Hitherto one of the difficulties in describing and establishing the identity of this map has been its anonymous authorship. Mr. Quaritch, in an otherwise fair appreciation of the writer’s labours in this direction, has thought fit, in another part of his catalogue, to charge the writer with appropriating Mr. Quaritch’s labours in this matter of authorship. The charge has found no foundation in any fact whatsoever. The writer’s conclusions about it were based solely upon a comparison made between our map and a globe, two things which Mr. Quaritch has confounded. The globe referred to is known to be by Molyneux, the reference to it in the title of the map led the writer to the not unnatural inference that they were by one and the same author. This position the writer strengthened by two quotations from a scarce tract by the late Dr. J. G. Kohl of Bremen, which was published twenty years before Mr. Quaritch’s catalogue of 1877 [No. 11919] saw the light. The conclusion arrived at by the writer, without any assistance from Quaritch, was that our map, circa 1600, was a new one, on a new projection, made by one of the most eminent globe-makers of his time, probably under the superintendence of Hakluyt. The evidence upon this point is of course strongly circumstantial only, which future research may either refute or confirm. Be this as it may, one thing is now quite certain, namely, that our map, to a very great extent, bears evidence upon the face of it of the handiwork of another of Hakluyt’s friends and colleagues, hitherto unsuspected, we take it, even by Mr. Quaritch. Allusion has been already made to Wright’s “Errors in Navigation,” the first edition of which was published in 1599. In 1610 appeared the second edition, in which mention is made of a general map, which map it has not been our good fortune to see, as the copy in our national library is without it. Several editions were subsequently published by Moxon. In these are to be seen copies of a map laid down upon lines almost identical with ours. They have geographical additions up to date, and also indicate the variations of the compass. These later maps are avowedly ascribed to Wright, and a comparison of any one of them with our map most certainly points to one common source, namely, the original. The conclusion is therefore irresistible, that whatever may be due to Molineux or Hakluyt in the execution of the original, it also represents the first map upon the true projection by Edward Wright. It will be observed as a somewhat happy coincidence that Hallam’s almost first words of introduction to our map are a reference to the Arctic work of Davis, 1585–1587. On the map is also to be observed a record of the discovery by the Dutchman Barents, of northern Novaya Zemlya, in his third voyage in 1596. This is the latest geographical discovery recorded upon it, which serves not only to determine the date of the map, but to establish for it the undoubted claim of being the earliest one engraved in England, whereon this last important Arctic discovery is to be found. The striking similarity between our map and Molineux’s globe, in the delineations of these Arctic discoveries of Davis and Barents, seems to point to the conclusion that, so far as the geography is concerned, they both came from one source, namely, the hands of Molyneux.

Arctic discovery did not escape the notice of our immortal Shakespere. In some fifty lines preceding his supposed reference to our map in “Twelfth Night,” occur the following words. “You are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion, where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard.” The antithetical idea being of course the equatorial region of the lady’s opinion. If the date assigned to it is correct it is probable in the extreme that the thought underlying these words was suggested to the mind of Shakespere by a glance at the upper portion of our map, evidently well known in his time as a separate publication. The remaining points that call for notice are as follows. The improved geography of the whole of the eastern portion of our map, as compared with its contemporaries, and the traces of the first appearance of the Dutch under Davis and Houtman at Bantam. On all the maps was to be seen the huge Terra Australis of the old geography. This, as Hallam remarked, had been left out on our map; but what is so remarkable is that upon it is to be observed, rising “like a little cloud out of the seas, like a man’s hand,” the then unknown continent of Australia. It will be observed that Hallam describes the original as “the best map of the sixteenth century.” Mr. Quaritch improves upon this, and says it is “by far the finest chartographical labour which appeared, from the epoch of the discovery of America down to the time of d’Anville.” If this implies a reference to our map as a work of art, i. e. an engraving, we beg to differ from him, as such terms are misleading. As a specimen of map engraving, it will not compare with even its pirated prototype by Hondius. The art of engraving by Englishmen, more particularly that of maps, was at this period, as is well known, in its infancy. Maps and illustrations for books were for the most part executed abroad, and those who did work here were almost all foreigners. The two best known were Augustus Ryther, who executed among other things the maps for Saxton’s Atlas, and Hondius, who did those for Speed’s Atlas. Mr. Richard Fisher writes: “We have scarcely any record of any Englishmen practising engraving in this country prior to the commencement of the seventeenth century.” The names, however, of two are afforded us by Davis himself in his Introduction to the “Seaman’s Secrets,” namely, those of Molyneux and Hillyer. It is to be hoped that the position of our map in the history of cartography is secured upon firmer grounds than those suggested by the best intentions of Mr. Quaritch. It was the writer’s belief in this that first led him to express the hope that the original of the facsimile, so admirably done for the Society, would henceforth be as firmly associated with Shakespere’s “Twelfth Night” as it certainly is now, not only with the page of Hakluyt, but with the publications of the Society that bears his name.

INDEX

(Embracing much additional data.—See Preface)

A

B

C