:

and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Thus should man at once lose half his inheritance, if the art of navigation did not enable him to manage this untamed beast, and with the bridle of the winds and saddle of his shipping, to make him serviceable. Now, for the services of the sea, they are innumerable: it is the great purveyor of the world's commodities to our use; conveyor of the excess of rivers; uniter, by traffic, of all nations: it presents the eye with diversified colours and motions, and is, as it were, with rich brooches, adorned with various islands. It is an open field for merchandise in peace; a pitched field for the most dreadful fights of war; yields diversity of fish and fowl for diet; materials for wealth, medicine for health, simples for medicines, pearls, and other jewels for ornament; amber and ambergrise for delight; the wonders of the Lord in the deep' for instruction, variety of creatures for use, multiplicity of natures for contemplation, diversity of accidents for admiration, compendiousness to the way, to full bodies healthful evacuation, to the thirsty earth fertile moisture, to distant friends pleasant meeting, to weary persons delightful refreshing, to studious and religious minds a map of knowledge, mystery of temperance, exercise of continence ; school of prayer, meditation, devotion, and sobriety; refuge to the distressed, portage to the merchant, passage to the traveller, customs to the prince; springs, lakes, rivers to the earth; it hath on it tempests and calms to chastise the sins, to exercise the faith, of seamen; manifold affections in itself, to affect and stupify the subtlest philosopher; sustaineth movable fortresses for the soldier; maintaineth (as in our island) a wall of defence and watery garrison to guard the state; entertains the sun with vapours, the moon with obsequiousness, the stars also with a natural looking-glass; the sky with clouds, the air with temperateness, the soil with suppleness, the rivers with tides, the hills with moisture, the valleys with fertility; containeth most diversified matter for meteors, most multiform shapes, most various, numerous kinds, most immense, difformed, deformed, unformed monsters; once (for why should I longer detain you?) the sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts, navigation.

We have still to notice, briefly, before we conclude our present remarks, two very remarkable travellers, the one by sea and the other by landDavis and Sandys--the former being one of those intrepid navigators of Elizabeth's reign whose adventures are recorded by Hakluyt, and the latter a son of the Archbishop of York, and author of a well-known metrical translation of 'Ovid's Metamorphosis.' We shall allude to Lithgow also, a Scottish contemporary adventurer.

JOHN DAVIS was born in the county of Devonshire, about the middle of the sixteenth century, but of what parentage is unknown. In 1585, and during the two following years, he made three voyages in search of a northwest passage to China, and discovered the straits at the entrance of Hudson's Bay, to which his name still remains attached. In 1595, he himself published a small and now exceedingly rare volume, entitled The World's Hydrographical Description, wherein,' as the title-page informs us, is proued not onely by aucthoritie of writers, but also by late experience of trauellers, and reasons of substantiall probabilitie, that the worlde in all his zones, clymates, and places, is habitable and inhabited, and the seas likewise universally nauigable, without any naturall anoyance to hinder the

same; whereby appeares that from England there is a short and specdie passage into the South Seas to China, Molacca, Phillipina, and India, by northerly navigation, to the renowne, honour, and benefit of her maiesties. state and communalty. In corroboration of these positions, he gives a short narrative of his voyages, which, notwithstanding the unsuccessful termination of them all, he considers to afford very strong arguments in favor of the north-west passage. The extract from this narrative, which follows, with its original spelling, forms an interesting specimen of the style in which such relations, in the age of Elizabeth, were written. Davis afterward made five voyages as a pilot to the East Indies, and was killed in 1605, in a skirmish with some Japanese, off the coast of Molucca.

FROM ONE OF DAVIS'S VOYAGES.

Departing from Dartmouth, through God's merciful fauour I ariued to the place of fishing and there according to my direction I left the 2 shipps to follow that busines, taking their faithful promise not to depart vntill my returne vnto them, which shoulde bee in the fine of August, and so in the barke I proceeded for the discouery, but after my departure in sixteen dayes the shippes had finished their voyage, and so presently departed for England, without regard of their promise. My selfe, not distrusting any such hard measure, proceeded in the discouerie and followed my course in the free and open sea, betweene North and Nor west, to the latitude of sixtie seuen degrees, and there I might see America west from me, and Desolation east; then when I saw the land of both sides, I began to distrust that it would prooue but a gulfe. Notwithstanding, desirous to knowe the full certaintye, I proceeded, and in sixtie eight degrees the passage enlarged, so that I could not see the westerne shore; thus I continued to the latitude of seuentie fiue degrees, in a great sea, free from yse, coasting the western shore of Desolation. The people came continually rowing out vnto me in their Canoas, twenty, forty, and one hundred at a time, and would giue me fishe dried, Samon, Samon peale, cod, Caplin, Lumpe, stone base, and such like, besides diuers kindes of birdes, as Partrig, Fesant, Gulls, sea birdes, and other kindes of fleshe. I still laboured by signes to knowe from them what they knew of any sea towards the North. They still made signes of a great sea as we vnderstood them; then I departed from that coast, thinking to discouer the North parts of America, and after I had sayled towards the west neere fortie leages I fell upon a great banke of yse; the wind being North and blewe much, I was constrained to coast the same towardes the South, not seeing any shore West from me, neither was there any yse towards the North, but a great sea, free, large, very salt and blue and of an unsearchable depth. So coasting towardes the South, I came to the place wher I left the shippes to fishe, but found them not. Then being forsaken and left in this distresse referring my selfe to the mercifull prouidence of God, shaped my course for England, and vnhoped for of any, God alone releuing me, I ariued at Dartmouth. By this last discouerie it seemed most manifest that the passage was free and without impediment towards the North, but by reason of the spanish fleete and unfortunate time of master Secretoryes death, the voyage was omitted and neuer sithens attempted.

