to be invited themselves; and they would sooner give five or six ducats to provide an entertainment for a person, than a groat to assist him in any distress.

They all from time immemorial wear very fine clothes, and are extremely polite in their language; which, although it is as well as the Flemish derived from the German, has lost its natural harshness, and is pleasing enough as they pronounce it. In addition to their civil speeches, they have the incredible courtesy of remaining with their heads uncovered with an admirable grace, whilst they talk to each other. They are gifted with good understandings, and are very quick at everything they apply their minds to; few, however, excepting the clergy, are addicted to the study of letters; and this is the reason why any one who has learning, though he may be a layman, is called by them a Clerk. And yet they have great advantages for study, there being two general Universities in the kingdom, Oxford and Cambridge; in which are many colleges founded for the maintenance of poor scholars. And your Magnificence lodged at one named Magdalen, in the University of Oxford, of which the founders having been prelates, so the scholars are also ecclesiastics.

The common people apply themselves to trade, or to fishing, or else they practise navigation; and they are so diligent in mercantile pursuits, that they do not fear to make contracts on usury.

Although they all attend mass every day, and say many Paternosters in public (the women carrying long rosaries in their hands, and any who can read taking the office of Our Lady with them, and with some companion reciting it in the church verse by verse, in a low voice, after the manner of churchmen), they always hear mass on Sunday in their parish church, and give liberal alms, because they may not offer less than a piece of money of which fourteen are equivalent to a golden ducat; nor do they omit any form incumbent upon good Christians; there are, however, many who have various opinions concerning religion.

They have a very high reputation in arms; and from the great fear the French entertain of them, one must believe it to be justly acquired. But I have it on the best information, that when the war is raging most furiously, they will seek for good eating, and all their other comforts, without thinking of what harm might befal them.

They have an antipathy to foreigners, and imagine that they never come into their island, but to make themselves masters

of it, and to usurp their goods; neither have they any sincere and solid friendships amongst themselves, insomuch that they do not trust each other to discuss either public or private affairs together, in the confidential manner we do in Italy. And although their dispositions are somewhat licentious, I never have noticed any one, either at court or amongst the lower orders, to be in love; whence one must necessarily conclude, either that the English are the most discreet lovers in the world, or that they are incapable of love. I say this of the men, for I understand it is quite the contrary with the women, who are very violent in their passions. Howbeit the English keep a very jealous guard over their wives, though anything may be compensated in the end by the power of money.

The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested towards their children; for after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age of seven or nine years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another seven or nine years. And these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends away his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own. And on inquiring their reason for this severity, they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners. But I, for my part, believe that they do it because they like to enjoy all their comforts themselves, and that they are better served by strangers than they would be by their own children. Besides which the English being great epicures, and very avaricious by nature, indulge in the most delicate fare themselves and give their household the coarsest bread, and beer, and cold meat baked on Sunday for the week, which, however, they allow them in great abundance. That if they had their own children at home, they would be obliged to give them the same food they made use of for themselves. That if the English sent their children away from home to learn virtue and good manners, and took them back again when their apprenticeship was over, they might, perhaps, be excused; but they never return, for the girls are settled by their patrons, and the boys make the best marriages they can, and, assisted by their patrons, not by their fathers, they also open a house and strive diligently by this means to make some fortune for themselves; whence it proceeds that, having no hope of their paternal inheritance, they all become so greedy of gain that they feel

no shame in asking, almost "for the love of God," for the smallest sums of money; and to this it may be attributed, that there is no injury that can be committed against the lower orders of the English, that may not be atoned for by money.

51. JOHN CABOT'S FIRST VOYAGE (1497).

Soncino was the representative in England of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and the information with which he supplied his master concerning John Cabot was sent off shortly after the Matthew returned to Bristol. Cabot himself was an Italian like Columbus, his native land being prolific in navigators as England afterwards was in colonists. His landfall on the coast of North America disclosed a new sphere of English influence, and opened an era in Anglo-Saxon history which is hardly less important than the settlement of the race in Britain. Cabot set out with the intention of reaching Marco Polo's " Cipango, "where he believed all the spices of the world grow," and thought that he had actually touched on some part of Asiatic soil.

SOURCE.-Annuario Scientifico

del 1865. Milano, 1866. P. 700. Raimondo de Soncino (fl. circ. 1500). Trans. G. E. Weare in Cabot's Discovery of North America. London, 1897. P. 147.

