No More Learning

But,
both before and after his story, he gives vent to violent de-
nunciation of the Spaniards, at all times the object of his bitterest
hatred. He speaks of 'their frivolouse vain glorious taunts' as
opposed to the 'honorable actions' characteristic of the English.
It seems to have been this kind of language which counted as
patriotism in Elizabethan days, and helped to give Ralegh his
high reputation as a lover of his country. The account ends with
a touch of poetry when, after describing the terrible storm which
followed the fight of The Revenge and caused the destruction of
many ships, he says : 'So it pleased them to honor the buriall of
that renowned ship the Revenge, not suffering her to perish alone,
for the great honour she achieved in her life time. '
It was partly his natural love of adventure, partly his desire to
regain the favour at court which he had temporarily lost, that led
Ralegh to undertake his first expedition to Guiana, in 1595.
When he returned, full of tales of what he had seen, his enemies
attempted to cast discredit on him by asserting that he had never
been to Guiana at all. To defend himself, he at once wrote
an account of his Discovery of the large, rich and beautiful
Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden city
of Manoa. This appeared in 1596, with a dedication to ‘my
singular good Lord and kinsman Charles Howard and to the
Rt. Hon. Sir Robt. Cecil'; in which Ralegh says that in his
>


## p. 57 (#79) ##############################################

Guiana
57
discourse he has 'neither studied phrase, forme, nor fashion. ' The
simple story of his stirring adventures, told in pure and nervous
English, won immediate popularity, and was translated into
German, Dutch and Latin, running through many editions. His
sentences are long and sometimes involved, but he tells his story
admirably and his adventures live, whilst his descriptions of
scenery are graceful and attractive, and he urges the advantages
of the colonisation of Guiana in glowing and eloquent words. His
allusions to the tales that the natives told him of tribes of
Amazons, and other strange beings, led Hume to characterise
his whole narrative as 'full of the grossest and most palpable
lies'; a criticism which his most careful editor, Sir Robert
Schomburgh, who has himself visited Guiana, says 'we can now
regard with a smile. ' Besides these two tracts, nothing was
published by Ralegh during the reign of Elizabeth, though one or
two of his letters, especially that written to Robert Cecil on the
death of his wife, in 1596, and the one giving A relation of the
Cadiz Action, in the same year, well deserve to be counted
amongst literary productions. In the letter to Cecil, we find these
fine words:
The minde of man is that part of God which is in us, which, by how mich
it is subject to passion, by 80 mich it is farther from Hyme that gave it us.
Sorrows draw not the dead to life, but the livinge to death.
Ralegh’s life of stir and adventure, his enjoyment and hope of
court favour, all came to an end with the death of Elizabeth and
the accession of James I. He found himself, only just reprieved
from the scaffold, a prisoner in the Tower, the victim of the
prejudice and suspicions of the king. Conscious of the falseness
of the accusation of treason upon which he had been convicted,
still full of schemes of active enterprise and, especially, of the idea
that he would be able to win for England a possession of boundless
wealth in Guiana, he could not, at first, believe that his captivity
would last. But, as his hopes of a speedy release slowly passed
away, it became more and more necessary for him to use his
energies in work of some kind. For the most part, the conditions
of his captivity were not rigorous. He had rooms in the Bloody
Tower, with sufficient accommodation to enable his wife and son
to be with him. His friends visited him freely. His rooms opened
out on a terrace, where he could take exercise, and below was
a little garden, where he was allowed to turn a former hen-house
into a laboratory for the chemical experiments in which he
delighted. At first, it was to his scientific studies that he devoted


## p. 58 (#80) ##############################################

58
Sir Walter Ralegh
1
1
2
1
.
most of his time. But he also wrote a great deal. Prince Henry,
the promising eldest son of James I, was a great admirer of
Ralegh and declared that no one but his father would keep such
a bird in such a cage. He was only a boy of nine when Ralegh
was committed to the Tower, but he had always loved the society
of those older than himself, and, as time went on, he consulted
Ralegh on many points that interested him, especially on naval
and military matters. Several of the papers which Ralegh wrote
in the Tower were composed specially for prince Henry. Among
others, there is a treatise called Observations concerning the
Royal Navy and Sea Service, which is full of interest as throwing
light on the condition of the ships by means of which the great
Elizabethan seamen carried out their famous exploits. When
there was a proposal, very distasteful to prince Henry, to arrange
a marriage between him and a daughter of the house of Savoy,
Ralegh wrote a vigorous treatise in which he clearly pointed out
the disadvantages of the match. It was also for prince Henry
that he planned his greatest work, The History of the World.
It is a testimony to the extent of Ralegh's belief in himself as
well as to the soaring nature of his imagination, that he, a prisoner
in the Tower, in broken health and already over fifty years of age,
should have projected a work of such gigantic scope. History, as
a branch of literature, did not then exist in England ; indeed,
except for the work of the antiquaries, the Elizabethan age is
specially poor in historical work of any kind. The age of the
great chroniclers was over. There were some writers of historical
poems, some annalists, many industrious antiquaries. But the
annalists and the antiquaries still wrote in Latin. Only Richard
Knolles had produced his General Historie of the Turkes, published
in 1603, and John Speed a Historie of Great Britaine, published
in 1611, in English. Ralegh's plan was on an entirely different
scale from anything that had been dreamt of before. He wished
to bring the history of the past together, to treat it as a whole, to
use it as an introduction to the history of his own country; and his
great book was to be for the people, not only for the learned. It
was written in the pure strong English of which he had such easy
command. Not quite free yet from the habit of using too long
sentences which, sometimes, have a tendency to become involved,
he is free from elaborate and fanciful conceits. The subject seems
to command the style. He can tell a story well, he can sketch
a character with force and vigour. He shows at least some sense
of the unity of history, for the motives of men in the past are judged


## p. 59 (#81) ##############################################

The History of the World 59
by him in the same way as the motives of men in the present,
and, at all events when he began, his intention was to lead up
from the past to the present. But, though he had the mind to
conceive a work on such a vast scale, he had not the experience
or the training to enable him to plan it out in such a way that,
under any circumstances, it would have been possible to complete
it. The large folio which he did complete, and which consisted of
five books, began with the Creation and reached only to 130 B. C. ,
when Macedonia became a Roman province. He projected two
other folio volumes, but these do not seem even to have been
begun. After the publication of the first volume, his mind was
diverted to other schemes, to his hope of regaining his liberty and
accomplishing a second voyage to Guiana. The death of prince
Henry, in 1612, also deprived him of one of his chief motives for
writing the history.
We do not know in what year he actually began to write, but,
on 15 April 1611, notice was given in the registers of the
Stationers' company of 'The History of the World written by
Sir Walter Rawleighe. '
It was published, according to Camden, on 29 March 1614;
but it is possible that it may not really have been published till
the beginning of 1615. Many scholars and learned men were
ready to help him in his work. Sir Robert Cotton freely lent him
books from his great library. Robert Burhill, a divine of wide
learning and acquainted with Greek and Hebrew, languages
unknown to Ralegh, was frequently consulted by him. John
Hoskins, a wit and scholar and also a prisoner in the Tower for
a supposed libel on James I, is credited, by tradition, with having
revised the book for him. The fact that Ben Jonson was, also, for
a short time a fellow prisoner in the Tower, and was known to
have been connected with Ralegh, led some to believe his boasts,
made some years later over his cups, that he had contributed
considerable portions of the History. But there is no evidence
for these assertions, which rest only on his own word.
In his search for accuracy, Ralegh frequently consulted Thomas
Harriot the mathematician, an old friend of his, on points of
chronology and geography. But, though no doubt he profited
by the advice and learning of his friends, no one can read the
History without feeling that it is the work of one man, inspired
by one mind and purpose. Moreover, though he naturally read
and studied much specially for it during his years in the Tower,
we see in it also the result of the reading of his whole life. In
The History of the World, as well as in his occasional writings,