George Sandys was the youngest son of Sandys, Archbishop of York, and was born at Bishops-Thorpe, Yorkshire, in 1578. His mind developed at so early a period, that he entered Hart-Hall College, Oxford, when only in the eleventh year of his age. He afterward removed to Cor

pus-Christi College, but whether he took a university degree or not is uncertain. A restless curiosity to visit foreign countries induced him to leave England for this purpose, and in August, 1610, he embarked for the continent. He travelled through the northern European states, thence down to Constantinople and Greece, and from the latter he visited Egypt and Palestine. Returning by the way of Italy, he passed thence through France to his native country, where he was received with strong demonstrations of approbation. King James soon after took him into his confidence, and Charles the First made him one of the members of his privy chamber. Sandys died in March, 1643, at Boxley-Abbey, in Kent, the seat of his niece, Lady Margaret Wyat.

In 1615, Sandys published an account of his travels, entitled A Relation of a Journey began Anno Domino, 1610, Four Books Containing a Description of the Turkish Empire of Egypt, of the Holy Land, of the Remote Parts of Italy, and Islands adjoining. This work was so popular as to reach a seventh edition in 1673-a distinction not undeserved, since as Kerr in his Catalogue of Voyages and Travels, has remarked, 'Sandys was an accomplished gentleman, well prepared by previous study, for his travels; which are distinguished by erudition, sagacity, and a love of truth, and are written in a pleasant style.' He devoted particular attention to the allusions of the ancient poets to the various localities through which he passed; and in his dedication to Prince Charles he thus refers to this subject:

MODERN STATE OF ANCIENT COUNTRIES.

The parts I speak of are the most renowned countries and kingdoms: once the seats of most glorious and triumphant empires; the theatres of valour and heroical actions; the soils enriched with all earthly felicities; the places where Nature hath produced her wonderful works; where arts and sciences have been invented and perfected; where wisdom, virtue, policy, and civility, have been planted, have flourished; and, lastly, where God himself did place his own commonwealth, gave laws and oracles, inspired his prophets, sent angels to converse with men; above all, where the Son of God descended to become man; where he honored the earth with his beautiful steps, wrought the works of our redemption, triumphed over death, and ascended into glory: which countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate, are now, through vice and ingratitude, become the most deplored spectacles of extreme misery; the wild beasts of mankind having broken in upon them, and rooted out all civility, and the pride of a stern and barbarous tyrant possessing the thrones of ancient and just dominions. Who, aiming only at the height of greatness and sensuality, hath in tract of time reduced so great and goodly a part of the world to that lamentable distress and servitude, under which (to the astonishment of the understanding beholder) it now faints and groaneth. Those rich lands, at this present remain waste and overgrown with bushes, receptacles of wild beasts, of thieves and murderers; large territories dispeopled, or thinly inhabited; goodly cities made desolate; sumptuous buildings become ruins; glorious temples either subverted, or prostituted to impiety; true religion discountenanced and oppressed; all nobility extinguished; no light of learning permitted, nor virtue cherished; violence and rapine insulting over all, and leaving no security except to an abject mind, and unlooked-on poverty; which calamities of theirs, so great and deserved, are to the rest of the world as threatening instructions. For assistance wherein, I have

not only related what I saw of their present condition, but so far as convenience might permit, presented a brief view of the former estates and first antiquities of those people and countries: thence to draw a right image of the frailty of man, the mutability of whatsoever is worldly, and assurance that, as there is nothing unchangeable saving God, so nothing stable but by his grace and protection.

WILLIAM LITHGOW, a Scotchman, and contemorary with Sandys, traversed on foot, many European, Asiatic, and African countries. He was one of those tourists, now so numerous, who travel from a love of adventure, without having any scientific or literary object in view. According to his own statements, he walked more than thirty-six thousand miles; and so decidedly did he prefer this mode of travelling, that, even when the use of a carriage was offered to him, he declined to avail himself of the accommodation. His narrative was published in London, in 1640, and one of the principal adventures which it contains, occurred at Malaga, in Spain, where he was arrested as an English spy, and committed to prison. The details which he gives of his sufferings while in confinement, and the tortures applied to him in view of extracting a confession, are such as to cause humanity to sicken. Having been at length released by some English residents at Malaga, to whom his situation accidentally became known, he was sent to London by sea, and afterward sent, at the expense of king James, to Bath, where he remained, for more than six months, endeavoring to recruit his shattered frame. Lithgow died in 1640, having previously made several fruitless attempts, through the House of Lords, to obtain redress for his sufferings. As an extract from this writer's travels would not present, in a literary view, any variety, we shall not offer one.