on's
_Paradisus Terrestris_, p. 345. (Art. "Neesewort," then called _Elleborus
albus_), led to the discovery of a relation of Old John's voyage to
Russia:--

"This (says Parkinson) grows in many places in Germany, and likewise in
certain places in Russia, in such abundance, that, according to the
relation of that worthy, curious, and diligent searcher and preserver
of all nature's rarities and varieties, my very good friend John
Tradescante, of whom I have many times before spoken, a moderately
large ship (as he says) might be laden with the roots thereof, which he
there saw on a certain island."

The same notice, in other words, also occurs in Parkinson's _Theatrum_, p.
218.

In searching among the MSS. in the Ashmolean Museum, Dr. Hamel bore this
passage in memory, and one MS., thus described in Mr. Black's excellent
catalogue, No. 824., xvi., contained confirmatory matter:

"A Voiag of Ambassad undertaken by the Right Honnorabl S^r Dudlie
Diggs, in the year 1618."

"This curious narrative of the voyage round the North Cape to
Archangel, begins with a list of the chief persons employed in the
embassy, and contains observations of the weather, and on the
commercial, agricultural, and domestic state of Russia at that time. It
is written in a rude hand, and by a person unskilled in composition.
The last half page contains some chronological notes and other stuff,
perhaps written by the same hand."

Thus far Mr. Black. The full title of the MS. is,--

"A Viag of Ambassad undertaken by the Right Honnorabl S^r Dudlie Diggs
in the year 1618, being atended on withe 6 Gentillmen, whiche beare the
nam of the king's Gentillmen, whose names be heere notted. On M.
Nowell, brother to the Lord Nowell, M. Thomas Finche, M. Woodward, M.
Cooke, M. Fante, and M. Henry Wyeld, withe every on of them ther man.
Other folloers, on Brigges, Interpreter, M. Jams, an Oxford man, his
Chaplin, on M. Leake his Secretary, withe 3 Scots; on Captain Gilbert
and his Son, withe on Car, also M. Mathew De Quester's Son, of Filpot
Lane, in London, the rest his own retenant, some 13 _whearof_ (_Note on
Jonne an Coplie wustersher men_) M. Swanli of Limhouse, master of the
good Ship called the Dianna of Newcastell, M. Nelson, part owner of
Newe Castell."

Dr. Hamel says:

"What the words in Italics may signify is not quite clear, but