The
exaggeration which from love of importance inflated the narratives, the
poets also take note of. There was also a universal taste for hazard in
money as well as in travel, for putting it out on risks at exorbitant
interest, and the habit of gaming reached prodigious excess. The passion
for sudden wealth was fired by the success of the sea-rovers, news of
which inflamed the imagination. Samuel Kiechel, a merchant of Ulm, who
was in London in 1585, records that, "news arrived of a Spanish ship
captured by Drake, in which it was said there were two millions of
uncoined gold and silver in ingots, fifty thousand crowns in coined
reals, seven thousand hides, four chests of pearls, each containing two
bushels, and some sacks of cochineal--the whole valued at twenty-five
barrels of gold; it was said to be one year and a half's tribute from
Peru."
The passion for travel was at such a height that those who were unable to
accomplish distant journeys, but had only crossed over into France and
Italy, gave themselves great airs on their return. "Farewell, monsieur
traveler," says Shakespeare; "look, you lisp, and wear strange suits;
disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your
nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are,
or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola." The Londoners dearly
loved gossip, and indulged in exaggeration of speech and high-flown
compliment.
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