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RAPHAEL HOLINSHED, to whom we have already had frequent occasion to refer, was one of the most remarkable of these early chroniclers, though of his history, nothing is known farther than that he died about 1580. Toward The Chronicles to which Holinshed's name is attached, John Hooker, an uncle of the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, Francis Boteville, an individual of whom nothing has been recorded, farther than that he was a man of great learning and judgment, and a wonderful lover of antiquities,' and William Harrison, contributed. Prefixed to the historical portion of the work is a description of Britain and its inhabitants, by Harrison, which is still highly valued, as affording an interesting picture of the state of the country, and the manners of the people, in the sixteenth century. This is followed by a history of England to the Norman Conquest, by Holinshed; a history and description of Ireland, by one Richard Stanihurst, of whom nothing more is known; additional chronicles of Ireland, translated or written by Holinshed and Hooker; a description and history of Scotland mostly translated from Hector Boece, by Holinshed and Harrison; and a History of England, by Holinshed, from the Norman Conquest to 1577, when the 'Chronicles' were published. It was from the translation of Boece that Shakspeare, as we have already remarked, derived the groundwork of his tragedy of Macbeth.

Among the authors who combined their researches and learning to produce these 'Chronicles,' WILLIAM HARRISON is, perhaps, the most remarkable; and we are tempted to quote from 'The Chronicles,' some of his sarcastic remarks on the degeneracy of his contemporaries, their extravagance in dress, and the growth of luxury among them. But his account of the languages of Britain, being peculiarly suited to the object we have before us in these lectures, and at the same time, from the quaintness and simplicity of the style, highly amusing, is here given in preference to any other extract:

THE LANGUAGES OF BRITAIN.

The British tongue called Cymric doth yet remain in that part of the island which is now called Wales, whither the Britons were driven after the Saxons had made a full conquest of the other, which we now call England, although the pristine intercourse thereof be not a little diminished by mixture of the Latin and Saxon speeches withal. Howbeit, many poesies and writings (in making whereof that nation hath evermore delighted) are yet extant in my time, whereby some difference between the ancient and present language may easily be discerned, notwithstanding that among all these there is nothing to be found which can set down any sound and full testimony of their own original, in remembrance whereof their bards and cunning men have been most slack and negligent.

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Next unto the British speech, the Latin tongue was brought in by the Romans, and in manner generally planted through the whole region, as the French was after by the Normans. Of this tongue I will not say much, because there are few which be not skillful in the same. Howbeit, as the speech itself is easy and delectable, so hath it perverted the names of the ancient rivers, regions, and cities of Britain, in such wise, that in these our days their old British denominations are quite grown out of memory, and yet those of the new Latin left as most uncertain. This re

maineth, also, unto my time, borrowed from the Romans, that all our deeds, evidences, charters, and writings of record, are set down in the Latin tongue, though now very barbarous, and thereunto the copies and court-rolls, and processes of courts and leets registered in the same.

The third language apparently known is the Scythian,1 or High Dutch, induced at first by the Saxons (which the Britons call Saysonaec,2 as they do the speakers Sayson), a hard and rough kind of speech, God wot, when our nation was brought first into acquaintance withal, but now changed with us into a far more fine and easy kind of utterance, and so polished and helped with new and milder words, that it is to be avouched how there is no one speech under the sun spoken in our time, that hath or can have more variety of words, copiousness of phrases, or figures and flowers of eloquence, than hath our English tongue, although some have affirmed us rather to bark as dogs than talk like men, because the most of our words (as they do indeed) incline unto one syllable. This, also, is to be noted as a testimony remaining still of our language, derived from the Saxons, that the general name, for the most part, of every skillful artificer in his trade endeth in here with us, albeit the h be left out, and er only inserted, as scrivenhere, writehere, shiphere, &c.-for scrivener, writer, and shipper, &c.; beside many other relics of that speech never to be abolished.

