Germany: Beyond the Enchanted Forest: A Literary Anthology

enjoyment.

Chapter 1

Triple Dutch: Teutons, Alemans and Germans

1589-1700

At the end of the Middle Ages, what we today call Germany was part of the much larger Holy Roman Empire, an entity at once as monolithic as it was messy, as powerful as it was vulnerable. Composed of hundreds of states, principalities and fiefdoms, the empire that covered so much of Central Europe was frequently consumed by internecine squabbles between royal houses, a state of affairs that had only been made worse by the Reformation of 1517, initiated by Martin Luther in the heartlands of Saxony.

The religious schism came on top of a range of regional allegiances and rivalries which produced almost continuous rebellion and low-level conflict, as well as often explosive economic town-country inequality: there was the 1523 peasants’ revolt in Frisia, for example, followed by the much larger German peasants’ war in the south in 1524. These uprisings flowed seamlessly into the religious fighting which went on until the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Serious violence broke out again in the 1580s around Cologne as competing archbishops of opposing religious allegiance were elected. Soon the competing kingdoms of Palatinate and Bavaria were joining in, and within the year most of Europe was involved in what became a proxy war fought between Spain on one side and England and the Dutch provinces on the other. This kind of spiralling conflict foreshadowed that great Armageddon of early-modern Europe, the Thirty Years’ War, which would lay waste to Germany between 1618 and 1648.

At the Birth of Travel Writing

If there is one thing all readers of travellers’ accounts are looking for, it is adventure. Whether these are adventures of the more sedate kind, such as Peter Mayle losing a few days’ extra pay to wiley Provençal builders, or of the more extreme physical variety found in the stories of explorers such as Shackleton: a travel story without some form of undesired or unforeseen event is about as much use as a cart without wheels.

The writings of the four Englishmen we shall accompany into seventeenth-century Germany are certainly not without adventure. The thin strip of sea separating England from continental Europe was, at the time, far from mastered: travellers across the Channel were pitted both against the elements and against hostile ships. Meanwhile, the sweeping lands of Germany were often filled with renegade soldiers between jobs as mercenaries in another internal mini-war, thieving bandits armed with their cast-off weaponry, or crooked locals ready to take foreign folk for all they were worth.

Just before the dawn of the seventeenth century in 1589, Henry Wotton (b. 1568), travelling at the age of 21 in preparation for a diplomatic career, was forced to circumnavigate Bremen due to marauding mercenaries and feared for his safety more than once on his way to commence his studies in Heidelberg. He was nevertheless lucky enough to experience a swift and pleasant Channel crossing - afeat unusual enough for him to comment on in the letter he sent to his brother.

However, Fynes Moryson (b. 1566), travelling in 1591, needed eight days at sea just to get to Heligoland, some of this time under pursuit by pirates. He spent the following decade on endless peregrinations through Europe, which he later made the subject of An Intinerary, published in 1617. Moryson is considered by many scholars to be the first English writer to have travelled with no other purpose than to record the observations he made on his journey - or, in other words, to be the first travel writer in English literature.

Thomas Coryat (or Coryate, b. 1577), a member of the court to the eldest son of James I, was also a pioneer of the idea of the travelogue as an end in itself. True to his age, his Crudities of 1611 actually begin with nothing other than a rustic description of an awful Channel crossing: I was imbarked at Dover... and arrived in Calais about five of the clocke in the afternoon, after I had varnished the exterior parts of the ship with the excrementall ebullitions of my tumultuous stomach, as desiring to satiate the gormandizing paunches of the hungry Haddcocks.

Ironically enough for the self-styled Thames water poet John Taylor (b. 1578), his aquatic adventures of 1620 do not take place in English waters. Taylor, taking the idea of the travelogue a step further, persuaded subscribers to pay in advance to read about a journey he was planning to make. One such trip recorded in Taylor his travels was to Prague, and on the journey back he and an English widow were forced to steer their vessel a few hundred miles down the Elbe by themselves after their boatman jumped ship just before Dresden.

Germany: A New Word for an Old Place

Taylor’s boatman fled because his ruler, the Duke of Bohemia, was at war against Saxony. This incident is revealing of the state of Germany at that time in two ways: firstly, it was a collection of princedoms, duchies and city states that were continuously squabbling, politicking and fighting among themselves; secondly, Germany was an ill-defined and ever-changing geographic entity, and would essentially remain so until 1990.

