with your book-learning, your orbs, your centres, your prime
magnitudes, and your nebulones, things I profess that would make
a sober man run stark mad to hear them; while we, who should be
considering the honor of our country and that it goes now or
never upon our hand, whether it shall be ridiculous to all the
world, are going to nine-holes or trow madam for our business,
like your dumb Venetian, whom this same Sir Politic your
resident, that never saw him do anything but make faces, would
insinuate to you, at this distance, to have the only knack of
state. Whereas if you should take the pains, as I have done, to
look a little nearer, you would find these same wonderful things
to be nothing else but mere natural fopperies, or capriccios as
they call them in Italian, even of the meanest, of that nation.
For, put the case you be travelling in Italy, ask your contadino,
that is, the next country-fellow you meet, some question, and
presently he ballots you an answer with a nod, which is
affirmative; or a shake with his head, which is the negative box;
or a shrug with his shoulder, which is the bossolo di non
sinceri. Good! You will admire Sandys for telling you, that
grotta di cane is a miracle: and I shall be laughed at, for
assuring you, that it is nothing else but such a damp (continued
by the neighborhood of certain sulphur mines) as through
accidental heat does sometimes happen in our coalpits. But
ingratitude must not discourage an honest man from doing good.
There is not, I say, such a tongue-tied generation under heaven
as your Italian, that you should not wonder if he makes signs.
But our people must have something in their diurnals; we must
ever and anon be telling them our minds; or if we be at it when
we raise taxes, like those gentlemen with the finger and the
thumb, they will swear that we are cutpurses. Come, I know what I