## p. 60 (#82) ##############################################

60
Sir Walter Ralegh
L.
1
Schol
11
1
1
1
we are struck with the freedom with which Ralegh handles his
material, with the ready hold that he has on the resources of
his vast reading. About the middle of the nineteenth century,
some old books, amongst them Peter Comestor's Historia
tica, were found behind the wainscot of a room in Ralegh's
favourite Irish house at Youghal. Comestor is one of the authors
quoted by Ralegh, and, though it is possible that these old books
were placed in their hiding-place before his day, yet it is by no
means improbable that his study of Comestor may have begun
at Youghal during the months he spent in Ireland. It has been
computed that six hundred and sixty authors are cited by him in
his History, and there exists a letter to Cotton asking for the loan
of thirteen books, none of which is included amongst the works of
the six hundred and sixty authors quoted.
In writing his history, Ralegh was inspired by a distinct
purpose. He says in his preface, that he wishes to show God's
judgment on the wicked ; to him all history was a revelation
of God's ways.
His preface is to us now, perhaps, the most
interesting part of the book. In it he runs through, and passes
judgment upon, the kings of England from the time of the
Conquest, then makes a rapid survey of the history of France
and of Spain. From the teaching of history he draws his philosophy
of life :
For seeing God, who is the author of all our tragedies hath written out for
us and appointed us all the parts we are to play; and hath not, in their
distribution been partial to the most mighty princes of the world . . . why
should other men, who are but as the least worms, complain of wrongs ?
Certainly there is no other account to be made of this ridiculous world, than
to resolve, that the change of fortune on the great theatre is but the change
of garments on the less : for when on the one and the other, every man wears
but his own skin, the players are all alike.
As we think of the picture of his own times, of the account
of Elizabeth and her court, of the stirring tales of adventure that
the ready pen and quick insight of Ralegh might have given us
had he spent his time in prison in writing his own memoirs, we
can but be filled with regret that he should have chosen, instead,
to have written long chapters on the Creation, the site of the
garden of Eden, the ages of the patriarchs. But Ralegh had
not done with life, his ambitious, restless spirit still aspired to
play a part in the world outside and his book was intended to
add to his friends, not to his enemies. In his preface, he explains
his choice of subject :
I know that it will be said by many, that I might have been more pleasing
to the reader, if I had written the story of mine own times. . . . To this I answer,
1


## p. 61 (#83) ##############################################

The History of the World
61
that whosoever in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the
heels, it may happily strike out his teeth. There is no mistress or guide that
hath led her followers and servants into greater miseries. . . . It is true, that
I never travelled after men's opinions, when I might have made the best use
of them; and I have now too few days remaining to imitate those, that, either
out of extreme ambition or extreme cowardice, or both, do yet (when death
hath them on his shoulders) flatter the world between the bed and the grave.
It is enough for me (being in that state I am) to write of the eldest times;
wherein also, why may it not be said, that, in speaking of the past, I point
at the present, and tax the vices of those that are yet living in their persons
that are long since dead; and have it laid to my charge. But this I cannot
help, though innocent.
It is but seldom that he even illuminates his pages with any
illustrations drawn from his own experiences. Sometimes, he
indulges in a digression, as when he breaks forth into a disserta-
tion on the nature of law, after telling of the giving of the law to
Moses, or when, in a later book, he makes long dissertations on
the way to defend the coast, on the nature of government, on
mercenary soldiers, on the folly and wickedness of duels and the
false view of honour they involve. He has a long digression, also,
about the bands of Amazons, said to be living in the districts
round Guiana, and gives his reasons for believing in the possi-
bility of their existence.
The first two books of the History, containing twenty-eight
chapters, are occupied with an account of the Creation and the
history of the Jews. Side by side with that history, they give the
contemporary events in Greek mythology and Egyptian history.
The questions treated of, and the method of treating them, alike
show how different were the interests of his day and ours. His
discussion as to the nature of the two trees in the Garden of Eden
is enlivened by a description of Ficus Indica as he had seen it
in Trinidad, dropping its roots, or cords, into the sea ‘so as by
pulling up one of these cords out of the sea, I have seen five
hundred oysters hanging in a heap thereon. ' In none of Ralegh's
writings do we find any sign that he possessed a sense of humour;
had he done so, he would not, perhaps, have indulged in such an
elaborate disquisition as to the capacity of the ark to hold all the
animals which were driven into it. Naturally, no thought of
criticising the Bible narrative entered his mind, as he said 'Let us
build upon the scriptures themselves and after them upon reason
and nature. ' But there is some attempt at criticism in comparing
one author with another, some attempt to trace the development
of thought, and to bring things together, a remarkable feat in his
day, as we may realise when we remember that, before him, there


## p. 62 (#84) ##############################################

62
Sir Walter Ralegh
was practically no attempt at critical history in English. He was
much interested in questions of chronology, and provided his book
with elaborate chronological tables as well as with many maps.
But it is a relief when he passes from his discussions on chronology
to tell a story, such as the story of the Argonauts, which he does
simply and well.
The book moves more freely as he reaches Greek and Roman
times. The characters of some of the great men are given with
much insight and point, and he brings his commonsense to bear
in criticising the conduct of leaders and generals. As the book
goes on, his references to modern history in illustration of his
story grow more frequent. We feel that not only has he read
much, but that he has weighed and pondered what he has read
in the light of his own experience. In reflecting on the end of
Hannibal and Scipio, he says
Hence it comes, to wit from the envy of our equals, and jealousy of our
masters, be they kings or commonweals, that there is no profession more
unprosperous than that of men of war and great captains, being no kings. . . .
For the most of others whose virtues have raised them above the level of
their inferiors, and have surmounted their envy, yet have they been rewarded
in the end either with disgrace, banishment, or death.
Whenever he touches upon any matter of personal experience, the
interest at once quickens and the writing appears at its best.
War is always his main theme; to him, history is an account of
wars and conquests. Questions as to methods of government or
the social conditions of the people have little interest for him,
though he seems to see the importance of combining geography
with history by the descriptions he gives of the nature of the
countries, the towns and cities of which he writes. On the whole,
the best part of the book is his account of the Punic wars; there
he feels fully the interest of his story. Curiously enough, he misses
the tragic interest of the Athenian expedition to Sicily, which, in
his telling, he even manages to make dull.
Never does he lose sight of his moral purpose. His whole
object in writing was to teach a great moral : ‘it being the end
and scope of all history to teach by example of times past, such
wisdom as may guide our desires and actions. ' So he carries us
through the history of the three first Monarchies of the world';
leaving off when the fourth, Rome, was 'almost at the highest. '
He ends with these noble words on death:
0 eloquent, just and mighty death! Whom none could advise, thou hast
persuaded! What none have dared, thou hast done! And whom all the
world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised!


