William Lithgow (traveller and author)

William Lithgow (1582–1645) was a Scottish traveller and author.

The science of the world ... is onely acquisted by conversation, and haunting the company of the most experimented; ... and above all, and principally by Travellers, and Voyagers ... whose experience confirmeth the true Science thereof.

And loe here is mine Effigie affixed with my Turkish habit, my walking staffe, & my Turban upon my head, even as I travelled in the bounds of Troy, and so through all Turkey.

Quotes

The Totall Discourse of The Rare Adventures & Painefull Peregrinations of long Nineteene Yeares Travayles from Scotland to the most famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affrica (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906)

• May not the scelerate hands of foure blood-shedding wolves facily devoure, and shake a peeces, one silly stragling lambe?
  • II, 72

• And loe here is mine Effigie affixed with my Turkish habit, my walking staffe, & my Turban upon my head, even as I travelled in the bounds of Troy, and so through all Turkey: Before my face on the right hand standeth the Easterne and sole gate of that sometimes noble City, with a piece of a high wall, as yet undecayed: And without this Port runneth the River Simois (inclosing the old Grecian Campe) downe to the Marine, where it imbraceth the Sea Propontis: A little below, are bunches of grapes, denoting the vineyards of this fructiferous place; adjoyning neare to the fragments and ruynes of Priams Pallace, surnamed Ilium: And next to it a ravenous Eagle, for so this part of Phrigia is full of them: So beneath my feet ly the two Tombes of Priamus & Hecuba his Queene: And under them the incircling hills of Ida, at the West South west end of this once Regall Towne; & at my left hand, the delicious and pleasant fields of Olives and Figge-trees, wherewith the bowells of this famous soyle are interlarded.
  • III, 123

• As for the science Practique, it doth first imbrace the Morall that some divide in three, to wit, Ethique, that doth forme the manners of one man, Secondly in Ecoenomick, that doth dispose the actions domesticke: The third in Politicque, that comprehend the actions Civill; concerning the government of Common-wealths, which containeth under it the whole science of right civilitie. And with Practique, is also placed Dialectique, the Art of memory, the Grammar, the Rhetorique, to which also may be joyned the Art Poetique, and of Histories. But for their particular divisions I am not prolixious, as inutile to my designe in hand; divers dedicate themselves to the knowledge of these sciences, not knowing that they forget the most necessary, to wit, the science of the world.
  ... This science is onely acquisted by conversation, and haunting the company of the most experimented: by divers discourses, reports, by writs, or by a lively voyce, in communicating with strangers; and in the judicious consideration of the fashion of the living one with another. And above all, and principally by Travellers, and Voyagers in divers Regions, and remote places, whose experience confirmeth the true Science thereof; and can best draw the anatomy of humane condition.
  • VIII, 341

Bibliography

• The Pilgrimes Farewell, to his Native Country of Scotland (1618)
• A Most Delectable and True Discourse, of an Admired and Painefull Peregrination (1614, reissued 1616; new, expanded edition, 1623)
• Purchas his Pilgrimes … the Second Part (1625)
• The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Travayles (1632)
• The Gushing Teares of Godly Sorrow (1640)