Taylor did not at any point use the name Germany, something of a neologism at the time, or mention the Czechs, speaking simply of Bohemia, Saxony and the various bishoprics and dukedoms he crosses along the way. Writing one hundred years later, however, Mary Wortley Montagu (see Chapter 2) would even include Bohemia and Prague under the title of Germany. Meanwhile, Henry Wotton mixed and matched various spellings of Germanie/Germanye with older words such as Allemaign, while calling the language Dutch, which he divides into High and Low.

In the seventeenth century speakers of the dialects in what are today northern Germany and the Netherlands referred to their mutually intelligible language as Low Dutch while those in the south called their tongue High Dutch, all using some variant of the modern word Deutsch. For a long time this usage also influenced English words for the German language and, by extension, Germany: in his Instructions for Directions and for Forren Travell of 1650, for example, James Howell refers to the language as German, Teutonique and Dutch within the space of one page. It was only much later in the seventeenth century, when the Union of Utrecht had become a truly distinct political entity, that English speakers stopped considering the Netherlands part of Germany and stopped, oddly enough, referring to the rest of the continent’s German speakers as Dutch.

This indistinctness is why, in the extracts below, Taylor records distances in Dutch miles and Fynes Moryson refers to Dutch Inns at Stade, about a hundred miles away from today’s Netherlands. On the topic of inns, Thomas Whythorne, who wrote in the 1570s about his travels in Europe, describes the vice of drunkenness I perceived to reign as well in Germany, and high Alman as in the low Duchland. In the seventeenth century Germany could be anything from Amsterdam and Antwerp to Augsburg and the Alps - but was known, then as now, as an excellent destination for drinkers.

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Henry Wotton, Letters

Stade, Nov. 1, 1589

My ever most dear Brother,

Here are my first commendations out of Germany, which I send you with a soul that wishes you, and all those that wish you well, the world’s perfect happiness. I have at this present lesser time than mind to write, and yet so much of both as shall let you understand briefly how it runs with me. I departed London the day of my last letter’s date unto you, to Leigh, where I lay four days for a south-west; and then blew the wind so light and fair, as the fourth day following, which was the 28th of October, we made good the coast of Germanie. Our passage I thank God was pleasant and safe; and what it is to be sick at the sea I cannot tell you, besides some two or three odd qualms, with their appurtenances. I have, since my arrival, lived in this town Stode[1]*** three days, where there is nothing to be had but alla borso alla borsa. My stay hath been merely for want of company, which I now have gotten to my farthest desire, and am travelling toward Basill this 2nd of November. I determined once to have passed to Bremen, there to fall into the acquaintance of Doctor C. Piscelius, the principle divine in all Germanye, but the Malcontents come often up and sweep the stakes by the way, and a younger brother’s ransom is twenty thousand crowns - this caused a great variation in my compass. I have, since I came hither, seen a great piece of justice done upon certain witches; their manner of arraignment did much differ from England; their death was all one. This town is able, out of his own provision, to refute fifty Mr. Reginold Scotts.

(...)

The dearest thing and most pinching that I find is drink, 2d. sterling the poor pint of English beer. But my hope is that the change of the English mercanteria from Antwerpe hither, hath raised the price; and so in the higher country I shall find it fallen, where it is less desired and used. I laugh at many things, and especially at the women, which, believe me, are the most pitifully attired of any creatures since the fall of Adam. The clowns here are scarce animalia; all possessed with so not-understanding a spirit, as the best taught of them cannot make a leg. My High Dutch is yet very Low; but it comes so near my reach, as I find the tongue of the Germans to be cousin-german to the English.

(...)

Heidelberg, Dec. 14, 1589

I am at this present 14th of December at Heidelberge, unto which place I came the 26th of November. The cause of my coming so late in the month hither is this: upon the 1st of November I departed Stoade with two English, bound for Venice, and an High Allemaign, whose farthest was to Erdforde; we kept together up the countrys as far as Brunswick, the chief city under the Duke of that name. Thither came we on the 5th of November. That town divided us; the three taking to Norremberge, and myself, the fourth open to accept all occasion to Franckforde. But here fortune crossed my hasty spirit, and laid a pause upon me of eight days. All the coaches and company for Franckforde were gone the day before; and I must live there and expect my chance, or hire a coach for my single self. I could bargain to no price under twenty-six dollars, in English money 5li. 15s. 8d. The sum was full of persuasion to make me stay, which I did eight full days; and then found I two companions good for nothing but to take down the price of travel; believe me, my dear brother, two of the worst natures in the worst part of Germanye, and against whom I had nothing to keep myself safe, but to imagine them to be worse than they were. Their company, with all their ills, brought the twenty-six dollars to eight; so casting my expense in the time of my resting - which came to two dollars and one half - I find myself wealthier than I should have been by fifteen dollars and a half. When we came to Franckforde, my companions did me the pleasure to let me alone, and so I cast about for new company, but could find nine in two days. And a worse ill, every meal stands a traveller in the third of a dollar in that town. This made me hire a coach myself alone, rather than multiply my charges by sitting still. My way was short, for I came to Heydleberge in two days; and yet did that cost me largely as much as any five days before.

