Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/427

 9*s.xiLNov.2i,a903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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It is only in the dedications to various dignitaries or to the " Favourable Reader," a nice and wise distinction, that we are sure of possessing our author's very words. From these dedications also we obtain most that is known concerning Hakluyt' s aims and processes. The dedication of the first edition is to Sir Francis Walsingham, that of the first volume of the second edition is to Lord Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, while the second and third volumes are dedicated to Sir Robert Cecil. In the preface to the reader of the second part Hakluyt speaks of his aim as having been, at "much traveile and cost, to bring Antiquities smothered and buried in darke silence, to light, and to preserve certaine memorable exploits of late yeeres by our English nation Atchieyed, from the greedy and devouring jawes of oblivion," &c. In these efforts he has been successful, and his great work is unique in its class, and is a precious record of English heroism. At the outset of the fifteen hundred years over which his record is said to extend Hakluyt shows himself credulous though not, perhaps, specially so for the age in which he wrote. and his earliest entries deal with the voyages of King Arthur as chronicled by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Lambarde, and others. He subse- quently trusts to safer authorities in JBede and Camden. It is, of course, with the travels in Muscovy or Russia, and the search for a North-East Passage of the ill-fated fcir Hugh Willoughby and others, that the deathless interest of the work is established. Such passages as were altered or excised in obedience to authority will now be restored to their places or issued in the form of supplement. Among them are the original account of ' The Ambassage of Sir Hierome Bowes to the Emperour of Moscouie,' 1583, for which an amended version was substituted, and the cancelling, in some copies of the title-page of the first edition, of the reference to " the famous victorie atchieved at the citie of Cadiz," 1596, which, after the disgrace of the Earl of Essex, was excised, presumably at royal command. The text employed in the reprint is that of the second and authoritative edition, which has been exactly followed, with the exception that the familiar Latin contractions have been filled out, and that modern custom, instead of ancient, has been followed in the employment of i's and fs and w's and v's. To the suggestion of Prof. Skeat it is due that the marginalia comprise references to the original folios. What is now given ends with the letter of Sigismond, King of Polonia, to Queen Elizabeth, dated 6 December, 1559 (" the 39 of pur reigne"), and corresponds to p. 338 of the first volume of the folio. The illustrations to vol. i. include the fine portrait of Queen Elizabeth en- graved in 1596 by Woutnelius after Crispin de Pas or Wierix (frontispiece) ; facsimiles of the title- pages to the first edition and the three volumes of the second ; of a map ' Typus Orbis Terrarum,' in- serted in the first edition ; and of a map of the world, rarely found in the second edition, and supposed to have been instanced by Shakespeare in 'Twelfth Night.' Those to the second comprise portraits of Sir Hugh Willoughby, Sebastian Cabot, and Ivan Vasilowich, Emperor of Russia ; a picture of King Edward VI. granting to London citizens the charter of Bridewell Palace ; a charter of Wardhouse (Vardo) ; the seal of the Russia Com- pany, 1555 ; and scarce and admirably executed maps of the world and of Europe. Nothing but praise is to be bestowed upon a work which in

inception and execution is equally admirable. No production of modern times appeals more directly to the antiquary and the lover of England, and of none shall we avyait with more sanguine and pleasurable anticipation the completion.

THE paper on Christopher Columbus in the Edin- burgh Review for October is of a high order of merit. The writer gives evidence of great knowledge of his subject, and, what is quite as important, the gift of freedom from prejudice which is rare in those who have undertaken to deal with the career and cha- racter of the great navigator. Columbus was not only a world benefactor, but an upright and good man for his time, with a deep sense of religion ; but we see no reason for attributing every possible virtue to the discoverer of the New World. We do not doubt that he was a rough-and-ready sea- man, in a great degree exempt from the violent characteristics of his time, but we cannot credit him with the saintliness with which some of his more ardent admirers have invested him. In ' Mr. Watson's Poems' the author is dealt with, in some cases, far too sternly, though due praise is also given at times. It is, we must admit, by no means an easy matter to hold the scales without a trembling hand when dealing with a poet who so frequently permits questions of modern life, regard- ing which controversies still rage, to deflect his vision. To say, however, that " Mr. Watson is a poet of a type of which he is, perhaps, the only specimen existing, with no distinctive and dis- tinguishable voice of his own," is going much too far. It is inaccurate, for the simple reason that if it were true it would go very far towards proving that he is not a poet at all, in any sense in which the word can be legitimately used. That he is a real poet is quite certain, though we confess to finding defects alike of rhythm and word-selection that at times render his verse un- satisfactory. The paper on Turner is thoughtful, and not too laudatory, as was the fashion awhile back. There is, moreover, a sense of proportion sometimes wanting in art critics. It is now admitted that Turner had many faults, but it grates on us to hear any of his pictures spoken of as possessing " that mixture of genius and charlatanism that the public taste of his day demanded." ' The Revela- tions of Radium ; is the best summing up of what is known and what may be reasonably surmised on a most difficult subject that we have yet met with. It will undoubtedly take high rank in the chemical literature of the future as fixing the high- water mark of knowledge at the time when it was written. There can be no doubt that it will be superseded by the discoveries of a not very remote future, but it must always keep its place as a valuable document to those interested in the annals of chemistry. ' Modern Spiritualism ' is a safe article. The writer is evidently unwilling to commit himself by what may turn out to be rash speculation. The tone is modern, and in great part praiseworthy ; but we now and then encounter passages which bring to our mind the feeling of days gone by which is not likely to return. 'The Emmet Insurrection' contains, we believe, some new facts ; but we have found nothing therein to modify'our opinions regarding the Government of his time or of the noble-minded but unreasonable victim. 'Oxford in 1903 ' ought to be read by all who take an interest in the present state of our ancient universities.