Northern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 1 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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For What Should Moue Such
Great Men, Following The Despightful Lyes, And Fables Of Mariners, To
Defame And Staine Our Nation With So Horrible And So Shamefull A Reproch?
Surely Nothing Else But A Carelesse Licentiousnesse To Deride And Contemne
A Poore And Vnknowen Nation, And Such Other Like Vices.
But, be it knowen to all men that this vntrueth doth not so much hurt to
the Islanders, as to the authors themselues.
For in heaping vp this, and a
great number of others into their Histories, they cause their credite in
other places also to be suspected: And hereby they gaine thus muche (as
Aristotle sayth) that when they speake trueth no man will beleeue them
without suspition.
But attend a while (Reader) and consider with me the grauitie and wisedome
of these great Clarkes: that we may not let passe such a notable
commendation of Island. Krantzius and Munster haue hitherto taught, that
the Islanders are Christians. Also: that before receiuing of Christian
faith they liued according to the lawe of Nature. Also: that the Islanders
liued after a law not much differing from the lawe of the Germanes. Also,
that they liued in holy simplicitie.
Attend I say (good Reader) and consider, what markes of Christianitie, of
the lawe of nature, of the Germanes law, of holy simplicitie, these authors
require, and what markes they shew and describe in the Islanders. There was
one of the sayd markes before: namely, that the Islanders doe place hell or
the prison of the damned, within the gulfe and bottome of mount Hecla:
concerning which, reade the first section of this part, and the seuenth
section of the former.
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