After
His Death, The Cardinal Desired Me To Give His Other Writings To Damien
De Goes, Promising To Content Me For Them, Which Otherwise I Should Not
Have Done; Yet Hitherto I Have Not Received Any Thing With Which To
Execute His Will.
Yet, for all this, as in the prosperity of his
victories he made no boast, so, in his adversity, he always preserved an
unabated spirit.
Your grace, therefore, may perceive, that this treatise,
and his other works, were written under great afflictions; yet was he not
willing to use the remedy of Zelim, the son of the great Turk Mahomet,
who took Constantinople, and died in Rome, who used to make himself drunk,
that he might forget the high estate from which he had fallen. Neither
would he follow the councils of many of his friends, in withdrawing from
the kingdom; saying, he had rather resemble Timocles the Athenian, than
the Roman Coriolanus. For all which, this treatise ought to receive
favour from your grace, allowing for any oversights of the author, if
there be any such, as I am unfit to detect or correct then. God prosper
your grace with long life, and increase of honour."
[1] Oxford Collection, II. 353. Clarke, Progr. of Marit. Disc. I. App 1.
[2] Oxford Collection, I. viii.
SECTION I.
_Epitome of the Ancient and Modern Discoveries of the World, chiefly by
means of Navigation, from the Flood to the close of the Fifteenth
Century._
When I first desired to compose an account of the ancient and modern
discoveries by sea and land, with their true dates and situations, these
two principal circumstances seemed involved in such difficulty and
confusion, that I had almost desisted from the attempt. Even in regard to
the date of the flood, the Hebrews reckon that event to have happened
1656 years after the creation: while the seventy interpreters make it
2242; and St Augustine extends the time to 2262 years[1]. In regard to
geographical situations, likewise, there are many differences; for there
never sailed ten or an hundred pilots in one fleet, but they made their
reckonings in almost as many different longitudes. But considering that
all these difficulties might be surmounted, by just comparison, and the
exercise of judgment, I at length resolved to persist in my undertaking.
Some allege that the world was fully known in ancient times; for, as it
was peopled and inhabited, it must have been navigable and frequented;
and because the ancient people were of longer lives, and had all one law
and one language, they could not fail to be acquainted with the whole
world. Others again believe, that though the world might be once
universally known by mankind, yet, by the wickedness of man, and the want
of justice among nations, that knowledge has been lost. But as all the
most important discoveries have been made by sea, and that chiefly in our
own times, it were desirable to learn who were the first discoverers
since the flood.
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