Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/67

 12 S. I. JAN. 22, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

61

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY SS, 1916.

CONTENTS.- No. 4.

TfOTES : Contributions to the History of European Travel, 61 Two Letters by Thomas Holcroft. 61 Statues and Memorials in the British Isles, 65 Folk-Lore at Sea. 66-Turning the Cheek for a Kiss An Epigram by Julius Cfesar Scaliger Robert Shorton, Dean of Stoke, 67" Staig "Dickens and the Fox-under-the- Hill, 68.

QUERIES : 4 Generation c. A.D 1250 Barker, Chaplain to Queen Katharine of Aragon. 68 Authors Wanted Father Christmas and Christmas Stockings The Family of Hackett The Pindar of Wakefield Cruelty to Animals Col. John Pigott, 69 Resemblances between Semitic and Mexican Languages Tharp Family Phillott Will Wanted Brook's 'Ancient War Odes' Shrines and Relics of Saints- Old-Style Table to Find Easter Mari <. the Jewess Rosicrucians Life of Johnson In the 1825 Edition of his Works Strowbridge, School- master, 1718 Biographical Information Wanted, 70.

REPLIES : The Name of the River Trent, 71' The Vicar of Bray,' 72 Heart- Burials : Dr. Livingstone's Heart Whittington's House, Crutched Friars. 73 Employment of Wild Beasts in Warfare John Whitfield, Actor Regimental Nicknames, 74 Thomas May, Recorder of Chichester " Meddle and muddle " " Murray's Railway Reading," 75 The Water of the Nile : the Tigris' A Lost Love,' by Ashford Owen Arthur Hughes, the Pre- Raphaelite' Comic Arundines Cami,' 76 Skull and Iron Nail Col. John Hayes St. Leger The Newspaper Placard Clerks in Holy Orders as Combatants Dublin, Topo- graphy, 77 Kennett, M.P. ' L'Espion Anglois' Enemies of Books 'The Meteor, or Monthly Censor ' Parish Registers, 78 Village Pounds Latton Family Cold Hands, Warm Heart, 79.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Burke's Peerage and Baronetage ' ' Manual of Gloucestershire Literature ' ' L'lntermd- diaire.'

Notices to Correspondents.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF miROPEAN TRAVEL.

SINCE the publication of the notes on 'N. & Q.,' 11 S. xii. 42, 63, 81, I have been engaged in noting and abstracting a number of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century travel books and manuscripts. It has occurred to me that a few of the more interesting and less accessible itineraries might be useful to readers of ' N. & Q.'
 * Seventeenth-Century Travel ' printed in

I.

HORATIO BUSING.

In the library of St. Mark at Venice, among the dispatches addressed to his government by Piero Contarini, Venetian Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of James I., 1617-18, are a number of letters and journals written by the Ambassador's chaplain, Horatio Busino. These were compiled for the amusement of his patron's

brothers, and contain such familiar details as the Ambassador did not think fit to com- municate to the Senate or was too busy to transmit to his family. The chaplain was a man of shrew r dness and observation, and was endowed with high spirits and unbounded good humour. His letters are genial and well written, and his account of the journey of the Ambassador and his train from Venice to London is no ordinary traveller's diary, but an extremely interesting narrative. A translation of the whole of the MS. by the late Rawdon Brown is preserved at the Record Office, but has not been printed.* A resume in which the journey is briefly described appeared in The Quarterly Review for October, 1857; and Busino 's notes upon England, which he called Anglipotrida, have recently been translated and printed in the C.S.P. (Venetian), 1617-19, and make ex- cellent reading.

The Ambassador left Venice at short notice on Sept. 2, 1617, but for the first few days his progress was slow. His train comprised a courier, a house steward, the chaplain, the keeper of the wardrobe, the butler, two grooms of the chamber, an assistant groom, besides four footmen " in number 12, with as many more large coif res and other baggage."

The Ambassador was anxious to avoid the territories of Austria and Spain, and took the road via Vicenza and Verona to Brescia, which was reached on Sept. 7. Leaving again, the travellers arrived at Bergamo, and proceeded on their journey by roads which were little better than half- dried water - courses. The bridges were built, for the most part, of tottering wood ; and at one place the mare carrying his Excellency's bed fell on to a ledge of a precipice, and but for speedy help would have gone to the bottom a fate which later befell some of the valises. On Sept. 9 the travellers, riding through fog and over mountains, reached Morbegno, the first town of the Grisons. Here they found an excellent inn, and consumed some large and very good trout and slept the night, depart- ing the next day in the direction of Spliigen. At Chiavenna the inn was sumptuous beyond measure, but the travellers' satisfaction was short-lived. The road tending westward narrowed into tunnels and passes " down which from their pastures came the cattle of the country, in number exceeding

London is contained in ' Venetian Transcripts,'
 * The narrative of the journey from Venice to

vol. cxlii. pp. 1-46.