[673] Id. 64.
Sect. IV.
On Geography and History.
Purchas’s Pilgrim. 31. Purchas, an English clergyman, imbued by nature, like Hakluyt, with a strong bias towards geographical studies, after having formed an extensive library in that department, and consulted, as he professes, above 1,200 authors, published the first volume of his Pilgrim, a collection of voyages in all parts of the world, in 1613; four more followed in 1625. The accuracy of this useful compiler has been denied by those who have had better means of knowledge, and probably is inferior to that of Hakluyt; but his labour was far more comprehensive. The Pilgrim was at all events a great source of knowledge to the contemporaries of Purchas.[674]
[674] Biogr. Univ. Pinkerton’s Collection of Voyages and Travels. The latter does not value Purchas highly for correctness.
Olearius and Pietro della Valle. 32. Olearius was ambassador from the Duke of Holstein to Moscovy and Persia from 1633 to 1639. His travels, in German, were published in 1647, and have been several times reprinted and translated. He has well described the barbarism of Russia and the despotism of Persia; he is diffuse and episodical, but not wearisome; he observes well and relates faithfully: all who have known the countries he has visited are said to speak well of him.[675] Pietro della Valle is a far more amusing writer. He has thrown his travels over Syria and Persia into the form of letters written from time to time, and which he professes to have recovered from his correspondents. This perhaps is not a very probable story, both on account of the length of the letters, and the want of that reference to the present time and to small passing events which authentic letters commonly exhibit. His observations, however, on all the countries he visited, especially Persia, are apparently such as consist with the knowledge we have obtained from later travellers. Gibbon says that none have better observed Persia, but his vanity and prolixity are insufferable. Yet I think that Della Valle can hardly be reckoned tedious; and if he is a little egotistical, the usual and almost laudable characteristic of travellers, this gives a liveliness and racy air to his narrative. What his wife, the Lady Maani, an Assyrian Christian, whom he met with at Bagdad, and who accompanied him through his long wanderings, may really have been, we can only judge from his eulogies on her beauty, her fidelity, and her courage; but she throws an air of romance over his adventures, not unpleasing to the reader. The travels of Pietro della Valle took place from 1614 to 1626; but the book was first published at Rome in 1650, and has been translated into different languages.
[675] Biogr. Univ.
Lexicon of Ferrari. 33. The Lexicon Geographicum of Ferrari, in 1627, was the chief general work on geography; it is alphabetical, and contains 9,600 articles. The errors have been corrected in later editions, so that the first would probably be required in order to estimate the knowledge of its author’s age.[676]
[676] Salfi, xi., 418. Biogr. Universelle.
Maps of Blaew. 34. The best measure, perhaps, of geographical science, are the maps published from time to time, as perfectly for the most part, we may presume, as their editors could render them. If we compare the map of the world in the “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum sive Novus Atlas” of Blaew, in 1648, with that of the edition of Ortelius, published at Antwerp in 1612, the improvements will not appear exceedingly great. America is still separated from Asia by the straights of Anian about lat. 60; but the coast to the south is made to trend away more than before; on the N.E. coast we find Davis’s Sea, and Estotiland has vanished to give way to Greenland. Canada is still most inaccurate, though there is a general idea of lakes and rivers better than in Ortelius. Scandinavia is far better, and tolerably correct. In the South, Terra del Fuego terminates in Cape Horn, instead of being united to Terra Australis; but in the East, Corea appears as an oblong island; the Sea of Aral is now set down, and the wall of China is placed north of the fiftieth parallel. India is very much too small, and the shape of the Caspian Sea is wholly inaccurate. But a comparison with the map in Hakluyt, mentioned in our second volume, will not exhibit so much superiority of Blaew’s Atlas. The latter, however, shows more knowledge of the interior country, especially in North America, and a better outline in many parts, of the Asiatic coast. The maps of particular regions in Europe are on a large scale, and numerous. Speed’s maps 1646, appear by no means inferior to those of Blaew; but several of the errors are the same. Considering the progress of commerce, especially that of the Dutch, during this half century, we may rather be surprised at the defective state of these maps.