Читать книгу Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681 онлайн

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Though Covel devoted some attention to archaeology, it was with a lack of interest which he is at no pains to conceal. He could hardly express his scorn for the “whiflers” who came out of England and France and careered over the Ottoman Empire buying or stealing classical antiques. The lore he really loved was folklore: Greek legends, Turkish songs, living superstitions. If we except manuscripts dealing with early Heresies, for which he had a passion (even the sanest of us are mad), the Rev. John only collected curios that appealed to his sense of the beautiful—if he came across them cheap. For the same reason he had an appreciative eye for costumes, jewels, carpets, and other articles of personal or domestic adornment: they all served to make life pleasant. On all these topics our Chaplain would talk and scribble with unflagging volubility—“at full gallop,” to use his own racy simile—repeating himself, digressing, returning to the subject, straying from it again, losing himself in a labyrinth of minute irrelevancies. Fond of shooting and riding, a friend of gay young men and no enemy to gay young women, especially pretty ones, the Rev. John was immensely popular with our factors, who found in him a “papas”ssss1 after their own hearts.