(...)

I have apparelled and booked myself, and am in this wiser than I was before, that I have hitherto been afool, and am to begin the world at one and twenty, with more settled care of my life. We have in this place three Professors of Law, all doctors; they read twelve times every week, and we have twice disputations. The doctors teach so as we may weigh every syllable. I am of this opinion that a student in the Laws of five years beyond the seas, may leave a doctor in England of ten years behind, if there be an equality of wit in both. In this place how long I shall live I cannot assure you (my most dear brother) - this persuade yourself, my mind is from all changeableness free.

Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary

At last, in the beginning of the yeere 1591, and upon the first day of May, I tooke ship at Liegh, distant from London twenty eight miles by land, and thirtie six by water, where Thames in a large bed is carried into the Sea. Thence we set saile into the maine, and the eight day of our sailing, the Merchants Fleet of sixteene ships being dispersed by a fogge and tempest, two Dunkerke Pirats followed our ship, till (by Gods mercy) the fog being cleared after some few houres, and two of our ships upon our discharging of a great Peece drawing towards us, the Pirates despairing left to pursue us. That they were Pirates was apparant, since as wee for triall turned our sayles, they likewise fitted themselves to our course, so as wee though flying, yet prepared our selves to fight, till God thus delivered us. The ninth day towards night, wee fell upon an Iland called the Holy-land (vulgarly Heiligland), and not daring to enter the River Elve before the next morning, wee strucke all sayles, and suffered our ship to bee tossed too and fro by the waves all that night, (which Marriners call lying at Hull.) This Iland hath onely one Port capeable of some sixe ships, in the forme of the Moone decreasing, and lying open to the East. On the North side is a great Rocke, and the rest of the shore is all of high Cliffes. It is subject to the Duke of Holste, and by that title to the King of Denmarke; but the inhabitants are so poore, as they yield no other tribute then stones for the Dukes building. It is in circuit some three miles, and hath about one hundred Families.

The tenth day we entred the River Elve, and landed at Stode. This is an ancient Citie, and one of the Empires free Cities[2]***, and one of those Sea-Townes, which from the priviledge of traffick with their Neighbours, are called Free Cities (vulgarly Hansteten), but of late was become so poore, as they had sold the priviledge of coyning money, and some like Rights to Hamburg; till the English Merchants removing their seate of trafficke from Hamburg to Stode, it began lately to grow rich, not without the envy and impoverishment of the Hamburgers. In the Dutch Inns I paid for each meale foure Lubeck shillings and an halfe, and in the English Innes eight pence English. In the great winding and troubled Streame of Elve, which ebs and flowes as high as Luneburg, certain Booyes are laid to shew the channels and sholes of the River, and the maintaining of each of them cost 40 pounds yeerely, and of all a thousand pounds at the least, at the common charge of Stode and Hamburg: but after frosts begin, they are taken up, and reserved to the next Spring. Of old when Stode flourished, this charge belonged onely to it, taking some contributions of the other Cities for the same. This free Citie had then chosen the Bishop of Breme for their Protector, and had but small scattered revenewes, to the value of ninety pounds sterling by the yeere; but the soile is so fertile, as they milke their Cowes thrice each day. Of late the Hamburgers had in vaine attempted by Navall forces to forbid the arrivall of the English at Stode, whom as they had grieved having their seate with them, as well with exactions, as with forbidding them free exercise of Religion, so now sometimes by faire treaties, sometimes by force, they laboured to draw backe unto them. Those of Stode have by priviledge the pre-emption and choice of Rhenish Wines passing by them. This Citie might be made strong, if the workes they have begun were perfected. The fields of the North and East sides may bee drowned, and because the high Hilles towards the West and South( though somewhat distant) seemed to threaten danger, they had on those sides raised an high and broad wall of earth, fastned on the out-side with Willowes, in which place an armory for all munitions was built; but the gates of the Citie, for ridiculous ostentations of strength were furnished with Artillery of stone painted over. The territory without the City belongs on the West side to the Bishop of Breame, and on the East side to the Earle of Scheneburg and the Duke of Hoist. From Stode to Hamburg are five miles. In a Waggon hired for five Lubecke shillings each person, wee passed two miles, then crossing the Elve (not without danger in respect of the shallow places and present storme) wee hired another Waggon for foure Lubeck shillings each person, and through thicke woods passed the other three miles to Hamburg. The passage by water to Hamburg had beene much easier, especially for a stranger, and a boat daily passeth from Stode thither in some three hours space, if the winde bee not contrary, wherein each man paies three Lubecke shillings for his passage: but all Passengers without difference of condition must help to rowe, or hire one in his stead, except the winde bee good so as they need not use their Oares; besides that the annoyance of base companions will easily offend one that is any thing nice.

