who added to the glory of the realm by their travels
and explorations. To further the first object he concerned himself deeply
with the commercial interests of the East India Company, with Raleigh's
colonizing plans in Virginia, and with a translation of De Soto's travels
in America. To further the second he made himself familiar with books of
voyages in all foreign languages and with the brief reports of explorations
of his own countrymen. His _Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries
of the English Nation_, in three volumes, appeared first in 1589, and a
second edition followed in 1598-1600. The first volume tells of voyages to
the north; the second to India and the East; the third, which is as large
as the other two, to the New World. With the exception of the very first
voyage, that of King Arthur to Iceland in 517, which is founded on a myth,
all the voyages are authentic accounts of the explorers themselves, and are
immensely interesting reading even at the present day. No other book of
travels has so well expressed the spirit and energy of the English race, or
better deserves a place in our literature.

Samuel Purchas, who was also a clergyman, continued the work of Hakluyt,
using many of the latter's unpublished manuscripts and condensing the
records of numerous other voyages. His first famous book, _Purchas, His
Pilgrimage_, appeared in 1613, and was followed by _Hakluytus Posthumus, or
Purchas His Pilgrimes_, in 1625. The very name inclines one to open the
book with pleasure, and when one follows his inclination--which is, after
all, one of the best guides in literature--he is rarely disappointed.
Though it falls far below the standard of Hakluyt, both in accuracy and
literary finish, there is still plenty to make one glad that the book was
written and that he can now comfortably follow Purchas on his pilgrimage.

THOMAS NORTH. Among the translators of the Elizabethan Age Sir Thomas North
(1535?-1601?) is most deserving of notice because of his version of
_Plutarch's Lives_ (1579) from which Shakespeare took the characters and
many of the incidents for three great Roman plays. Thus in North we read:

Caesar also had Cassius in great jealousy and suspected him much: whereupon
he said on a time to his friends: "What will Cassius do, think ye? I like
not his pale looks." Another time when Caesar's friends warned him of
Antonius and Dolabella, he answered them again, "I never reckon of them;
but these pale-