## p. 63 (#85) ##############################################

63
a
The History of the World
Thou hast drawn together all the far fetched greatness, all the pride, cruelty
and ambition of men; and covered it all over with these two narrow words:
Hic jacet.
Though, in his preface, Ralegh said of James I that
if all the malice of the world were infused into one eye, yet could it not
discern in his life, even to this day, any one of those foul spots, by which the
consciences of all the fore named princes (in effect) have been defiled; nor
any drop of that innocent blood on the sword of his justice, with which the
most that forewent him have stained both their hands and fame,
James I was displeased with the book. Perhaps he was clever
enough to discern the value of this fashionable language of
adulation; perhaps, as some said, he thought that Ralegh had
criticised too freely the character of Henry VIII, when he said
'if all the pictures and patterns of a merciless prince were lost in
the world, they might all again be painted out of the story of this
king. ' To the fanatical believer in the divine right of kings, any
censure of princes was, in itself, a crime. James appears, in
consequence, to have tried to suppress the book. In a letter
written to Venice on 5 January 1615, it is said, “Sir Walter
Ralegh's book is called in by the King's commandment, for divers
exceptions, but specially for being too saucy in censuring princes. '
There is, also, a letter from the archbishop of Canterbury, dated
22 December 1614, to the Stationers' company, saying that he
had received 'expresse directions from his Majestie that the book
latelie published by Sr Walter Rawleigh, nowe prisoner in the
Tower, should be suppressed and not suffered for hereafter to be
sould. ' The book mentioned in this letter can be none other but
the History. But the suppression seems not to have been carried
out; at any rate, the royal command did not affect the distribution
of the book. The first two editions appeared anonymously without
any title-page, but with an elaborate allegorical frontispiece,
representing Magister Vitae, standing on Death represented by a
skeleton, and Oblivion as a man asleep. Experience, as an old
woman, and Truth as a young woman, hold aloft a globe, on one
side of which fama bona and, on the other, fama mala are blowing
trumpets. On the other page is a sonnet, presumably by Ben
Jonson, as he afterwards published it under his name, containing
these lines
From death and dark Oblivion (neere the same)
The Mistresse of Man's life, grave Historie
Raising the world to good or Evill fame
Doth vindicate it to Æternitie.
The book seems to have been immediately popular. From
1614 to 1678, ten separate folio editions of it appeared, and of the


## p. 64 (#86) ##############################################

64
Sir Walter Ralegh
first edition, certainly, and probably of others, there were several
distinct issues. For the first time, English readers could enjoy an
account of the Persian, Greek and Punic wars, written in the
finest prose, as well as learned and yet popular discussions of
those questions of biblical history and chronology wbich then
interested the reading public. Wilson, in his life of James I,
written in 1653, says 'Rawleigh while he was a Prisoner, having
the Idea of the World in his contemplation, brought it to some
perfection in his excellent and incomparable history. The moral
purpose of the book also commended it to many.
It was a
favourite book amongst the puritans of the next generation.
Oliver Cromwell recommended it to his son Richard, saying,
‘Recreate yourself with Sir Walter Ralegh’s History; it is a body
of history, and will add much more to your understanding than
fragments of story. '
No doubt the popularity of the History was increased by the
sudden revulsion of feeling in favour of Ralegh, which was called
out by his tragic end, and the noble manner of his death. Men
were glad to find in it the mind of one of the most distinguished
amongst the soldiers and statesmen of the great days of Elizabeth.
Many of the reasons which led to the popularity of the History no
longer prevail with us. We value it, chiefly, as a noble monument
of Elizabethan prose, and as a revelation of the character and
mind of its author. But its place in the development of English
historical writing should not be overlooked.
None of the political treatises written by Ralegh during his
imprisonment were printed during his lifetime. The Prerogative
of Parliaments, written in 1615, was circulated in manuscript
copies and was presented to James I. In spite of the usual
adulatory preface, James was much displeased by this treatise,
which, in the form of a dialogue between a counsellor of state and
a justice of the peace, demonstrates the advantage of raising
money through parliament, instead of by benevolences and other
exceptional means. For his day, at least, Ralegh's views were
liberal—at any rate they were too liberal for James I. The
Prerogative of Parliaments was not printed till ten years later, at
Midelburge. ' The manuscript of The Cabinet Council, a treatise
on state-craft, passed into the hands of Milton, and was by him
published in 1658. Its numerous quotations from the classics
show the wide range of Ralegh's reading, and the treatment of the
subject, as well as many allusions, show his intimate acquaintance
with the writings of Machiavelli, The Maxims of State is a


## p. 65 (#87) ##############################################

Political Writings
65
We are
shorter treatise of somewhat the same kind, wise and sensible
enough, but, on the whole, it cannot be said that there is any
distinctive flavour or charm of style about these two treatises.
Ralegh's lack of humour gives a certain heaviness to his moral
and political writings. They are wanting in terse and epigrammatic
sayings, and give us the sense of being almost too wise.
tempted, as we read, to think that he followed too closely his own
precept, quoted in a paper called The Loyal Observer, printed in
the Harleian Miscellanies, 'It is an observation of judicious
Ralegh “Nothing is more an enemy to wisdom than drollery and
over sharpness of conceit. ” Ralegh's papers dealing with naval
and military affairs, such as A Discourse on War in General and
Observations on the Navy and Sea Service, are much more living
and full of interest, as written by a man having close personal
acquaintance with what he is writing about. A paper on Trade
and Commerce shows that he had studied modern conditions with
the same care as the history of the past. In the paper on A war
with Spain we have an interesting study of the relative strength
of the European powers at that time, bringing out the great
importance of the Dutch as a maritime power.
In all these occasional papers, we have constant evidence of
Ralegh’s wide knowledge, and of the way in which he had his
knowledge at his command. Always there is a remarkable
freedom in the use of historical allusions and illustrations.
The growing interest in Ralegh after his death led to the issue
of various collections of his shorter papers. The most popular of
these collections was The Remains of Sir Walter Ralegh, which
first appeared in 1651, and of which there are many subsequent
editions, varying slightly in their contents. Another interesting
sign of the popular feeling for him was a little tract of six pages,
which appeared in 1644, called To-day a man, To-morrow none,
or Sir Walter Rawleigh's Farewell to his Lady with his advice
concerning Her and her Sonne. Besides this last letter to his
wife, the tract contains the beautiful lines beginning ‘Like hermit
poor,' and the striking poem found in his Bible in the gate-house at
Westminster, written on 28 October 1618, the night before his
execution.
E. L. IV.
CH. 111.
5


