Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c.Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
History
Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c.
Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
Turkey -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
I shall detain you no longer than to give you some Account of our
Prince’s private Deportment. He rises every Day at Five o’Clock in the
Morning, even in the coldest Winter Months; and first, he performs his
Devotion to God, then he goes to the Council to consult of Matters
tending to the Public Good, ’till Dinner-time; he follows the same Course
in the Afternoon, till Supper-time; I mean the Time of his Counsellors
Supper, not his own: he never sups, he eats but once a Day, and that
sparingly too; and is as abstemious in Drinking; he closes his Dinner
with a double Glass of Wine: He passes the Night chastly, ever since
the Loss of his Royal Consort: He cannot endure the trifling Amusements
which many are taken with, and will have nothing to do with Jesters,
Jugglers, Buffoons, Parasites, the common Delights, and yet Plagues, of
Courts. He hates Idleness, is a very great Husband of his Time; if he has
any to spare from public Business, which but rarely happens, he spends
it in Conferences with good and learned Men, who (as I told you before)
are his chief Delight, and usual Attendants whilst he is at Dinner. I
believe that several of the Commons would not change their Life for his,
’tis so thrifty and severe: What Man is there that does not set apart
some small Portion of his Time to indulge himself? Who would willingly
deprive himself of all Delights? To whom would it not seem irksom to grow
old in perpetual Care and Business. This looks more like Servitude than
Sovereignty: But our Prince is of another Mind; neither doth he dissemble
it in his ordinary Discourse: He says, he was advanced to so great an
Office by God, not for his own Sake; that the Reins of Government were
not put into his Hands, to wallow in Pleasures and Delights: The case of
Succession in Kingdoms and Empires differs from the Condition of private
Inheritances; in these latter, no Man is denied to indulge himself in the
Conveniencies of his Patrimony. But so many Nations are intrusted to him
by God, that he might have the Care and Labour, and they the Benefit of
his Care, so as to obtain Rest and Quiet by his Sweat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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