After the Saxon tongue came the Norman or French language over into our country, and therein were our laws written for a long time. Our children, also, were, by an especial decree, taught first to speak the same, and thereunto enforced to learn their constructions in the French, whensoever they were set to the grammar-school. In like sort, few bishops, abbots, or other clergymen, were admitted unto any ecclesiastical function here among us, but such as came out of religious houses from beyond the seas, to the end they should not use the English tongue in their sermons to the people. In the court, also, it grew into such contempt, that most men thought it no small dishonour to speak any English there; which bravery took its hold at the last likewise in the country with every ploughman, that even the very carters began to wax weary of their mother-tongue, and laboured to speak French, which as then was counted no small token of gentility. And no marvel; for every French rascal, when he came once hither, was taken for a gentleman, only because he was proud, and could use his own language. And all this (I say) to exile the English and British speeches quite out of the country. But in vain; for in the time of King Edward I., to wit, toward the latter end of his reign, the French itself ceased to be spoken generally, but most of all and by law in the midst of Edward III., and then began the English to recover and grow in more estimation than before; notwithstanding that, among our artificers, the most part of their implements, tools, and words of art, retain still their French denominations even to these our days, as the language itself is used likewise in sundry courts, books of record, and matters of law; whereof here is no place to make any particular rehearsal. Afterward, also, by diligent travail of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, in the time of Richard II., and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, monk of Bury, our said tongue was brought to an excellent pass, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewel, bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundry learned and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the same, to their great praise and immortal commendation; although not a few other do greatly seek to strain the same, by fond affectation of foreign and strange words, presuming that to be the best English which is most corrupted with external terms of eloquence and sound of many syllables. But as this excellency of the English tongue is found in one, and the south part of this island,

1 It is scarcely necessary to remark, that this term is here misapplied.

2 The Highlanders of Scotland still speak of the English as Sassenach (meaning Saxons).

so in Wales the greatest number (as I said) retain still their own ancient language, that of the north part of the said country being less corrupted than the other, and therefore reputed for the better in their own estimation and judgment. This, also, is proper to us Englishmen, that since ours is a middle or intermediate language, and neither too rough nor too smooth in utterance, we may with much facility learn any other language, beside Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and speak it naturally, as if we were home-born in those countries; and yet on the other side it falleth out, I wot not by what other means that few foreign nations can rightly pronounce ours, without some and that great note of imperfection, especially the Frenchmen, who also seldom write any thing that savoureth of English truly. But this of all the rest doth breed most admiration with me, that if any stranger doth hit upon some likely pronunciation of our tongue, yet in age he swerveth so much from the same, that he is worse therein than ever he was, and thereto, peradventure, halteth not a little also in his own, as I have seen by experience in Reginald Wolfe, and others, whereof I have justly marvelled. The Cornish and Devonshire men, whose country the Britons call Cerniw, have a speech in like sort of their own, and such as hath indeed more affinity with the Armorican tongue than I can well discuss of. Yet in mine opinion, they are both but a corrupted kind of British, albeit so far degenerating in these days from the old, that if either of them do meet with a Welshman, they are not able at the first to understand one another, except here and there in some odd words, without the help of interpreters. And no marvel, in mine opinion, that the British of Cornwall is thus corrupted, since the Welsh tongue that is spoken in the north and south part of Wales doth differ so much in itself, as the English used in Scotland doth from that which is spoken among us here in this side of the island, as I have said already. The Scottish-English hath been much broader and less pleasant in utterance than ours, because that nation hath not, till of late, endeavoured to bring the same to any perfect order, and yet it was such in manner as Englishmen theinselves did speak for the most part beyond the Trent, whither any great amendment of our language had not, as then, extended itself. Howbeit, in our time the Scottish language endeavoureth to come near, if not altogether to match, our tongue in fineness of phrase and copiousness of words, and this may in part appear by a history of the Apocrypha translated into Scottish verse by Hudson, dedicated to the king of that country, and containing six books, except my memory do fail me.

Hakluyt is another of the laborious compilers of this period, to whom the world is indebted for the preservation, in an acceptable form, of narratives which would otherwise, in all human probability, have fallen into oblivion. The department of history he chose for his labors was that which is descriptive of the naval adventures and discoveries of his countrymen.

Richard Hakluyt was born in the city of London in 1553, and received his elementary education at Westminster school. From Westminster he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, where, besides the regular studies of the university, he engaged in an extensive course of reading in various languages, on geographical and maritime subjects, toward which he had early evinced a strong inclination. He soon acquired, in these departments of knowledge, such reputation, that he was appointed to lecture at Oxford on cosmography and the collateral sciences; and he carried on, at the same time, a correspondence with the celebrated continental geographers, Ortelius and Mercator. Having taken orders he obtained a desirable parish in Suffolk, but resigned it for the chaplaincy to the English ambassador at Paris, where he continued to reside for five years, during which time he cultivated

the acquaintance of all persons there, eminent for their knowledge of geography and maritime history.