## p. 66 (#88) ##############################################

CHAPTER IV
1
THE LITERATURE OF THE SEA
FROM THE ORIGINS TO HAKLUYT
है
THE great movement which stirred the minds of men in the
days of the renascence, born in a love of the intimate life of nature,
and in an abundant zeal for the glories of classic art and letters,
received a new impulse and was inspired with a fresh tendency
by the enlargement of the known world and a widening of the
horizon of the nations. There was an eager desire to learn more,
both of things at home and of the new lands which were being
disclosed by the enterprise of merchants and seamen. Curiosity
and patient zeal in search of the unknown began, indeed, at
home. We may read in The laboriouse Journey and Serche of
Johan Leylande—his new year's gift to Henry VIII—how he
had been possessed with such a desire to see the different parts
of the realm that there was
almost neyther cape nor baye, haven, creke or pere, ryver or confluence of
ryvers, breches, washes, lakes, meres, fenny waters, mountaynes, valleys,
mores, hethes, forestes, woodes, cyties, burges, castels, pryncypall manor
places, monasteryes, and colleges, but I have seane them, and noted in so
doynge a whole worlde of thynges verye memorable.
But the change now wrought in the outlook of the nations went
far outside the narrow bounds of any one country, and was more
vast than any the world had seen since the fall of the Roman
empire. If it has been recognised more often in its intellectual
character, its practical effects were seen in the discovery of new
lands and the planting of new colonies. Copernicus bad revealed
the mystery of the universe. Portuguese and Spanish navigators
had traversed the unknown seas, and John Cabot had touched the
shores of cape Breton or Labrador. Nothing now seemed
strange to any one, and, in every part of the world, there were


## p. 67 (#89) ##############################################

Early Writers
67
6
new seas and lands to explore, and new approaches to be dis-
covered to the Spice islands and Cathay. More, in his Utopia,
opened a fresh view in the realm of speculation beyond the
narrow bounds of knowledge. The most romantic poetic imagin-
ings were exceeded in wonder by the things discovered and
made known, and no marvel in The Faerie Queene exceeded the
strange experiences that storm-tossed mariners told every day on
'change to the merchant adventurers of the Muscovy and Levant
trades. “The nakedness of the Spaniards, and their long hidden
secrets, whereby they went about to delude the world,' as Hakluyt
says, “were espied. Seamen were to make literature; upon
their experience was to be built much of the literature that
followed; their expressions and words were to descend into the
common speech of the land. But, save, perhaps, in the in-
stances of Gilbert and Ralegh, English seamen, pioneers of our
maritime supremacy, were not in their own persons stirred by
the intellectual movement. Rather they were its unconscious
and often dumb instruments, while taking part in the vast
material and political change which resulted from the direction of
the capital and enterprise of merchants into fresh channels of
intercourse and trade.
It would be true to say that the foundations of England's
naval greatness were laid almost in silence, and that, though the
peculiar genius of the nation for maritime adventure was re-
cognised in the days of the early Henrys? , hardy seamen were
opening communications with the Baltic, and driving their keels
into unknown seas, long before any writer set himself to narrate
their experiences or their exploits. Monastic chroniclers had
collected the legendary lore of their predecessors, records of
kings and annals of their own time, but voyages of exploration
and discovery lay, mostly, outside the range of their experience
or their opportunities of knowledge. It is mainly from narra-
tives of pilgrimages and crusades that we learn how the known
world was being widened in those early times. The brilliant
chronicles of Giraldus Cambrensis, the quick-witted historian
who records the conquest of Ireland, are not altogether barren
of reference to events at sea, and there is some reflection of
seafaring life in the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Hakluyt,
indeed, has included in the Principall Navigations the legendary
conquests of Arthur and of Malgo from the chronicles of Geoffrey,
the achievements of Edwin of Northumbria from Bede and the
1 Cl. The Libel of English Policy, etc. referred to in vol. 11 of the present work.
5--2


## p. 68 (#90) ##############################################

68 The Literature of the Sea
1
navigations of Edgar from Roger of Hoveden, Florence of Wor-
cester and others. There are in existence various narratives of
journeys to Palestine, like that of Saewulf of Malmesbury, who
went overland to Italy in 1102, sailed thence to the Ionian islands
and took ship along the coast to Joppa, where he re-embarked,
but dared not venture into the open sea for fear of the Saracens.
The voyages of Saewulf, and of Adelard, a little later, and the
exploits of the crusaders in 1147 and 1190 on the coasts of Spain
and in the Mediterranean, present a view of English enterprise that
cannot be passed by without mention, because in them we trace
the beginnings of a permanent marine, and of mercantile enter-
prise, which constituted the mainspring of the exploration of the
world and, therefore, of the literature of discovery. But the
seamen of Venice and Genoa, as well as Portuguese and Spanish
navigators, were, in the fifteenth century, more enterprising than
Englishmen, both in discovery and in the systematic recording of
voyages.
The journeys of Marco Polo had aroused interest in the study of
geography in England at the close of the thirteenth century, and
the 'travels' recorded by the Mandeville translators, considered in
a previous chapter, had their well-deserved popularity in the early
days of English prose. But the literature of travel by sea was un-
begotten, and the achievements of the captains of prince Henry,
'the navigator,' and of Columbus and his companions, made far
more sound in the world than anything done by British seamen
until the time of Drake and Hawkins. A seaman named Thylde,
whom William of Worcester mentions, preceded Columbus by
some twelve years, as we ought not to forget, sailing from
Bristol in 1480, but he battled vainly with the storms of the
north Atlantic, and the world knows infinitely more of the
great navigations of the admiral of the ocean' and of the bold
seaman Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who first set eyes upon the
Pacific, and of Ojeda and Nicuesa, who were his equals in courage
and enterprise.
It is sometimes said that the great age of English discovery
really opened with John Cabot, who, in his effort to discover
a north-west passage to India, discovered the mainland of America
in 1497, and of him more is known than of the earlier Bristol
mariners; but even his discoveries may be accounted foreign to
the national instincts of the time, and, being himself a seaman
from the Mediterranean, his voyages seem rather to belong to the
age of Columbus and Vasco da Gama than to that which saw
6
รู้
1


