RICHARD ALTHAM, ESQ. DEAR SIR, Venice, 1st July, 1621. I WAS plunged in a deep fit of melancholy, Saturn had cast his black influence over all my intellectuals; methought I felt my heart a lump of dough,

and heavy as lead within my breast; when a letter of yours, of the 3d of this month, was brought me, which presently begot new spirits within me, and made such strong impressions upon my intellectuals, that it turned and transformed me into another man. I have read of a duke of Milan and others who were poisoned by reading of a letter; but yours produced contrary effects in me, it became an antidote, or rather a most sovereign cordial to me, more operative than bezoar, of more virtue than potable gold, or the elixir of amber, for it wrought a sudden cure upon me: that fluent and rare mixture of love and wit which I found up-and-down therein, were the ingredients of this cordial; they were as so many choice flowers strewed here and there, which did cast such an odoriferous scent, that they revived all my senses, and dispelled those dull fumes which had formerly overclouded my brain; such was the operation of your most ingenious and affectionate letter, and so sweet an entertainment it gave me. If your letter had that virtue, what would your person have done? and did you know all, you would wish your person here a while; did you know the rare beauty of this virgin city, you would quickly make love to her, and change your Royal Exchange for the Rialto, and your Gray's-Inn-Walks for St. Mark's Place for a time. Farewel, dear child of virtue, and minion of the muses; and love still yours.

LETTER LII.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO CHRIS. JONES, ESQ.
At Grays-Inn, from Naples.

HONOURED FATHER,

8th Oct. 1621.

I MUST still style you so, since I was adopted your son by so good a mother as Oxford; my mind lately prompted me that I should commit a great solecism, if, among the rest of my friends in England, I should leave you unsaluted, whom I love so dearly well, especially having such a fair and pregnant opportunity as the hand of this worthy gentleman, your cousin Morgan, who is now posting hence for England. He will tell you how it fares with me; how, any time these thirty odd months, I have been tossed from shore to shore, and passed under various meridians, and am now in this voluptuous and luxuriant city of Naples: and though these frequent removes and tumblings under climes of different temper were not without some danger, yet the delight which accompanied them was far greater; and it is impossible for any man to conceive the true pleasure of peregrination, but he who actually enjoys and puts it in practice. Believe it, sir, that one year well employed abroad by one of mature judgment (which you know I want very much) advantageth more in point of useful and solid knowledge than three in any of our universities. You know running waters are the purest, so they that traverse the world up-anddown, have the clearest understanding; being