and premeditation for any man to vndertake the declaration of these points that you have proposed, containing in effect the Ethicke part of Morall Philosophie. Whereof since I haue taken in hand to discourse at large in my poeme before spoken, I hope the expectation of that work may serue to free me at this time from speaking in that matter, notwithstanding your motion and all your intreaties. But I will tell you how I thinke by himselfe he may very well excuse my speech, and yet satisfie all you in this matter. I haue seene (as he knoweth) a translation made by himselfe out of the Italian tongue of a dialogue comprehending all the Ethick part of Moral Philosophy, written by one of those three he formerly mentioned, and that is by Giraldi vnder the title of a dialogue of ciuil life. If it please him to bring us forth that translation to be here read among vs, or otherwise to deliuer to us, as his memory may serue him, the contents of the same, he shal (I warrant you) satisfie you all at the ful, and himselfe wil haue no cause but to thinke the time well spent in reuiewing his labors, especially in the company of so many his friends, who may thereby reape much profit and the translation happily fare the better by some mending it may receiue in the perusing, as all writings else may do by the often examination of the same. Neither let it trouble him that I so turne ouer to him againe the taske he wold haue put me to; for it falleth out fit for him to verifie the principall of all this Apologie euen now made for himselfe ; because thereby it will appeare that he hath not withdrawne himselfe from seruice of the state to liue idle or wholly priuate to himselfe, but hath spent some time in doing that which may greatly benefit others and hath serued not a little to the bettering of his owne mind and increasing of his knowledge, though he for modesty pretend much ignorance, and pleade want in wealth, much like some rich beggars who either of custom or for couetousness go to begge of others those things whereof they haue no want at home. With this answer of M. Spensers it seemed that all the company were wel satisfied, for after some few speeches whereby they had shewed an extreme longing after his worke of the Faerie Queene, whereof some parcels had been by some of them seene, they all began to presse me to produce my translation mentioned by M. Spenser that it might be perused among them; or else that I should (as near as I could) deliuer unto them the contents of the same, supposing that my memory would not much faile me in a thing so studied and advisedly set downe in writing as a translation must be." Bryskett proceeded, therefore, to read his translation. The reading occupied three days, on each of which the I-VOL. IX. company came out of Dublin into Bryskett's cottage, where they were all hospitably entertained, and there was produced a pleasant comment on the text of the translation of Giraldi's dialogue, by their own dialogue between its parts. The Lord Primate of Armagh, Sir Robert Dillon, Captains Dawtrey, Dormer, and Carleil, and Edmund Spenser are among the speakers. They include in their talk praise of the ploughing and harrowing of the land by my Lord Grey, in a way that suggests a date before his recall, at the end of August, 1582, Sir Robert Dillon saying of him, "God of His goodness grant that when he hath finished his work, He may be pleased to send us such another Bayly to oversee and preserve their labours, that this poor country may by a settled form of Government, and by due and equal administration of justice, begin to flourish as other Commonweals.' To which all saying Amen, we directed our course to walk up the hill where we had been the day before; and sitting down upon the little mount awhile to rest the company that had come from Dublin, we arose again and walked in the green way, talking still of the great hope that was conceived of the quiet of the country since the foreign enemy had so been vanquished, and the domestical conspiracies discovered and met withal, and the rebels clear rooted out." CHAPTER IV. OF SEAFARERS, AND OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. Adventures PHILIP SIDNEY, whom we left, in the year 1579, praised to the queen by William the Silent as one who might be greatest among statesmen,* had, like Raleigh, a keen interest in those adventures over sea that might help to make his country greatest among nations. When Philip Sidney's father was a young man of fourand-twenty, in the year 1553, he had among his retainers the good seaman Richard Chancellor, who in that year went as captain of the Edward Bonaventure