BIB_ID
106465
Accession number
MA 9025
Creator
Bodley, Thomas, Sir, 1545-1613.
Display Date
[1589-1596] May 27.
Credit line
Purchased, 1950.
Description
1 item (2 pages, with address) ; 30.3 x 19.9 cm
Notes
Formerly accessioned as MA 1346.
Address panel to "Al molto mag. Sig're / il Sig're Huygens Segre- / tario dello stato delle / Province Unite nel / paese basso."
Housed with an English transcription from which the summary shown below is quoted.
The year of writing is not provided however Bodley was representing Queen Elizabeth at the Hague from late 1588 until early 1597.
Christiaan Huygens was serving as Secretary of the Council of State of the United Provinces.
Address panel to "Al molto mag. Sig're / il Sig're Huygens Segre- / tario dello stato delle / Province Unite nel / paese basso."
Housed with an English transcription from which the summary shown below is quoted.
The year of writing is not provided however Bodley was representing Queen Elizabeth at the Hague from late 1588 until early 1597.
Christiaan Huygens was serving as Secretary of the Council of State of the United Provinces.
Provenance
Purchased from Rosenbach Co., 1950; formerly in the collection of Alfred Morrison and sold at auction by Sotheby's, London on December 10, 1917, lot 92.
Summary
Bodley compliments him upon his knowledge of Italian saying "...I blushed extremely at my having been your master in it once: if indeed one ought to call him master who only for pastime made you a sharer of his teaching. But it may be, as indeed one wishes, fortunate for me that by laughing about things, I have brought forth the good fruit of an advance in earnest. Because as for the language you know little less than a Florentine or German, and to tell you the truth twice as much as I, that I cannot wonder at it sufficiently. But do you wish me to tell you what is not true? For more than ten years I have not written a single letter in the vulgar tongue and for this reason I beg you not to ridicule this poor little one if it speaks to you rather haltingly: enough that it speaks to you most heartily, as it certainly does, thank you a thousand times for your affection, borne me in the beginning and continued until now...I most certainly by myself shall not cease to do all that is convenient to one like myself and I am staying here at present waiting until I am informed of her Majesty's intentions concerning the reply which the States have already dispatched to her."
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