Yet Not Of The Whole, Because They Are Innumerable, And Too Difficult For, Me To Write."

[1] This pope reigned from about 1317 to 1334, so that the original editor, or fabricator of these travels, has so for been fortunate in his chronology.

- E.

CHAP. XIII.

Travels of Sir John Mandeville into the East, in 1322[1].

The travels of Sir John Mandevil, or Mandeville, are to be found in Latin in Haklyuts collection. An edition of this strange performance was published in 8vo. at London in 1727, by Mr Le Neve, from a MS. in the Cotton Library. This old English version is said to have been made by the author from his own original composition in Latin. It is a singular mixture of real or fictitious travels, and compilation from the works of others without acknowledgement, containing many things copied from the travels of Oderic, and much of it is culled, in a similar manner, from the writings of the ancients. Though, from these circumstances, it is a work of no authenticity and unworthy of credit, it has been judged indispensable to give some account of its nature and contents.

Mandeville affirms that he was descended of an ancient and noble family, and was born at St Albans. After receiving the rudiments of a liberal education, he says that he studied mathematics, physic, and divinity, and wrote books on all these sciences; and became expert in all the exercises then befitting a gentleman. Having a desire to travel, he crossed the sea in 1322, or 1332, for different manuscripts give both dates, and set out on a journey through France towards the Holy Land, a description of which country, replete with monkish tales, and filled with the most absurd holy fables, occupies half of his ridiculous book.

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