in the expedition northward, under Sir Hugh Willoughby, for the discovery of a north-east passage to India. Chancellor had been "nourished and maintained by Sir Henry Sidney, who, in recommending him for service to the Merchant Adventurers, said, "You know the man by report, I by experience; you by words, I by deeds; you by speech and company, but I by the daily trial of his life have a full and perfect knowledge of him." On that voyage Henry Sidney's friend, separated from his companion ships, made his way alone in the Edward Bonaventure into the White Sea, went overland to Moscow, obtained freedom of trade for English ships with Muscovy, and led to the establishment of that Muscovy Company to which Turbervile referred in his poems written from Russia. † This "E. W." ix. 31. *E. W." viii. 404. voyage of Chancellor's made Russia first known to the rest of Europe. Clement He When Chancellor came back to England in the summer of 1554, Clement Adams-a Warwickshire man, then about thirty-five years old, who had been educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, and had taken his degree of M.A. in 1544—was schoolmaster to King Edward VI.'s henchmen. He had been appointed to that office in May, 1552. Adams was interested strongly in details of adventure and discovery by sea. had published for the use of English Merchant Adventurers a copy of the "Mappemonde" in which Sebastian Cabot set forth the discoveries of himself and John Cabot, his father. Clement Adams drew from Richard Chancellor, after his return from Muscovy, an account of what he had seen, and set it down in writing as Nova Anglorum ad Moscovitas Navigatio, Hugone Willowbeio equite classis præfecto et Richardo Cancelero nauarcho. Authore Clemente Adamo, Angio. This narrative was first published by Richard Hakluyt in 1589, with a translation-probably made by himself—into English. In editions of Hakluyt's Collections after 1589, the original Latin text was omitted. Chancellor made a second voyage to the White Sea in the Edward Bonaventure. was at Moscow in November, 1555, but in November, 1556, he was lost by the wreck of his ship on the journey home, when Philip Sidney was a child but two years old. Richard He Strength of the rising interest in navigation, that might bring wealth to England as to Spain, is shown during the younger days of Philip Sidney by the writings of Richard Eden, who was the forerunner of Richard Hakluyt. Eden was a man of the same age as Clement Adams, or a couple of years younger, and was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, under the famous scholar Thomas—afterwards Sir Thomas--Smith. He was at Cambridge for ten years, from 1535 to 1544. When he married, in 1547, Eden had a post in the Treasury, which he held for about two years. Twelve children were born to Richard Eden in the next fourteen years after his marriage. In 1552 he was private secretary to Sir William Cecil. In 1554, under Philip and Mary, Eden had a place in Philip's English Treasury, but of this he was deprived in 1555, on accusation of heresy contained in his chief work, "The Decades of the New World or West India," which was published in that year. From 1562 to 1573 Eden was in the service of Jean de Ferrières, Vidame of Chartres, and in 1572 he narrowly escaped from the Bartholomew's Day Massacre. He returned to England in 1573, and died before the fourth of July, 1577. Richard Eden, though his interest in discovery was shown mainly by translations, included in his writing some results of his own studies or inquiries. He began with a free English version of part of the first modern Book of General Geography, a Universal Cosmography by the German divine, Sebastian Münster, who was Professor of Hebrew at Basel and died in 1552, aged sixty-three. Eden published his selections from this Cosmography in 1553, the year after its author's death, as "A treatyse of the Newe India, with other new founde landes and Ilandes, as well Eastwarde as Westwarde, as they are knowen and found in these oure dayes, after the description of Sebastian Munster in his boke of universall Cosmographie: wherein the diligent reader may see the goode successe and rewarde of noble and honest enterpryses, by the which not only worldly ryches are obtained, but also God is glorified, and the Christian fayth enlarged. Translated out of Latin into English." Of this book, which was dedicated to the Duke of Northumberland, the title faithfully reflects that part of the spirit of the time to which its appeal was made. Two years later, in 1555, Eden published "The Decades of the Newe Worlde, or West India, Conteyning the |