## p. 69 (#91) ##############################################

The Impulse from Abroad 69
the northern enterprises of Willoughby, Chancellor and Burrough.
The scanty particulars which Hakluyt could bring together con-
cerning the explorations of John Cabot and his son Sebastian
are a very striking illustration of the paucity of literary materials
relating to the early history of English maritime discovery.
The literary impulse to the recording of voyages came from
the continent, as was inevitable, since foreigners were the pioneers
in exploration, adding new links to the long chain of seafaring
enterprise which stretched back to the beginning of Mediterranean
history. Angiolo Poliziano, professor of Greek and Latin literature
at Florence, in a letter addressed to king John II, tendered the
thanks of the cultivated world to Portugal for dragging from
secular darkness into the light of day new seas, new lands
and new worlds, and offered his services to record great voyages
while the materials should be fresh and available. At Seville,
in 1522, Peter Martyr of Anghiera, was instructed to examine
all navigators who returned, and to write the history of Spanish
explorations. He threw his whole mind into the task, was
the first historian of the discovery of America and became
known as a great cosmographer. The first Decade of his
De Orbe Novo was published at Seville in 1511, but appears
to have been surreptitiously anticipated at Venice in 1504.
Three of the Decades followed at Alcalà in 1516, and other
editions, largely augmented, were printed in 1530 and 1532,
and were subsequently translated or became the basis of editions
and works published in Italy, France and Germany. Giovanni
Battista Ramusio published collections of voyages, which went
through several editions, and told the story of Magellan's voyage
as recorded by Antonio Pigafetta. Meanwhile, the printing of
the Sumario de la natural y general Hystoria de las Indias
of Gonçalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdes was completed at
Toledo in 1526 and was followed, in 1552, by the Istoria de
las Indias y conquista de Mejico of Francisco Lopez de Gomara.
These, and other works, illuminated the new world for the benefit
of the old, and, working like a ferment in the minds of scholars
in every centre of learning in Europe, were a new inspiration
to Englishmen, and set in motion the navigators who issued from
English ports to conquer the mystery and win the spoils of new
lands beyond the sea.
The first English book relating to America is said to have been
printed in 1511, probably at Antwerp, by John Doesborch or
Desborowe. It has been reprinted by Arber, in his First Three


## p. 70 (#92) ##############################################

70
The Literature of the Sea
English Books on America, 1885, and is entitled Of the newelandes
and of ye people founde by the messengers of the Kynge of
Portyngale named Emanuel; but it is an arid tract, which relates
chiefly to the ten nations christened by Prester John, and reflects
the legends of the Middle Ages rather than any real knowledge
of more recent explorations. More interesting are the refer-
ences in a New Interlude and a Merry of the nature of the
Four Elements, printed by John Rastell between 1510 and 1520.
Here we have an account of the route to the new lands, and of
how men could sail 'plain eastwards and come to England again. '
The object was to cast scorn upon English mariners who had
relinquished the enterprise, with assumed reference to a supposed
failure of Sebastian Cabot in 1516—7.
In the literature of English navigation and discovery, a notable
place must be given to Richard Eden, not, indeed, as an original
narrator, but as a diligent interpreter of the work of others.
His object was to make known to his countrymen what the
Portuguese and Spaniards had done, and with that object he
translated and published in 1553, from the Latin of Sebastian
Münster's Universal Cosmography, A Treatyse of the newe India
with other new founde landes and Islands, as well eastwarde as
westwarde, as they are knowen and founde in these our dayes.
He followed this, in 1555, with a translation from Peter Martyr:
The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, conteyning the
Navigations and Conquestes of the Spanyardes, with particular
description of the most ryche and large Landes and Islandes
lately found in the West Ocean. These Decades are narratives
of the voyages of Columbus and his companions, of Pedro Affonso,
of Vincenzo Pinzon and of Nicuesa and others, and Eden added
translations from Oviedo and matter descriptive of some other
Spanish explorations. His object was national and patriotic; and,
in presenting to his countrymen some record of the achievements
of Spanish navigators, he censures the timidity of his times, and
makes an eloquent appeal to seamen and merchants to quit the
well-worn tracks of trade and commerce and to adventure boldly
to the coasts of Florida and Newfoundland. Eden was born
about the year 1521, and was a student at Cambridge under
Sir Thomas Smith. He was a good Latin and Italian scholar,
and tells his readers that, in his youth, he had read 'the poet
Hesiodus. ' He was minded to translate the whole of the Pyro-
technica of Vannuccio Biringaccio, but, having completed only
a few chapters, he lent them to a friend to read, and they were
6


## p. 71 (#93) ##############################################

Richard Eden
71
lost. In the introduction to his translation of the Decades of
Peter Martyr, he expresses contempt for the previous issue, en-
titled, Of the newe founde landes, as 'a shiete of printed paper
(more worthy so to be called than a boke). ' He had witnessed
the splendours of the marriage procession of Philip and Mary,
and was moved by its 'within significance for the future of
England. His rendering is simple, direct and forcible, and, in
a poetical epilogue entitled Thinterpretours excuse,' he says he
has not been very curious to avoid “the scornes of Rhinoceros
nose,' nor 'the fyled judgment of severe Aristarchus. '
I am not eloquent I know it ryght well;
If I be not barbarous I desyre no more;
I have not for every woorde asked counsell
Of eloquent Eliot or Syr Thomas Moore.
Take it therefore as I have intended;
The faultes with favour may soon be amended.
Eden was not content to point out merely what foreigners had
accomplished; he desired to show what were the fruits of their
discoveries and to explain the secrets of land, sea and stars which
must be known to those who would follow in their footsteps.
Accordingly, in 1561, at the expense of certain members of the
Muscovy company, he published, under the title of The Arte of
Navigation, a translation of Martin Cortes's Breve compendio de
la Sphera y de la arte de navigar, printed at Seville in 1556.
He likewise busied himself with gathering together the records
of the Muscovy voyages, which formed so valuable a part of the
subsequent collection of Hakluyt.
With the writings of Richard Eden, we reach the great age
of maritime discovery, though still the stream of literature is
small and intermittent. Two years before he published or wrote,
Sir Hugh Willoughby, with the object of reaching Cathay, had
sailed, in 1553, upon that voyage to the north-east in which he
perished. Hakluyt has preserved the records of that great
effort, and he presents to us the striking picture of Sebastian
Cabot, as ‘governour of the mysterie and companie of the Marchants
adventurers,' laying down his wise ordinances and instructions
for the intended voyage. The captain-general, the pilot-major
(who was Richard Chancellor), the masters, merchants and other
officers were to be
so knit and accorded in unitie, love, conformitie, and obedience in everie degree
on all sides, that no dissention, variance or contention may rise or spring
betwixt them and the mariners of this companie to the damage or hindrance
of the royage.


