COMPENDIUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. 1300-1371. THE first prose writer which occurs in the annals of English Literature, is the ancient and renowned traveller, Sir John Mandeville. He was born at St. Albans,' about the year 1300. Stimulated by an unconquerable curiosity to see foreign countries, he departed from England in 1322, and continued abroad for thirty-four years; during which time his person and appearance had so changed, that, on his return, his friends, who had supposed him dead, did not know him. But so fixed was his habit of roving, that he set out a second time from his own country, and died at Leige (in Belgium) in the year 1371. John Bale, in his catalogue of British writers, gives him the following fine character, as translated by Hakluyt. 'John Mandevil Knight, borne in the Towne of S. Albans, was so well given to the study of Learning from his childhood, that he seemed to plant a good part of his felicitie in the same: for he supposed, that the honour of his Birth would nothing availe him, except he could render the same more honourable, by his knowledge in good letters. Having therefore well grounded himself in Religion, by reading the Scriptures, he applied his Studies to the Art of Physicke, a Profession worthy a noble Wit: but amongst other things, he was ravished with a mightie desire to see the greater parts of the World, as Asia & Africa. Having therefore provided all things necessary for his journey, he departed from his Countrey in the Yeere of Christ 1322; and, as another Ulysses, returned home, after the space of thirty-four yeeres, & was then knowen to a very fewe. In the time of his Travaile he was in Scythia, the greate & lesse Armenia, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria, Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldæa, Greece, Illyrium, Tartarie, & divers other Kingdomes of the World: & having gotten by this meanes the knowledge of the Languages, least so many & great varieties, & things miraculous, whereof himself had bene an eie witnes, should perish in oblivion, he committed his whole Travell of thirty-four yeeres to writing, in three divers tongues, English, French, & Latine." 1 A town of Hertfordshire, about twenty miles N. of London. 66 John Mandeville was indeed a remarkable man; and though England has since distinguished herself above all other nations for the number and the character of her voyagers and travellers, who, for the sake of enlarging the bounds of geographical knowledge, have pushed their way into every part of the world, yet, considering the time and circumstances in which he wrote, to none must Sir John Mandeville give place. We must bear continually in mind that he wrote nearly five hundred years ago-one hundred years before printing was introduced into England-in an age of great ignorance, and eager for the marvellous and the wonderful in relation to other lands so little known. That he has told many ridiculous stories is no doubt true; but such he generally prefaces with "thei seyn," or men seyn but I have not sene it." But if we charge these against him, we must also give him credit for those accounts which, for a long time, rested on his single and unsupported authority, but which later discoveries and inquiries have abundantly confirmed;-such as the cultivation of pepper-the burning of widows on the funeral pile of their husbands-the trees which bear wool, of which clothing is made--the carrier pigeons--the gymnosophists--the Chinese predilection for small feet-the artificial egg hatching in Egyptthe south pole star, and other astronomical appearances, from which he argues for the spherical form of the earth-the crocodile-the hippopotamus-the giraffe, and many other singular productions of nature. "His book," says an elegant writer,2 "is to an Englishman doubly valuable, as establishing the title of his country to claim as its own, the first example of the liberal and independent gentleman, travelling over the world in the disinterested pursuit of knowledge; unsullied in his reputation, and honored and respected wherever he went for his talents and personal accomplishments." FROM THE PROLOGUE.3 "And for als moche' as it is longe tyme passed, that ther was no generalle Passage ne Vyage over the See; and many Men desiren for to here speke of the holy Lond, and han3 thereof gret Solace and Comfort; I John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the 1 In No. 254 of the Tatler, Addison has ridiculed, with infinite humor, the propensities of Sir John towards the marvellous. 2 See a very interesting article on Sir John Mandeville's travels in the Retrospective Review, vol. iii. p. 269. 3 In printing these extracts from Mandeville, the edition of J. O. Halliwell, London, 1839, published from a manuscript about three hundred years old, has been carefully followed. The language, therefore, is such as our ancestors used more than three centuries ago, and it is here given not only as a curiosity, but from the belief that it will give more real pleasure, and convey a much better idea of the progress which the English language has since made, than if it were modernised. Before the art of printing was discovered there was no settled method of spelling; the same word, therefore, will be found spelled different ways. 4 As much. 5 Have. |