Perhaps your Excellency, in the press of so much business, will not be disturbed to learn that his Majesty [Henry VII.] has gained a part of Asia without a stroke of the sword. In this Kingdom is a popular Venetian called Messer Joanne Caboto, a man of considerable ability, most skilful in navigation, who having seen the most serene Kings, first him of Portugal, then him of Spain, that they had occupied unknown islands, thought to make a similar acquisition for his Majesty [Henry VII.]. And having obtained the royal privileges which gave him the use of the land found by him, provided the right of possession was reserved to the Crown, he departed in a little ship from the port of Bristol, in the western part of this kingdom, with eighteen persons, who placed their fortunes with him. Passing Ireland more to the west, and then ascending towards the north, he began to navigate the eastern part of the ocean. Leaving, for some days, the north to the right hand, and having wandered enough, he came at last to main land, where he planted the royal banner, took possession for his Highness [Henry VII.], made

certain marks and returned. a foreigner and poor, would not be believed, if his partners, who are all Englishmen, and from Bristol, did not testify to the truth of what he tells. This Messer Joanne has the representation of the world on a map, and also on a globe, which he has made, and he shows by them where he arrived, and going towards the East, has passed much of the country of Tanais.1 And they say that the land is fertile and temperate, and think that the red wood grows there, and the silks, and they affirm that there the sea is full of fish that can be taken not only with nets, but with fishing-baskets, a stone being placed in the basket to sink it in the water, and this, as I have said, is told me by the said Messer Joanne.

The said Messer Joanne, as he is

And the said Englishmen, his partners, say that they can bring so many fish that this kingdom will have no more business with Islanda (Iceland), and that from that country there will be a very great trade in the fish which they call stock-fish (stochfissi). But Messer Joanne has his thoughts directed to a greater undertaking, for he thinks of going, after this place is occupied, along the coast farther toward the east until he is opposite the island called Cipango,2 situate in the equinoctial region, where he believes all the spices of the world grow, and where there are also gems. And he says that he was once at Mecca, where from remote countries spices are carried by caravan, and that those carrying them, being asked where those spices grew, said they did not now, but that they came with other merchandise from remote countries to their home by other caravans, and that the same information was repeated by those who brought the spices in turn to them. And he argues that if the oriental people tell to those of the south that these things are brought from places remote from them, and thus from hand to hand, presupposing the rotundity of the earth, it follows that the last carry to the northern, toward the west. And he tells this in a way that makes it quite plain to me, and I believe it. And what is a greater thing, his Majesty, who is learned and not prodigal, places confidence in what he says, and since his return, provides well for him, as this Messer Joanne tells me.

to

And in the spring he says that his Majesty will arm some ships, and will give him all the criminals, so that he may go this country and plant a colony there.

1 Probably Soncino "meant that Cabot had reached the regions of Asia on its north-eastern side" (Dawson). The point is ambiguous and debated.

2 Probably Japan.

And in this way he hopes to make London a greater place for spices than Alexandria. And the principals of the business are citizens of Bristol, great mariners that now know where to go. They say that the voyage will not take more than fifteen days, if fortune favours them after leaving Ireland. I have talked with a Burgundian, a companion of Messer Joanne, who affirms the same, and who is willing to go, since the Admiral, as Messer Joanne is already styled, has given him an island,1 and has also given another to his barber, a Genoese, and they regard the two as counts, and my lord, the admiral, the chief. And I believe that some poor Italian friars will go on the voyage, who have the promise of being bishops. And I, being a friend of the admiral, if I wished to go, could have an archbishopric.

52. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ENGLAND

(circ. 1500-1520).

Polydore Vergil was a scholarly Italian and also a man of business, who collected Peter's Pence. His English residence began in 1502 or 1503. The merits of his Historia Anglica are style, discrimination and a wide command of fact not otherwise reported. We may regret that he has said nothing of Grocyn and Linacre, the pioneers of Greek scholarship in England, yet when reading his rapid survey of the means whereby the country received that new learning which had been matured in Italy, it will appear appropriate that such a passage should come from an Italian pen. John Colet, whom Polydore mentions so prominently as the founder of St. Paul's School, should be connected with Sir Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus, his close friends and associates in the reforming enterprises of the Oxford movement.

SOURCE.-Historia Anglica. Polydore Vergil (1470 ?-1555). Basel, 1570. P. 617. Trans. C. W. Colby.

During the same period the excellent literature of Greece and Rome, which had been excluded, shut out and banished from Italy by unholy wars, extended itself across the Alps throughout all Germany, France, England and Scotland. The

1 Compare Don Quixote's promise to Sancho Panza.