(...)

Hamburg is a Free Citie of the Empire, and one of them which (as I said) are called Hans-steten, and for the building and populousnesse is much to be praised. The Senate house is very beautifull, and is adorned with carved statuaes of the nine Worthies. The Exchange where the Merchants meet is a very pleasant place. The Haven is shut up with an iron chaine. The Citie is compassed with a deepe ditch, and upon the East and North sides with a double ditch and wall. Water is brought to the Citie from an Hil distant some English mile, by pipes of wood, because those of lead would be broken by the yce, and these pipes are to bee seene under the bridge, whence the water is convaied by them unto each Citizens house. The Territory of the Citie extendeth a mile or two, and on one side three miles out of the walles. It hath nine Churches and six gates called by the Cities to which they lead. It is seated in a large plaine and a sandy soyle, but hath very fatte pasture ground without. On the South side and some part of the West, it is washed with the River Elve, which also putteth a branch into the Towne, but on the North and somewhat on the East side, the River Alster runneth by towards Stode, and falleth into the Elve. The streets are narrow excepting one which is called Broad-street (vulgarly Breitgasse.) The building is all of bricke (as in all the other Sea-bordering Cities, lying from these parts towards Flanders) and all the beautie of the houses is in the first entrance, having broad and faire gates into a large Hal, the lower part whereof on both sides is used for a Ware-house, and in the upper part lying to the view of the doore, the chiefe houshold-stuffe is placed, and especially their vessell of English Pewter, which being kept bright makes a glittering shew to them that passe by; so as the houses promise more beauty outwardly then they have inwardly. Here I paid each meale foure Lubeck shillings, and one each night for my bed. The Citizens are unmeasurably ill affected to the English, to whom (or to any stranger) it is unsafe to walke out of the gates after noone, for when the common people are once warmed with drinke, they are apt to doe them injury. My selfe one day passing by some that were unloading and telling of Billets, heard them say these words: Wirft den zehenden auff des Englanders kopf, that is, cast the tenth at the Englishmans head. But I and my companions knowing well their malice to the English for the removing their trafficke to Stode, were content to pass by as if we understood them not.

Thomas Coryate, Coryat’s crudities

It is exceeding difficult for a stranger to enter into one of the Germane Princes Courts (as I have before said in my description of Turlowe) except he hath some friend living in the same, which I found verified by mine owne experience at the Count Palatines Court. For I could not possibly be admitted without some speciall and extraordinary favour, which was this. Master Gruterus understanding by my owne report that I was acquainted with our noble Ambassador Sir Henry Wotton then resident with the Signiorie of Venice, the same of whose excellent learning and generose qualities hath greatly spread itselfe in Heidelberg (for there hath he beene heretofore, and honourably entertained at the Princes Court) counselled me to goe to a learned Doctor of the Civill Law dwelling in the City, whose name was Master Lingelfemius, heretofore Tutor to Fredericke the fourth, who was then Count Palatinate when I was in Heidelberg, (can therefore the better able to procure his friend accesse to the Court) and a familiar acquaintance of Sir Henry Wotton. Whereupon I repaired to his house, insinuating my selfe partly with a token from Master Gruterus, and partly by the meanes of Sir Henry Wottons name[3]***, which was so acceptable unto him, that he entertained me after a very debonair and courteous maner, and sent one of his men with mee to the Prefect of the Princes Court, who gave me admittance into the Palace; I noted the situation thereof to be very pleasant. For it seated at the South side of the Citie upon the side of an eminent hill, having as sweete an ayre as any Palace whatsoever in all Germanie.

