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From thence, on March 7th, 1609, he set out on foot for Italy, and in forty days, passing through Savoy, and over the Alps, arrived at Rome. There probably being too free and unguarded in his speech, and not observing the advice given to Milton by Sir Henry Wotton, I pensieri stretti, ed il visa sciolto; after a stay of twenty-eight days he could not have escaped the “blood-sucking inquisitors,” most of whom were his own countrymen, had it not been for the assistance of Robert Meggat, a Scotsman also, then resident in Burgo di Roma, with the old Earl of Tyrone, who concealed him three days at the top of his lord’s palace, and on the fourth at midnight, when all the streets and gates were watched for him, conveyed him away, and leapt the wall with him. He then visited Naples, Virgil’s tomb, &c; Having walked four times from one end of Italy to the other, viz. from Vallais, the first town in Piedmont, to Cape Blanche in Calabria, he affirms it to be 900 Italian miles in length, and in breadth 240, from the Adriatic coast to the Riviera of Genoa, by the sea-side, Campagna di Roma,and the duchy of Spoleto, he returned to Loretto. Here he met with a countryman named Mr James Arthur, whose company was most acceptable to him. One day, as they were viewing the image of the virgin, a lusty young woman, busy at her beads, overpowered by the