## p. 72 (#94) ##############################################

72
The Literature of the Sea
Regulations were laid down for the discipline and conduct of the
fleet, and, in relation to the records of adventure, merchants and
other skilful persons were to put into writing daily their ob-
servations of navigation, of day and night, lands, tides, elements,
altitude of the sun, course of the moon and stars and other matters,
and these were afterwards to be collated, discussed and placed
upon record. Again, it was ordered that the liveries in apparel
given to the mariners were to be kept by the merchants and not
to be worn except by order of the captain when he should see
cause to muster or show his men in good array, for the adornment
and honour of the voyage, and then they were again to be de-
livered to the keeping of the merchants.
Willoughby perished, but Clement Adams wrote in Latin an
account of the navigation, which was conducted by Richard
Chancellor, and Hakluyt has given a translation. Amongst other
things he tells how Henry Sidney came down to the ships and
eloquently addressed the masters before they departed from the
Thames. He contrasted the hard life of the seaman, and its
dangers and uncertainties with the quiet life at home. He spoke
of the duty of keeping unruly mariners in good order and obedi-
ence, and concluded by saying,
9
With how many cares shall he trouble and vex himself? with how many
troubles shall he break himself? and how many disquietings shall he be
forced to sustain? We shall keep on our coasts and country; he shall seek
strange and unknown regions.
1
>
We now see the spirit of enterprise thoroughly aroused.
English seamen were not only seeking to reach Cathay and the
Spice islands by the north-east or the north-west, but were re-
solved to make an end of the barriers that were set up by
Portuguese and Spanish monopolies and partitions. William
Hawkins had broken with the old trade routes in his three
voyages to Brazil and the coast of Guinea in the time of Henry
VIII, and the successive voyages of his son, the celebrated Sir
John Hawkins, in 1562, 1564 and 1567, made a great mark upon
the history of the time and practically led, together with the actions
of Drake, to the breach with Spain. Of his third voyage, Hawkins
himself wrote an account, published in the year of his return,
entitled A True Declaration of the Troublesome voyage of Mr.
John Hawkins to the parts of Guinea and the West Indies in
the years of our Lord 1567 and 1568. It is a vigorous and direct
narrative of experiences, full of shrewd observations, and with
1


## p. 73 (#95) ##############################################

Sir Humphrey Gilbert
73
6
à notable reflective quality. “If all the miseries and troublesome
affaires of this sorrowfull voyage should be perfectly and thoroughly
written,' says the author, 'there should neede a paynfull man with
his penne, and as great a time as hee had that wrote the lives
and deathes of the martirs. ' Other accounts were written by
Miles Philips, Job Hartop and David Ingram, all survivors of the
fight at San Juan de Ulloa, and their narratives have been printed
by Hakluyt. For the record of the great navigations of Drake
in 1570 and 1572 and his wonderful voyage of circumnavigation
in 1577, we have to consult mostly the collection of Hakluyt and
certain volumes published in the seventeenth century.
The project of passing by the north-west to Cathay and the
Spice islands had long inspired Sir Humphrey Gilbert. His
Discourse of a Discoverie for a new passage to Cataia was
issued in April 1576, in a black letter tract of great rarity,
written some seven years before. In a prefatory note, it is intro-
duced to the reader by George Gascoigne, a friend of the author,
who tells us that a worshipful knight, Sir Humphrey's brother,
was 'abashed at this enterprise, because he had no heir but
the author, and that to him the enterprise seemed 'unpossible
unto common capacities. The brother, therefore, misliked Sir
'
Humphrey's resolution, and sought to dissuade him, and it was
in order to overcome his objections that this Discourse was pre-
pared. Gascoigne, being on a visit to Gilbert at his dwelling at
Limehouse, had a sight of the Discourse. Being a short essay,
and Martin Frobisher (whom he calls ‘Fourboyser, a kinsman of
mine') having engaged in the same enterprise, it seemed to him
that it would be useful to make public the tract. He compared
it with the tables of Ortelius and sundry other cosmographical
maps and charts, and said it was approved by the learned Dr Dee,
whose house at Mortlake was the seat of astronomical and nautical
knowledge. In this remarkable letter, Gilbert tells his brother that
he might have charged him with an unsettled head if he had
taken in hand the discovery of Utopia, but Cataia was no country
of the imagination, and the passage thereto by sea on the north
side of Labrador had been mentioned and proved by the most
expert and best learned amongst modern geographers. To Gilbert,
the continent of America was an island representing the Atlantis
of Plato and of other writers of antiquity. If Atlantis were an
island, the cataclysm in which it had been partly overwhelmed,
would, said Gilbert, make more practicable the navigation of its
northern coasts. He was confirmed in his opinion by Gemma


## p. 74 (#96) ##############################################

74
The Literature of the Sea
Frisius, Münster, Regiomontanus, Peter Martyr, Ortelius and
other modern geographers, as well as by the experience of cer-
tain navigators, including Othere in king Alfred's time and others
more recent.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert's tract remains amongst the most
notable literary contributions to the subject of exploration which
preceded the publication of the monumental work of Hakluyt.
At the conclusion of his discourse, he writes: 'He is not worthy
to live at all who, for fear of danger or death, shunneth his
country's service or his own honour, since death is inevitable
and the fame of virtue immortal. ' This discourse has the true
ring of a scholarly and patriotic Englishman, and there is much
freshness in its persuasive earnestness.
This great Englishman made his first voyage of discovery to
North America, with his half-brother, Sir Walter Ralegh, in his
company, in 1578. Hakluyt has preserved a narrative of Gilbert's
last enterprise, in 1583, in which he perished ; and there are few
more striking pictures in English narrative literature than that
of the old seaman, on the September afternoon upon which his
vessel, the 'Squirrel,' was overwhelmed, sitting abaft on his quarter-
deck with a book in his hand, hailing the men in the 'Golden
Hind,' which was following in the wake, whenever she came within
hailing distance, with the old seaman's phrase, uttered, says the
narrator, with signs of joy, “We are as near to heaven by sea
as by land. These were the last words of this good English-
man before he went down. A speech, says the narrator, 'well
beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify
he was. '
Meanwhile, the valiant Martin Frobisher had also been battling
with the icy approaches to the north-west, in 1576 and 1577; and,
in the following year captain George Best, Frobisher's trusted
friend, printed in black letter A true discourse of the late voyages
for the finding of a passage to Cathaya by the north-weast,
under the conduct of Martin Frobisher, Generall. Hakluyt has
collected narratives of all these voyages, but none are so lively
and vigorous as those which captain Best has given us in his
volume. What could be more direct and forcible than a letter
which Frobisher wrote in August 1577 to certain Englishmen
who were held captive by truculent natives, and whom he was
resolved to set free?
In the name of God, in whom we all believe, who, I trust, hath preserved
your bodies and souls amongst these infidels, I commend me unto you. I will