(...)

There is a notable thing to be seene in this Palace, the sight whereof it was not myne to enjoy, because I heard nothing of it before I went out of the Palace: a matter of great antiquity. Namely certain ancient stony pillars, in number five, which the Emperor Carolus Magnus above eight hundred and fifty years since brought from the City of Ravenna in Italie, and placed them afterward in his Palace of Ingelheim, a place of high Germany within a few miles of the City of Mentz, where he was borne, and oftentimes kept his Court. The same pillars were of late years removed from the said Ingelheim to Heidelberg by the Prince Philip of whom I have before made mention in my discourse of the Church of the holy Ghost who erected them in this Palace whereof I now speake, and are there shewed for a principall ancient monument to his day.

But some of the Gentlemen of the Princes family did sufficiently recompence my losse of the sight of these ancient pillars by shewing me a certayne peece of worke that did much more please my eies then the sight of those pillars could have done. For it is the most remarkable and famous thing of that kinde that I saw in my whole journey, yea so memorable a matter, that I thinke there was never the like fabric (for that which they showed me was nothing else than a strange kind of fabrick) in all the world, and I doubt whether posterity will ever frame so monstruously strange a thing: it was nothing but a vessel full of wine. Which the Gentlemen of the Court shewed me after they had first conveighed me into divers wine cellars, where I saw a woundrous company of extraordinary great vessels, the greatest part whereof was replenished with Rhenish wine, the totall number containing one hundred and thirty particulars. But the maine vessel above all the rest, that superlative moles unto which I now bend my speech, was shewed me last of all standing alone by it selfe in a wonderfull vast roome. I must needes say I was suddenly strooken with no small admiration upon the first sight thereof. For it is such a stupendous masse (to give it the same epitheton that I have done before to the beauty of St. Marks streete in Venice) that I am persuaded it will affect the gravest and constantest man in the world with wonder. Had this fabric beene extant in those ancient times when the Colossus of Rhodes, the Labryrinth of Ægypt and Creta, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the hanging gardens of Semiramis, the Tombe of Mausolus, and the rest of the those decanted miracles did flourish in their principall glory, I thinke Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus would have celebrated this rare worke with the their learned stile as well as the rest, and have consecrated the memory miracle. For indeed it is a kinde of monstrous miracle, and that of the greatest sise for a vessel that this age doth yield in any place whatsoever (as I am verily persuaded) under the cape of heaven, Pardon me I pray thee (gentle Reader) if I am something tedious in discoursing on this huge vessel. For as it was the strangest spectacle that I saw in my travels: so I hope it will not be unpleasant unto thee to reade a ful description of all the particular circumstances thereof.

(...)

When the Cellerer draweth wine out of the vessel, he ascendeth two severall degrees of wooden staires made in the forme of a ladder which containe seven and twenty steps of rungs as we call them in Somersetshire, made in the forme of a spout, wherewith he draweth up the wine, and so poureth it after a pretty manner into the glasse or &c. out of the same instrument. I myself had experience of this matter. For a Gentleman of the Court accompanied me to the toppe together with one of the Cellerers, and exhilarated me with two sound draughts of Rhenish Wine. For that is the wine that it containeth. But I advise thee gentle reader whatsoever thou art that intendest to travel into Germany, and perhaps to see Heidelberg, and also this vessel before thou commest out of the City: I advise thee (I say) if thou doth happen to ascend to the toppe thereof to the end to tast of the wine; that in any case thou dost drinke moderately, and not so much as the sociable Germans will persuade thee unto. For if thou shouldest chance to over-swill thyselfe with wine, peradventure such a giddinesse wil benumme thy braine, that thou wilt scare finde the direct way downe from the steepe ladder without a very dangerous precipitation.

John Taylor, Taylor his travels

Sunday the 26 of Auguste we set sayle from Gravesend and with various windes, some large and some scarce, we happily past the seas, and sayled up the river of Maze, by the Brill, and on the Wednesday following I arrived at Rotterdam in Holland, at which time the worth regiment of the right honourable Colonell Sir Horace Veare, and the two noble Earls of Essex and Oxford departed from thence in Martiall Equipage toward the Pallatinate Country, whose Heroick and Magnanimous endeavours I beseech the Lord of hosts, and God of battells to direct and blesse.

