To the Author [Thomas Coryat]

INCIPIT JOANNES DONES.

LO here’s a man, worthy indeed to travel

Fat Libyan plains, strangest China’s gravel,

For Europe well hath seen him stir his stumps,

Turning his double shoes to simple pumps;

And for relation, look he doth afford

Almost for every step he took a word.

What had he done, had he ere hugg’d th’ ocean

With swimming Drake or famous Magellan;

And kiss’d that unturn’d cheek of our old mother,

Since so our Europe’s world he can discover.

It’s not that French which made his giant see

Those uncouth islands where words frozen be,

Till by the thaw next year they’re voiced again,

When Papagauts, Andouilets and that train

Should be such matter for a Pope to curse,

As he would make; make! makes ten times worse,

And yet so pleasing as shall laughter move,

And be his vein, his gain, his praise, his love.

Sit not still then, keeping fame’s trump unblown,

But get thee, Coryat, to some land unknown;

From whence proclaim thy wisdom with those wonders

Rarer than summer’s snows or winter’s thunders,

And take this praise of that th’ hast done already;

’Tis pity e’er thy flow should have an eddy.

EXPLICIT JOANNES DONES.