## p. 75 (#97) ##############################################

Martin Frobisher
75
be glad to seek by all means you can devise for your deliverance either with
force or with any commodities within my ships, which I will not spare for your
sakes, or anything else I can do for you.
After telling them that he has some natives on board whom he
would exchange, he proceeds,
Moreover you may declare unto them that if they deliver you not I will
not leave a man alive in their country. And thus, if one of you can come to
speak with me, they shall have either the man woman or child in pawn for
you, and thus unto God, whom I trust you do serve, in haste I leave you,
and to Him we will daily pray for you . . . Yours to the uttermost of my
power, Martin Frobisher.
An appetite for further knowledge now existed throughout the
land, and eager enquirers were demanding information as to the
voyages of the navigators and the riches of the new-found lands.
In 1577, a new edition of Eden's Decades of the Newe Worlde
appeared under the title of The History of Travayle in the West
and East Indies, and other countreys lying either way towards
the fruitfull and ryche Moluccaes. . . with a discourse of the North-
west Passage. It was augmented and finished by Richard Willes,
who says that he was moved to place in an orderly manner what
Eden had 'confusely gyven out. ' He omitted some things which he
thought superfluous, and added to the three decades of Peter
Martyr, and to the fourth, which is given under another title, four
others, besides including many additional accounts of voyages
relating to Japan and the Guinea coast, Muscovy voyages and
travels, the exploits of Magellan and the explorations of Sebastian
Cabot. The most interesting of his additions is his argument
regarding the projected passage by the north-west. First, he gives
the arguments advanced against the project, and then attempts to
show the reasonableness of it. "M. Frobisher's prosperous voyage
and happy returne wyl absolutely decide these controversies. '
Eden and Willes were the precursors of Hakluyt, and lived in
a time when many seamen were leaving our ports to penetrate
the mysteries of the unknown world. Hakluyt's first book,
a voyage of discovery to America, was published in 1582, and
he issued a new edition of Peter Martyr's De Orbe Novo in
1587. He was preparing himself then for his great work. The
imperial imagination was stirred, and the importance of colonising
and developing the new-found lands was in all men's minds.
Ralegh received his charter of colonisation in 1584, and three
expeditions were despatched to the new colony to which he gave
the name of Virginia. In the introduction to the second book
>


## p. 76 (#98) ##############################################

76
The Literature of the Sea
of The Faerie Queene, Spenser bids the man who does not know
'where is that happy land of Faery,' in which he has drawn his
immortal allegory, to see how little of the world he is acquainted
with.
But let that man with better sence advize,
That of the world least part to us is red;
And daily how through hardy enterprize
Many great Regions are discovered,
Which to late age were never mentioned.
Who ever heard of th’ Indian Peru ?
Or who in venturous vessell measured
The Amazon huge river, now found trew?
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did ever vew ?
Thus did the spirit of discovery make its influence felt in
·literature. What had been achieved was being recorded or made
known by rumour and report, and the bold work of navigators
made a profound impression upon thinking men at home, who, by
speech and pen, impelled them to new conquests in the unknown.
In the record of these achievements, no name stands higher than
that of John Davys, the famous voyager, beloved by his comrades,
who made three Arctic voyages and gave his name to Davis strait.
All these expeditions of Davys are related in the pages of Hakluyt's
Principall Navigations. The narratives of the first and third
voyages were written by John James, and of the second by Davys
himself, the detached voyage of the 'Sunshine' being narrated by
Henry Morgan, the purser. Davys had, of course, kept logs during
all these voyages, but the log of his third voyage is the only one that
has been preserved. Davys was also the author of The Seaman's
Secrets, published in 1594, and several times reprinted. It is
a valuable treatise on navigation, devoted to 'the three kinds of
sayling, horizontall, paradoxall, and sayling upon a great circle,'
and including a tide table and a ‘regiment' for finding the declina-
tions of the sun. Davys's Arctic voyages were all made with the
object of discovering the north-west passage, in the navigability
of which he was a firm believer, and his name, with those of
Gilbert and Frobisher, will ever be associated with the early
efforts to penetrate the icy barrier and discover a direct route to
Cathay and the Spice islands. His arguments in favour of it will
be found in his volume, The Worlde's Hydrographical Description,
a black letter treatise, published in London in 1595, wherein he
sought to show that the earth was habitable in all its zones, and
navigable in all its seas. In his fervid imagination, difficulties
disappeared, and he draws a glowing picture of the advantages
which would accrue to England from the discovery of a passage by


## p. 77 (#99) ##############################################

Sir Richard Hawkins
77
the north-west. He sets forth the arguments against the passage,
and then, with cumulative force, endeavours to prove them un-
tenable, and he quotes Isaiah from memory (lxv, 6, 'They seeke me
that hitherto have not asked for me, they find me that hitherto
have not sought me').
Another remarkable contribution to the literature of maritime
discovery is the description of his adventures by Sir Richard
Hawkins, only son of Sir John Hawkins, a storehouse of informa-
tion of all kinds concerning the lives and ideas of the early navi-
gators. It is entitled The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins,
Knight, in his voiage into the South Sea; anno Domini, 1593
(printed 1622). In this volume, Hawkins shows strong descriptive
power, imagination and skill, besides natural sagacity and a just
judgment of affairs. He enforces the need of experience for the
successful conduct of enterprise at sea, adding and I am of
opinion that the want of experience is much more tolerable in
a general on land than in a governor by sea. ' The ship in which
. '
he sailed was built in the Thames in 1588, and he tells us that his
mother, craving the naming of the ship, called her the 'Repentance. '
He expostulated with her for giving the vessel that “uncouth name,'
but never could have any satisfaction, save that 'repentance
was the safest ship we could sail in to purchase the haven of
heaven. '
In the halls of merchant companies, in the parlours of enter-
prising traders and in the chambers of students, problems of
the new world, and the means of reaching its treasures, were
being discussed. The genius of the nation for colonisation was
now aroused, and new lands were to be developed by men of
English blood. Seamen had begun to speak in literature, and
the thoughts and language of the sea, by tongue and writing, were
being grafted into the conceptions and the language of men who
never knew the salt breath of the ocean. Lyly has a mariner
strongly emphasised in his Galathea, 1592; Lodge, himself a
sailor, wrote his Rosalynde, 1590, ‘in the ocean, where every line
was wet with a surge, and every human passion counterchecked
with a storm'; his Margarite of America, 1596, was begun in the
strait of Magellan, on board ship, where I had rather will to get
my dinner than win my fame. ' The new spirit in literature is
seen in the poems of Spenser and it had a profound influence upon
Bacon. Above all, it is reflected in the writings of Shakespeare;
the sea sings in his music, and the anger of its storms thunders
in the rush of his invective; the magic and romance of discovery