The same day I went to the Hage, and from thence to Leyden, where I lodged all night, and the morrow being thurseday the 30 of August, I sayled from Leyden, to Amstersam, where I saw many things worthy the noting, but because they are so neere and frequent to many of our Nation, I omit to relate them to avoid teadiousnes: but on the friday at night I got passage from thence towards Hambrogh, in a small hoy, in the which wee were weather-beaten at sea three days and nights before wee arrived there.

Saterday the eight of September I left Hambrogh, and being carried day and night in wagons, on the mundasy night following I came to an ancient towne called Heldeshim. Heldesheim, it standeth in Brunswick land, and yet it belongeth to the Bishop of Collin, where I did observe in their Domme Kirke, of Cathedrall Church, a crowne of silver 80 foote in compasse, hanged up in the body of the Church, in the circuit of which crowne were placed 160 wax candles, the which on festival days, or at the celebration of some high ceremonies are lighted to lighten their darknesse, or their ignorance, chuse yee whether.

Moreover there I saw a silver bell in their steeple, of six hundred and 30 l. weight, and the Leades of their steeple, shining and sparkling with the Sun beames, they did affirme to mee to bee gold, the truth of which I am doubtfull of.

In this towne I stayed foure days, and on friday the 14 of September, I went six dutch miles to the strong towne of Brunswick, where by reason of my short stay, which was but two hours, I observed nothing worthy of memory, but their triple walls and double ditches, their artillery and fortifications, which they thinke to be impregnable; besides, there I saw an old house of the Duke of Brunswicke, with the statue of a golden lyon, of a great bignesse, standing aloft upon a piller, with the broken walls, and houses, which the Dukes Cannon hath left there six yeares since, as tokens and badges of his fury and their rebellion.

From thence on the morrow I went one dutch mile further, to an ancient towne called Wolfenbuttle, where the Duke of Brunswicke keeps his court, in the which I and my fellow could get no further admittance, then over a bridge into his outermost, or base court; for his soldiers, seeing us with swords and pistols, were fearefull, belike, that wee would have taken the fortresse from them, and therefore though wee were but two Englishmen, yet they durst not let us enter, which made mee call to rememberance the frequent, and dayly egresse and regresse, that all people and nations have to his Majesty royal Court of great Brittaine, where none that are of any good fashion or aspect are debar’d entrance: when those inferior Princes houses are garded with hungry Halbediers, and reverend rusty bil-men, with a brace or two of hot shots, so that their palaces are more like prisons then the free & noble courts of commanding potentates.

After two days entertainement at Wolfunbuttle, with an English Merchant residing there, of good fame and credit, named Master Thomas Saskville, I with my brother, my fellow Tilbery, and another man in my company departed from thence on foote onward on our journey towards Bohemia, in which travel, what occurrences happened, and what things of note I saw were as followeth.

Passing with many weary steps, through the townes of Rofondink, Remling, Sootem, Hessen, Darlum and Halverstadt, which is all in Brunswicke land, but this towne of Halverstadt[4]*** belong to a Bishop so stiled, who is Duke Christian brother to the now Duke of Brunswick, a long dutch mile (or almost six English) is a small towne or a Bleck called Groning belonging to the Duke, in the which place I observed two things worthy of remembrance.

First a most stately Pallace with a beautiful Chappell, so adorned with the image and forms of Angells and Cherubins, with such quantities of arcs, with such industry of carving, graving, guilding, painting and paving, with such superexcellent workmanship of organes, pulpit and font, that for curiosity and admirable rarenesse, all the buildings, and fabricks that ever I beheld, must give it preheminence. I confesse that Henry the Sevenths Chappell at Westminster, Kings Colledge Chappell in Cambridge, and Christs Church in Canterbury, are beyond it in heigh and workmanship of stone: for indeed this Chappell is most of wood gipps, and plaster of Parris; but it is so guilded as if it had bin made in the golden age, when gold was estemmed as drosse, so that a man had need to weare a vaile over his dazeling eyes, or else he can hardly looke upon it.

The carving and painting seeme to outgo the arts of Pigmalion, Apelles, or Praxiteles; the paving of chequered blacke and white marble, and the windows glassed with Christall: but all this great cost and shew is very little to the honor of God, or the propagation of the Ghospel, the edification of the ignorant. For