Note 33 — Chapter VI · THE BERGAMASQUE MOUNTAINS.

Unless indeed we take him to task for a passage found, of all odd places, in an answer to a Chancery Bill filed by a certain 'vilipendious linendraper,' to restrain him from common law proceedings for the recovery of a debt. His 'versute adversarie,' amongst other impertinent matters, seems to have inserted allegations as to the 'smallnesse and commonnesse' of Coryat's voyage. The enraged traveller retorts, with an eloquence seldom reached by modern pleaders, 'has he not walked above the clouds over hils that are at least 7 miles high? For indeed so high is the mountaine Cenys, the danger of which is such, that if in some places the traveller should but trip aside in certaine narrow wayes that are scarcely a yard broade, he is precipitated into a very Stygian barathrum, or Tartarean lake, six times deeper than Paul's tower is high.' Has he not 'continually stood in feare of the Alpine cut-throats called the Bandits?'