I tarried at Milan the rest of the winter, both for the recovery of my
health, and also for supplies from England.

Here it was I first heard the name of Gustavus Adolphus, the king of
Sweden, who now began his war with the emperor; and while the king
of France was at Lyons, the league with Sweden was made, in which the
French contributed 1,200,000 crowns in money, and 600,000 per annum
to the attempt of Gustavus Adolphus. About this time he landed in
Pomerania, took the towns of Stettin and Stralsund, and from thence
proceeded in that prodigious manner of which I shall have occasion to
be very particular in the prosecution of these Memoirs.

I had indeed no thoughts of seeing that king or his armies. I had
been so roughly handled already, that I had given over the thoughts
of appearing among the fighting people, and resolved in the spring
to pursue my journey to Venice, and so for the rest of Italy. Yet
I cannot deny that as every Gazette gave us some accounts of the
conquests and victories of this glorious prince, it prepossessed my
thoughts with secret wishes of seeing him, but these were so young
and unsettled, that I drew no resolutions from them for a long while
after.

About the middle of January I left Milan and came to Genoa, from
thence by sea to Leghorn, then to Naples, Rome, and Venice, but saw
nothing in Italy that gave me any diversion.

As for what is modern, I saw nothing but lewdness, private murders,
stabbing men at the corner of a street, or in the dark, hiring of
bravos, and the like. These were to me the modern excellencies of