human wit and industry, thought I,may be no ways ftriking (like St. Paul's cathedral and Weftminfter abbey) to thofe who see them every day-but to me, who I confefs had but very imperfect ideas of fuch perfect works, they appear great, immense, aftonishing!

If any thing can favour the defcription more, which I have given of the pleasure and fatisfaction arifing from this water-conveyance, give me leave to add, that it is the entire fecurity you enjoy as to your person and goods.People who are naturally fearful of the water, may reft as well fatisfied as if in their own chambers; the apparent poffibility of any danger being cut off

Those who are negligent of their concerns, need not be under any pain on account of their carelessness, provided they are fure that they dropt, or left any thing in the barge.

In a Gravefend boat, or a London hackney-coach, if a paffenger should leave any thing behind him, 'tis a hundred to one if he recovered it from the moment he turned his back-but there it is far otherwife, for if one of the company should chance to forget a parcel, or drop his purfe, or his watch, or a diamond ring from off his finger, he would be fure to find it a month afterwards.

The Flemings, even the meaneft of them, are honeft-but the mafter of a barge, or a coach is unexceptionably fo -a ftranger may always leave it to one of those people to pay himself, and there is no danger of his taking a farthing more than his due.

The paffage from Oftende to Bruges is called four hours, or leagues; for throughout the Netherlands diftance is

com

computed by time—but having a fair wind, we performed it in about twe hours and a half.

CHAP. XIII.

Somewhat about TOM CORIAT; and of the Advantage of talking Latin.

Am but a poor fcholar, God help

IAm

me! my old namefake, honeft TOM CORIAT, was a very great onehonest Tom! who was certainly ́a wifer man than the world thought him; and a better, than many of those that laughed at him-who not contented with being laughed at, at home, chofe to take great ftrides * upon the continents of EUROPE and ASIA, and' doubtless fet folks a tittering wherever he went.

He traverfed a great part of EUROPE and ABIA on foot.

TOM

A

Tom poffeft one part of Falstaffe's character in a very eminent degree; and if he was not over-witty himself, he was the true caufe that wit was in ather men

TOM was the jig-maker of the courtthe vice of every comedy, and the punch of every puppet-fhew of his time; whether acted by lords and ladies at Saint James's, by aldermen and their wives in their Guildhall, by poets and their punks in taverns, or by grave heads of houfes and their fellows in the univerfities.

i Poor Tom! as many of us know, lived about a hundred and fifty years fince when, or where, or in what manner he died, nobody can tell with any certainty.

See the verfes, fome of which are incompara bly humourous, prefixed to his Crudities, 4to. Lond 1611 or a re-publication of the fame with addi tions, under the title of The Odccmbian Banquet; difhed forth by Themas the Coriat, 4to. 1611-Alfo the works of John Taylor, the Water Poct, fol. Lond. 1639.

TOM.

TOM was a great Grecian, and little lefs a Latinift:-and indeed the knowledge of fome one or two more, befides the mother tongue is abfolutely neceffary in travelling:-more efpecially if your mother happened to be an Englishwoman, or a Dutch-woman, a Dane, a Norwegian, or a Laplander; a Swede, a Rufs, or a Pole with fome others that I could name, if I was at leifure: though I ought to beg pardon for the two laft-mentioned, they being both dialects of the Sclavonic, which is spoken by more nations and countries than I shall enumerate at this time; or indeed than any other European language:but for the reft, they are abfolutely fettered down to their own particular diftricts and provinces.

If your mother happened to be a German, you might then traverse a vast tract of country, and pafs for an intelligible creature:-but if a Swifs, fo much.

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