Voyage of the Elizabethan Seamen to America. Edited by E.
J. Payne, M.A. (De Is Rue and Co.)—Mr. Payne has hero " selected I and edited, with historical notices," thirteen original narratives from the collection of Haklnyt. The period taken in is a littlo more than thirty years (1562-1595), the heroic ago of English navigation ;; and the heroes are Hawkins, Frobisher, Drake, Gilbert, Amadas and Barlow, Cavendish and Raleigh. Of all of these, Frobisher, perhaps, is the one with whom in these days, with the public conscience* developed, as it is, above the level of piracy and slave-clealiog, we are most in sympathy. This does not mean that Frobisher was bettor than his compeers and contemporaries, but that circumstances directed his energies in a different direction. Ho looked for gold,. not from Spanish treasure-ships, but in Arctic mines ; and the geo graphical problems which, in pursuing this quest, he grappled with,, aro still partly unsolved. Three voyages of his are given in this. volume. Drake appears twice in hie "Famous Voyage" (1577), as told by Francis Pretty (this was the voyage in the course of which he executed Doughty, and was very nearly executing Fletcher, the chaplain) ; and in his " Second Great Voyage" (1585). From this he never returned, dying of dysentery off Porto Bello. Sir Humphrey Gilbert went down with his ship and crew ; Cavendish died at sea; Frobisher of his wounds, received in an attack on Fort Croyzon, near Brest. Mr. Payne's work as editor is well done. He has elevated his material from the rank of interesting narrative to that of genuine history.
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