SAMUEL PURCHAS.*
SAMUEL PURCHAS is in most respects inferior to Hakluyt, whose name he usurped, and whose papers he inherited. He had neither the lofty style nor the epic touch which distinguished the master. His faults were many, and the worst of them was a love of inapposite phantasy. He would pile up words with as reckless an extravagance as any man of his century, and he had a love of bad puns which we can hardly match elsewhere in serious literature. " Whose Librarie, whose Purse hath beene open to me, let his mouth be opened against me also: Europe otherwise could not, nor now upon any price (it is too late) can be Purchased." That is the kind of play upon words in which he took delight, and though there is no great harm in it, it is vastly inappropriate to the serious purpose of his work. But he could no more help this jocularity than he could avoid giving us his views of Tarshish and Ophir for the sake of completeness. His mind, in fact, was cast in the encyclopaedic mould; he delighted to go back to the origins of things; he gravely tells us that man became a worldly pilgrim by sin ; and he describes man's spiritual as well as his worldly pilgrimage in terms which prove that his subject had a complete bold upon him, and that he saw its symbolism wherever his eyes were turned. This method has one advantage: it reflects the mind and character of the author with a curious sincerity, and,
though Hakluyt was a far greater collector of voyages than Purchas, he seems vague and impersonal beside the curious fantastic old clergyman, who, though he travelled not himself, delighted in the rough talk of sailors, and retold their stories with an eloquence peculiarly his own.
Purchas was born in November, 1577, and after taking his degree at Cambridge was appointed curate of Purleigh, in Essex. In 1604 he was instituted to the vicarage of Eastwood, where he straightway began to collect materials for his book. Now Eastwood was but two miles from Leigh, then a busy sea- port, and it was from the sailors who frequented this Essex town that Parches collected much of his best material. Hither came Andrew Battle, whose strange adventures in Angola Purchas described. Here also he encountered Richard Jobson, from whom he gathered strange news concerning the discovery of the River Gambia and the golden trade of the Ethiopians. But, though he lost no opportunity of conversing with the intrepid mariners, who were extending the trade and empire of England in every quarter of the globe, Purchas did not travel himself, save in thought and fancy. " Least Travellers," says he, " may be greatest writers. Even I which have written so much of travels and travellers, never travelled two hundred miles from Thaxted in Essex where I was born." But though be stayed at home, his zeal never slackened. With colossal industry, he wrote some five thousand folio pages, and did it all without the help of "a Vicarian or Subordinate Scribe." Moreover, though Anthony h Wood exaggerates when he says that "by the publishing of his books he brought himself into debt," Purchas knew the pinch of poverty. "If I had not lived in great part upon Exhibi- tion of charitable friends," says he, " and upon extraordinary Labours of Lecturing (as the terme is), the Pilgrime had been a more agreeing name to me than Purchas." But in spite of this " Exhibition," he was not altogether pleased with the world's treatment of him. " Many have applauded my endeavours," he writes, " but probitas laudatur et alget." With a kind of sorrowfulness he owns that he had been no better than a labourer, "forced as much to the Hod, Barrow and Trowel as to contemplative surveying." However, from time to time he gained advancement in the Church. In 1614 he was made rector of St. Martin's Ludgate, for which piece of preferment he gives thanks to John King, Lord Bishop of London, " to whose bountie under God I willingly ascribe my life, delivered from a sickly Habitation, and consequently (as also by opportunities of a London Benefice) whatever additions in my later editions of my Pilgrimage ; these present Pilgrimes also with their peregrinations." It is some- what disloyal to describe the village in Essex where he gathered the excellent matter of his book as a sickly habitation. But London gave him the advantage of " books, conference and manifold intelligence," so that he could turn the news he had collected from the lusty seamen of Leigh to the best advantage. A year after his great work was printed he died ; but he left behind him a monument sufficient for immortality, and though his book is now reprinted for the first time, the name of Purchas is familiar to all those who are interested in the progress of their native country.
For Purchas was a true Imperialist, and he had rightly inter- preted the destinies of England. It is thus that he addresses the most high and excellent Prince Charles in his dedicatory epistle :—" Here Your Highnesse may refresh Your weariness from State-affaires (if any of these Lines may at any time be ambitious of such lustre) in seeing at leisure the World, whereof these Twentie Book-es are the Evidence and Records : the English Martialist everywhere following armes, whiles his Countrey is blessed at home with Beati Pacifici ; the Merchant coasting more Shoares and Bands for commerce, than his Progenitors have heard of, or bimselfe can number ; the Mariner making other Seas a Ferry, and the widest Ocean a Strait, to his discovering attempts." In style and purpose this passage is eminently characteristic of Samuel Purchas. He was a patriot as well as an historian; a zealot, as he called himself, of the English name and nation. But he was also, as we have said, a lover of the encyclopaedic spirit, and his first volume may best be described as the diversions of a pedant. He intersperses accounts of Alexander the Great and the peregrinations of the Apostles with curious inquiries into the languages and religions of Europe ; nor does he disdain what he is pleased to call philosophical speculations. But no iooner does he leave the vague generalities of pedantry for the serious business of history than he changes all .save his style, and even his style becomes more serious as he devotes himself to the weightier matters of fact. He sketches the achievements of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Magellan with an excellent moderation, and when he reaches Cavendish and Davis he has the best excuse for his enthusiasm. It is true that he has now the help of Hakluyt ; but he adds some- thing to his master's account, and there are many pages in Purchas which we cannot spare. Here, too, you may read the marvellous adventures of William Adams, the first Englishman who dwelt in Japan, and won the confidence of the Emperor. In truth, it is the supreme merit of Purchas that his book improves as it goes on, and we look forward to the volumes which are to come with a rare pleasure. It is difficult to praise too highly Messrs. MacLehose's enterprise in giving us this—the first—reprint of " Purchas His Pilgrimes." The volumes are well printed, and furnished with all the apparatus of maps, portraits, and title-pages which are necessary for their proper understanding, and we have no doubt that the publishers' enterprise will meet with all the support which it deserves.
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