“the good old rule,
... the simple plan,
That he shall take who has the power,
And he shall keep who can!”
[APPENDIX.]
A ([p. 2]).
Sir John Mandeville.
Sir John Mandeville, or Maundeville, was of a family that came into England with the Conqueror. He is said to have been a man of learning and substance, and had studied physic and natural philosophy. He was also a good and conscientious man, and was, moreover, the greatest traveller of his time. John Bale, in his catalogue of British writers, says of him that “he 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. He therefore well grounded himself in religion by reading the Scriptures, and also applied his studies to the art of physicke, a profession worthy a noble wit; but amongst other things he was ravished with a mighty desire to see the greater parts of the world, as Asia and Africa. Having provided all things necessary for his journey, he departed from his country in the yeere of Christ 1322, and, as another Ulysses, returned home after the space of thirty-four years, and was then known to a very few. In the time of his travaile he was in Scythia, the greater and lesser Armenia, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria, Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldea, Greece, Illyrium, Tartarie and divers other kingdoms of the World, and having gotten by this means the knowledge of the languages, lest so many and great varieties and things miraculous whereof himself had been an eie-witness should perish in oblivion, he committed his whole travell of thirty-four yeeres to writing in three divers tongues—English, French, and Latine. Being arrived again in England, having seen the wickedness of that age, he gave out this speech;—‘In our time,’ he said, ‘it may be spoken more truly than of old that virtue is gone; the Church is under foot; the clergie is in erreur; the Devill raigneth, and Simone beareth the sway.’”
A man who in the first part of the fourteenth century could conceive, and for thirty-four years persist in carrying out, the intention of travelling from one country to another over a great part of the habitable globe, must have possessed remarkable qualifications. Indeed, his achievements were so extraordinary, and his narrative agrees in so many particulars with that of the travels of Marco Polo, that it has been suggested that he may never have gone to the East at all, but compiled his book from the journals of his predecessor. But it seems to me impossible to doubt the correctness of Mr. Halliwell’s opinion that this suggestion is wholly unjustifiable, and that, after perusal of the volume, the judgment of any impartial reader would repudiate such a supposition. Sir John Mandeville met with credit and respect in his own day, and the transcriber on vellum of a small folio MS. copy of his book, written in double columns certainly not more than twenty years after his death, prefaces it in a manner which shows that he entertained no doubt concerning it.
There are several editions of Sir John Mandeville’s account of his ‘Voiages.’ The most useful to the general reader are, 1st, that printed in London, in 1725, from a manuscript in the Cottonian collection; 2nd, a reprint of the above, with a few notes by Mr. J. O. Halliwell, and various illustrations, which are fac-simile copies by F. W. Fairholt, from the older editions and manuscripts in the Harleian collection, published by Lumley in 1837; and, 3rd, a reprint of this later edition, published by F. S. Ellis, in 1866.
Sir John Mandeville died at Liege on the 17th of November, 1371. His fellow-townsmen of St. Albans appear to have believed that his body was brought home to the place of his birth, and buried in St. Albans Abbey, for the following doggrel verses were inscribed as his epitaph on one of the pillars there:—