biographer, "without doubt distracted them from the sad thoughts that assailed them on their way to exile." But it is to be feared that this is an anachronism. The snow-capped mountains, the pine-clad valleys, the precipices, the tumbling waters, and the craggy peaks, were all there then as picturesque-hunting tourists find them now. But men, Italians especially, did not admire such things in the fifteenth century. They only saw "inhospitalem Caucasum" in such scenes. And to our little party it was Caucasus infested with ravening bishops and their officials, with men-at-arms and camp-followers. Under which circumstances it is to be feared that they took small comfort from any appreciation of the picturesque.

But the mountains and all their dangers were happily passed, and the hospitable roof of warmhearted George Hermann in the good city of Augsburg safely reached by the three travellers about the middle of the year 1551.

CHAPTER VII.

At Augsburg, and at Würzburg.

AUGSBURG, in the middle of the sixteenth century, had a fair claim to be entitled the Athens of the North. Among the cities of Germany it held a place similar to that occupied by Florence among those of Italy. And in both instances the primacy attained in arts and letters had depended on the fostering hand of successful commerce. That which the Medici had done for Florence, the Fugger family had done for Augsburg. The latter name has not at the present day the worldwide celebrity of the former. But then the Fuggers never exalted themselves to sovereignty on the ruin of their country; and flunkeydom has accordingly less assiduously embalmed their memory.

In the sixteenth century, however, their name was celebrated throughout Europe. Rabelais, writing from Rome to the Bishop of Maillezais in the year 1536, tells him that Philip Strozzi was esteemed the richest merchant in Christendom, with the sole exception of the Fuggers. Charles V. was their guest when at Augsburg; and an anecdote has been preserved of the fire in the imperial bedchamber under their roof having been made of a faggot of cinnamon, lighted with an I. O. U. of his majesty's to a large amount. It is true that the cinnamon may probably have been the more costly part of the sacrifice. Towards the end of the

century Dominick Custos, an engraver of Antwerp, published a magnificent folio volume of a hundred and twenty-seven portraits, "Fuggerorum et Fuggerarum ;' a somewhat cacophonous title, the strange sound of which has amusingly caused the book to be classed in more than one catalogue by un-historical bibliopoles among botanical works, under the impression that the ladies and gentlemen of the great merchant family were specimens of ferns.

When Olympia was at Augsburg, the heads of the family were the brothers Anthony and Raymond Fugger. A contemporary* writer has left us a curious account of the magnificence of their residence. He speaks of the abundance of pictures by the great Italian masters; of a large collection of portraits by Lucas Cranach; and especially of a most extensive museum of antiquities, mosaics and statues in bronze and marble; -" all the divinities of Olympus, Jove with his thunderbolt, Neptune with his trident, Pallas with her ægis." He mentions also a collection of medals occupying one The number of fragments of antique sculpture was wonderful. "We stood long in admiration before a head of the God of Sleep, crowned with poppies, and having the eyes closed. We saw several heads of Bacchus of colossal size, ornamented with ivy and vineleaves. We were told that these remains of antiquity had been brought together from nearly every part of the world, but chiefly from Greece and Sicily. For Raymond, though but very slightly tinctured with learning himself-litterarum minime expers,-has so great a love for antiquity, that he grudges no expense for the pleasure of possessing these things; which

room.

* Beatus Rhenanus in a letter, which is the 50th of the century of Epist. Philolog. published by Goldust.

indicates the truly noble and generous character of the man." He possessed also, despite his want of erudition, a library, of which the librarian, Jerome Wolff, declared in Greek verse, that it contained more books than there were stars in the heavens; * and he commissioned men who had the learning he wanted, to compile a collection of ancient inscriptions, which was published in folio at Ingoldstadt in 1534. †

It was to this munificent Raymond Fugger that Olympia had charged her friend John Sinapi to present a volume of her verses. As they were of course written in Greek or Latin, we must suppose, unless, indeed, the "minime expers " of Rhenatus is to be very widely understood, that the Augsburg Mæcenas could not read a word of them. Moreover, the wealthy and worthy merchant would seem to have been far from coming up to Olympia's standard in matters of religion. For the Fuggers were among those to whom Charles committed the government of Augsburg, when he turned out the old municipality; and all those so appointed, we are told, swore to observe the papistical Interim. We are driven, therefore, to the conclusion, that the religious world of the fifteenth century was so totally dissimilar from that of the nineteenth, as not to be extreme to mark the backslidings of men whose position, like that of Raymond Fugger, put "so large a power for good" into their hands.

We have no means of knowing whether the presentation of the poems to the great merchant was followed by any special result. But that the reception of the wanderers at Augsburg generally was flattering and

VOL. II.

*

Bayle, Art. Fugger. Note C. + Bonnet, Vie d'Olymp. p. 93.

L

satisfactory is recorded in a letter* from Olympia to Gregorio Giraldi, the gouty old friend, now drawing very near his end, who used to write verses to her in her girlhood. "We are still," she writes, "with our excellent friend; and I am delighted with my stay here. I pass my entire day in literary pursuits-me cum Musis delecto;—and have no business to draw me away from them. I also apply myself to the study of Holy Writ, which is so productive of peace and contentment. Nothing can be more favourable than the reception my husband has met with in this town. Our affairs are looking well, and, by God's help, will have a happy issue."

A few months before the date of this letter, while Olympia was pining on account of her husband's absence, she spoke in her dialogue with Lavinia della Rovere, of her regrets at having "intoxicated herself with the poison" of the classical writers. And now we find her again "delighting herself with the Muses." The compatibility of classical studies with a strictly Christian tone and habit of thought and feeling, which many religionists have decided in the negative, seems to have been mooted by Olympia, and by the advice of her learned and devout friends affirmed. For in a letter to Curione written about this time, she says that "since pious men approve it," she will continue her classical studies and writings.

But it would seem, that these "delights with the Muses," however classical, were henceforward for the most part religious in their nature. For almost all that remains of her composition subsequent to this

* The 19th of the collection, as printed at Bâle, in 1570. But neither the dates affixed to these letters, nor the order in which they are printed, are correct.