On his return from France, in 1588, Hakluyt was appointed by Sir Walter Raleigh one of the society of counsellors, assistants, and adventurers, to whom he assigned his patent for the prosecution of discoveries in America. He had, a few years previously to this appointment, published two small volumes of voyages to America; but these are now included in a much larger work in three volumes, the last of which was published in 1600, and the other two during the two previous years. The title which the whole bears is, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or Over Land, to the Remote and Furthest Distant Quarters of the Earth, within the compass of these 1500 years. In the first volume are contained accounts of voyages to the north and northeast; the true state of Iceland; the defeat of the Spanish Armada; and the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Cadiz. In the second, the author relates accounts of voyages to the south and south-east; and in the third he gives the particulars connected with expeditions to North America, the West Indies, and round the world. The work contains narratives of nearly two hundred and twenty voyages, beside many relative documents, such as patents, instructions, and letters. To this collection all the subsequent compilers in this department of history have been largely indebted. In his preface, the author strongly evinces the ardor of his feelings, and presents the following interesting summary of the foreign relations of England at that period. 'Which of the kings of England before Her Majesty,' he remarks, 'displayed their banners in the Caspian Sea? Which of them have traded with the emperor of Persia, and obtained for her merchants numerous and important privileges? Who, at any time before, beheld an English regiment in the stately porch of the Grand Signior at Constantinople? Who ever found English consuls and commercial agents at Tripolis in Syria; at Aleppo, at Babylon, at Balsara: and still more, who, before this period, ever heard of Englishmen at Goa? What English ships did heretofore anchor in the great river Plate, pass and repass the straits of Magellan, range along the coasts of Chili, Peru, and all the western side of New Spain, farther indeed than the vessels of any other nation had ever ventured; traverse the immense surface of the South Sea, land upon the Lazones, in despite of the enemy; enter into alliances, amity, and traffic with the princes of the Moluccas, and the Isle of Java; double the famous Cape of Good Hope, arrive at the isle of St. Helena, and last of all, return home richly laden with the commodities of China.' This work, however, as a whole, embracing five quarto volumes, is too prolix to be interesting.

Hakluyt was the author, also, of translations of two foreign works on Florida; and, when in Paris, he published an enlarged edition of a history in the Latin language, entitled De Rebus Oceanicis et Orbe Nevo, by Martyr, an Italian author. This work was afterward translated into English by one Lok, a person of whom no farther mention is made. In 1601, Hakluyt

published the Discoveries of the World, from the First Original to the Year of our Lord 1555, translated, with additions, from the Portuguese of Antonio Galvano, governor of Ternate, in the East Indies. In 1605, he was made prebendary of Westminster, which, with the rectory of Wetheringset in Suffolk, already alluded to, was the only ecclesiastical promotion that he ever received. Hakluyt died on the twenty-third of November, 1616, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, amid the tombs of other illustrious dead. At his death, his manuscript remains, which were very numerous, fell into the hands of Purchas, a brother clergyman, by whom they were afterward dispersed through his own four volumes of voyages and discoveries.

SAMUEL PURCHAS was born at Thaxstead, Essex, in 1577, and was educated at Cambridge; but in what college does not appear. Soon after he left the university he entered into holy orders, and, in 1604, obtained the vicarage of Eastwood in Essex. This, however, he soon resigned in favor of his brother, and removed to London, the better to prosecute his studies. In 1615, he was incorporated at Oxford, bachelor of divinity, having previously received the same honor from the university of Cambridge. He was, at about the same period, made rector of St. Martin's, Ludgate, in London, and chaplain to Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Though Purchas, during his whole clerical life, strictly fulfilled the sacred functions of his ministry, yet he still devoted much time to the reading of accounts of voyages, and travels, and to the study of the geography of foreign countries. In 1613, before Hakluyt's death, he published a volume under the title of Purchas his Pilgrimage; or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in all Ages and Places Discovered from the Creation unt this Present; and, in 1625, appeared his great work, a history of voya es in four volumes, entitled Purchas his Pilgrimage. These two works form a continuation of Hakluyt's collection, but on a more extended plan, and in point of merit they are strikingly similar. Purchas has, however, one trait peculiar to himself,-that of interlarding theological reflections and discussions with his narratives. His death occurred in 1628, not in prison, as has often been asserted, but at his own residence in London, and in the fifty-second year of his age.

Besides his great work, Purchas wrote Microcosmus, or the History of Man, and a Funeral Sermon, both of which were published in 1619: he also produced the King's Tower and Triumphant Arch of London, which appeared in 1623. He was a writer of much ingenuity, of which the following quaint analogy of the sea from his 'Pilgrimage' is certain proof:

THE SEA.

As God hath combined the sea and land into one globe, so their joint combination and mutual assistance is necessary to secular happiness and glory. The sea covereth one half of this patrimony of man, whereof God set him in possession when he said, 'Replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea,

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