## p. 78 (#100) #############################################

78
The Literature of the Sea
1
and strange tales of the navigators are reflected in the witchery of
his language. Ralegh wrote of the ‘Ewaipanoma race,' who had
eyes in their shoulders, and mouths in the middle of their
bowels, and it is with such marvels that Othello beguiles the
ear of Desdemona, who would 'seriously incline' to his moving
story of wonders,
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.
Though he rarely deals with the sea directly, Shakespeare never
uses nautical language except correctly and aptly. His seamen
speak as with the voice of the sea, his allusions all have the
knowledge of the sea. In Twelfth Night (III, 2) Maria says of
Malvolio that 'he doth smile his face into more lines than are in
the new map with the augmentation of the Indies. ' This was the
map published with Hakluyts Voyages, bearing the marks of
Davys's hand, showing the geographical knowledge of the time,
his discoveries in the north-west, and those of Magellan, Drake,
Sarmiento and Cavendish in the south ; the imaginary strait of
Anian between Asia and America disappears, and, in its place, is
the Pacific, as traversed by the Spanish captain, Francisco de Gali,
whose narrative was translated into Dutch by Linschoten, and then
into English under the title of Discourse of the East and West
Indies, 1598. In The Tempest, Shakespeare speaks of the 'still
vexed Bermoothes,' doubtless with reference to the sufferings and
shipwrecks of explorers, and, perhaps, particularly to the ex-
pedition of Sir George Somers, which was driven on the coast
of the then unknown Bermudas in 1609. But to Shakespeare, as
to his predecessors, the sea still remained rather a barrier than
a pathway; it was the ‘moat defensive to a house,' of which John
of Gaunt speaks in Richard II, 'against the envy of less happier
lands. '
Many illustrations might be given of Shakespeare's knowledge
of the sea and seafarers. Was it a mere coincidence that Ancient
Pistol, hauled off to the Fleet with Falstaff in the last scene of
Henry IV, part II, uses a phrase which is employed in The
Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, referred to above, existing
in manuscript, we presume, when Shakespeare wrote the play?
Or, rather, were not Shakespeare and Hawkins quoting from a
common original in the speech of the people? Si fortuna me
tormenta spero me contenta, says the Ancient. When Hawkins
loses his pinnace at Plymouth he, also, exclaims, Si fortuna me
4
*


## p. 79 (#101) #############################################

Richard Hakluyt
79
tormenta, esperança me contenta. In The Comedy of Errors,
old Aegeon of Syracuse, recounting his woes in the storm, says,
The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered
Two ships from far making amain to us.
To 'make amain' or 'wave amain' was the signal of surrender
by striking sail or flag (amener le pavillon). Sir Richard Hawkins,
off Ushant, sights a great hulk, and his men, eager to make a
Spanish prize, 'without speaking to her wished that the gunner
might shoot at her to cause her to amain'—a bad custom, says
Hawkins, 'to gun at all whatsoever they discover. ' The Tempest
has many nautical allusions; in Romeo and Juliet it is 'to the
high top-gallant of my joy' that Romeo climbs by 'a tackled
stair'; in As You Like It, we find the figure, 'Dry as the remainder
biscuit after a voyage'; in The Merchant of Venice there is much
of the ventures of the traders, and thus says Solanio, if he had
such ventures,
I should be still
Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads.
It is to Richard Hakluyt that we are indebted for our knowledge
of many matters that have been alluded to above. Shakespeare
undoubtedly studied his pages. Scattered treatises and manuscript
descriptions alone existed when Hakluyt set to work. He had
long been amassing material, and his writings, as we have men-
tioned, began to appear in 1582, while the first edition of the
Principall Navigations was published in 1589. The latter is the
first great body of information we possess relating to the voyages
of the sixteenth century. Purchas and others followed in his
steps, and carried on the task, but the nation and its literature
owe a debt to Hakluyt which is imperfectly recognised even now.
His whole life was given up, with a singleness of purpose that has
rarely been matched, to the literature of navigation and discovery.
When he undertook his labours he set himself an arduous task.
Proceeding to France as chaplain to Sir Edward Stafford, am-
bassador to the French court, in 1583, he learned much of foreign
discoveries and enterprises at sea, but, in Paris, he found the
English noted of all others for their sluggish security. Eden
had been but an interpreter of what others had done; and it
was because Hakluyt heard much obloquy of our nation, and
because few or none were able to make reply, that, with the object
of 'stopping the mouths of our reproachers' he determined
forthwith to undertake the work, which others, he said, owing to


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80
The Literature of the Sea
the heavy labour involved, and the small profit that would result,
had rejected. One cause of the state of things which Hakluyt
deplored must not be overlooked. It was that English voyages
and expeditions had been undertaken mainly with a commercial
purpose, and with the object of gain, and that merchants who
invested their capital in these enterprises were not always anxious
that the results of their discoveries should be made known for the
advantage of others. The gild of the merchant adventurers did
much to extend the range of discovery, and gave a fresh impulse to
seamanship and navigation, particularly in the east, but it did not
promote the general knowledge of those operations which were
its especial privilege, and nowhere can we discern any direct
encouragement to the publication of the records of maritime
discovery.
All honour, therefore, is due to Richard Hakluyt for his life-
long devotion to the subject he made his own. His writings
are informed with the qualities of his enthusiasm, and he has
brought together an immense mass of original material, without
which our knowledge would have been restricted and our under-
standing of the maritime events of his time uncertain. He has
himself told us, in the dedication to Sir Francis Walsingham
of the first edition of his Principall Navigations, how he
was attracted to the subject which afterwards engrossed his
attention until his death. He was born about the year 1553,
in London, as is conjectured, but belonged to a family long
seated at Yatton, in Herefordshire. He was one of the queen's
scholars at Westminster school, that ‘fruitful nursery,' as he
describes it, and it was his fortune, he tells us, to visit the
chamber of his cousin, Richard Hakluyt, a gentleman of the
Middle Temple, who had greatly interested himself in maritime
discovery and the science of navigation, in relation to the ventures
and expeditions of the Muscovy and Levant merchants. The
writings of Peter Martyr and Pigafetta, the translations of Eden
and the works of the great cosmographers had, doubtless, been his
study. The Westminster boy found lying open upon a board in
his cousin's room certain books of cosmography and a universal
map. In these, he displayed some curiosity, whereupon his kinsman
began to instruct his ignorance by explaining to him the divisions
of the earth according to the old account and the new learning.
With a wand, Richard Hakluyt pointed out to the youth all the
known seas, gulfs, bays, straits, capes, rivers, empires, kingdoms,
dukedoms and territories. He spoke also of their commodities


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Richard Hakluyt
81
and their particular wants, which, by the benefits of traffic and the
intercourse of merchants, were plentifully supplied. Then he
touched the boy's imagination by taking down the Bible, and,
turning to the 107th Psalm, directed him to read in the 23rd and
24th verses that 'they which go downe to the sea in ships and
occupy the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and his
wonders in the deep. ' These words of the psalmist, together
with his cousin's discourse, were, says Hakluyt, things of high and
rare delight to his young nature, and made upon him so deep an
impression that he resolved that if ever he were preferred to the
university, where he might have a more convenient place and
better time for such studies, he would, by God's assistance,
prosecute the knowledge of this kind of literature, the doors
whereof, he says, after a sort, were so happily opened before him.
He was elected, in 1570, to Christ Church, Oxford, where he
did not forget the resolution he had made, and fell to the course
he had intended; so that by degrees he read whatever he could
find of printed voyages in all languages. He lectured, but where
is not definitely known, upon subjects relating to navigation, and
became familiar, by reading, with the personalities of sea captains,
and the enterprises of great merchants.