In this useful, straightforward and interesting little book (Longmans, I2S.
6d.), Mr. Bell tells again a number of the best-known stories of the English voyages of the sixteenth century, out of Hakluyt. It may be said to be a resume of the Principal Navigations. His interest is in the stories in and for themselves ; " I have laid emphasis,"
he says, " on the deeds of the Elizabethan seamen, believing that most people would rather read what the men did, what they suffered and endured, than an essay on what they may- be supposed to have felt or thought or on the significance or otherwise of their actions." This makes the book an admirable boy's book ; it only remains to say that he tells the stories simply and well. Mr. Bell goes through the century from the early voyages of the Cabots to Newfoundland, the mid-century attempts to find a North-East and a North-West Passage, to the main voyages of Hawkins, Drake, Grenville and Ralegh, and the opening up of North America. In addition to his reading of Hakluyt, Mr. Bell has made use of a number of recent works in this field, some of the phrases from which have remained in his mind when writing.
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