miserable condition to which his body had been reduced. Lithgow's "Travels" are entertaining, and not ill written, but they abound in the marvellous, and too often excite the smile of incredulity.
The "Itinerary, or Ten Yeares Travell through Germany, Italy, England," &c. a folio volume by Fines Moryson, is a production of a far different cast. Moryson is a sober-minded and veracious traveller, and that part of his book which relates to the manners and customs of England and Scotland is peculiarly useful and interesting. He was a native of Lincolnshire, and fellow of Peter-house, Cambridge. "He began his Travels," relates Fuller, "May the first, 1591, over a great part of Christendome, and no small share of Turky, even to Jerusalem, and afterwards printed his observations in a large book, which, for the truth thereof, is in good reputation, for of so great a traveller, he had nothing of a traveller in him, as to stretch in his reports. At last he was Secretary to Charles Blunt, Deputy of Ireland, saw and wrote the conflicts with, and conquest of Tyrone, a discourse which deserveth credit, because the writer's eye guides his pen, and the privacy of his place acquainted him with many secret passages of importance. He dyed about the year of our Lord 1614."[479:A]
In that department of history which may be termed local, including topography and antiquities, the latter half of the sixteenth century had many cultivators. "Persons of greatest eminence in this sort of learning under queen Elizabeth," remarks Nicolson, "were Humphrey Lhuyd, John Twyne, William Harrison, and William Camden."[479:B] Lluyd possessed unrivalled celebrity in his day, for Camden calls him "a learned Briton, who, for knowledge in antiquities, was reputed to carry, after a sort, with him, all the credit and honour." He wrote a variety of tracts, among which is a fragment of a Commentary on Britain; a Description of the Island of Mona;
a Description of the Coasts of Scotland; a Chorography of England and Wales; and a Translation of Caradoc's History of Wales, subsequently published by Powel, and again by Wynn. Lluyd practised physic at Denbigh in Wales, and died there about the year 1570. His friend John Twyne, the translator of his Commentarioli Britannicæ, under the title of The Breviary of Britain, Lond. 1573, has been extolled also both by Lee and Nicolson for his knowledge of the history and antiquities of his country. He died in 1581, leaving behind him two books of Commentaries on British History[480:A], which reached the press in 1590, and various Collectanea relative to the antiquities of Britain.
We must here add to Bishop Nicolson's enumeration the name of William Lambarde, the learned author of Archaionomia, sive de priscis Anglorum Legibus, and of the Perambulation of Kent. This last production, which was printed in 1570, is the prolific parent of our county histories, works which have in our days very rapidly increased, and which exhibit the estimation in which they are held, by the high price annexed to their publication.
Of Harrison's "Historical Description of the Island of Britain" we have already taken due notice, and it would be superfluous, in this place, to do more than mention the Britannia of Camden. Proceeding therefore to the reign of James, we have to increase the catalogue with the names of Stowe, Norden, Carew, and Burton. The Survey of London by Stowe, is one of the most early, valuable, and interesting of our topographical pieces; and on it has been founded the subsequent descriptions of Hatton, Seymour, Maitland, Noorthouck, Pennant, and Malcolm. John Norden is well known to the lovers of topography by his Speculum Britanniæ, which was meant to include the chorography of England, but unfortunately extends no farther than the counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. Norden
was the projector of those useful works familiarly termed Guides, having written a "Guide for English Travellers," and a "Surveyor's Guide," both works of singular merit. He died about the year 1625. Richard Carew, the author of the "Survey of Cornwall," first printed in 1602, and termed, by Fuller, "the pleasant and faithfull description of Cornwall," was educated at Christ-Church, Oxford, where, at the early age of fourteen, though of three years' standing in the University, "he was called out to dispute extempore, before the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, with the matchless Sir Philip Sidney."[481:A] The Cornwall of Carew, though now superseded by the more elaborate history of Dr. Borlase, is a compilation of great merit, and makes a nearer approach than Lambarde's Kent to a perfect model for county topography. Carew died in 1620.
William Burton, the last writer whom we shall mention under this head, though contemporary with Shakspeare for more than forty years, was not an author until six years after the poet's death, when he published his "Description of Leicestershire," folio; a book which, independent of its own utility, had the merit of stimulating Sir William Dugdale to the composition of his admirable "History of Warwickshire." Burton's work was justly considered as carrying forward, on an improved scale, the plan of Lambarde and Carew; it is now, however, thrown into the shade by the most copious, and, in every respect, the most complete county history which this kingdom has hitherto produced, the "Leicestershire" of Mr. Nichols. Burton was the friend of Drayton, and brother to the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.
The third branch of History, the personal or biographical, cannot boast of any very celebrated cultivator during the period to which we are confined. Many ephemeral sketches, it is true, were given of the naval and military commanders of the day, at a time when enterprise
and adventure enjoyed the marked protection of government; but no classical production in biography, properly so called, no enduring specimen of personal history seems to have issued from the press; at least we recollect no example, worth notice, in a separate form, and of the general compilers in this province, we are reduced to mention the names of Fox and Pits. The "Acts and Monuments of the Church," by the first of these writers, commonly called "Fox's Book of Martyrs," is a mixed composition; but as consisting principally of personal detail and anecdote, more peculiarly belonging to the department of biography. The first edition of the "Martyrology" was published in London in 1563, in one thick volume folio, and the fourth in 1583, four years before the death of the author, in two volumes folio. This popular work, which was augmented to three volumes folio in 1632, has undergone numerous editions, and perhaps no book in our language has been more universally read. "It may regarded," remarks Granger, "as a vast Gothic building: in which some things are superfluous, some irregular, and others manifestly wrong: but which, altogether, infuse a kind of religious reverence; and we stand amazed at the labour, if not at the skill, of the architect. This book was, by order of Queen Elizabeth, placed in the common halls of archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and heads of colleges; and was long looked upon with a veneration next to the Scriptures themselves."[482:A]