Additional List of Biographies.-To the works already mentioned we add the following brief list of such as we believe to fulfill most satisfactorily the conditions demanded of a true biography possessing real literary worth: The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, by Washington Irving (1849). The Life of Washington, by Washington Irving (1858). The Life of Goethe, by George Henry Lewes (1859). Life of Voltaire, by James Parton (1881). The Life of the Prince Consort, by Theodore Martin (1874-80). Of the various compilations and series of biographies, the mere mention of a few must suffice: Biographia Britannica, edited by Dr. Kippis, still unfinished (1778-79). Athena Oxoniensis: "an exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the most eminent and famous university of Oxford from 1500 to 1690," by Anthony à Wood (1691–92). The Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire, by Hartley Coleridge (1832-33). The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and the Keepers of the Great Seal of England, from the Earliest Times till the Reign of George IV., by Lord John Campbell (1845-47). The Lives of the Chief Justices of England, from the Norman Conquest till the Death of Lord Mansfield, by Lord John Campbell (1849). Library of American Biography, edited by Jared Sparks. (25 vols., 1834-48.) REFERENCES. GOLDSMITH: See Irving's Life of Goldsmith; William Black's Goldsmith (English Men of Letters); Forster's Life of Goldsmith. DR. JOHNSON: See Boswell's Life of Johnson (Standard Library); Life and Conversations of Dr. Johnson, by Alexander Main; Leslie Stephen's Samuel Johnson (English Men of Letters); Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, by George Birbeck Hill; The Six Chief Lives from Johnson's Lives of the Poets, edited by Matthew Arnold; Macaulay's Essays; Carlyle's Essays. MISCELLANEOUS: Editions of the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys are published in Bohn's Historical Library. For other subjects mentioned in this chapter, see Thackeray's English Humorists; Macaulay's Essays; Stephen's Hours in a Library; Harriet Martineau's Biographical Sketches; Page's Life of De Quincey; Stirling's Essays; Biographia Britannica; Parke Godwin's Cyclopedia of Biography. CHAPTER V. TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE. Literary Character of Works of this Class-The Earliest Accounts of Travel-Sawulf-Sir John Mandeville-Sir Walter Raleigh-Hakluyt-Purchas's Pilgrimage-John Davis-George Sandys-Lithgow -James Howell-Bruce's Abyssinia-Mungo Park-Landor-Burckhardt-Belzoni-Wilkinson-Other African Travelers-Nile NotesBayard Taylor-Number and Literary Character of Modern Books of Travel-Eothen-A Desert Journey. WORKS relating to travel and adventure, although valuable for the information which they give us concerning foreign countries and for the pictures which they afford of the life and manners of strange people, are usually of short-lived interest. In this department of literature, although the number of books written has been immense, we shall find but few works of permanent value or of more than ordinary interest. The oldest specimens of travelers' tales belong to the Anglo-Saxon period, and have already been mentioned. The most ancient is The Traveler's Song, a poem found in the Exeter Book, and belonging, perhaps, to the sixth century. In it one Widsnith briefly mentions the countries through which he has passed and some of the scenes he has witnessed. The first authentic accounts of travel and exploration are the narratives of Ohthere and Wulfstan related to King Alfred, and by him written down about the year 900. In a former chapter we have quoted Ohthere's very brief account of his voyage to the White Sea.* These early narratives, however bare of incident and imperfect they may be, possess two qualities not See always found in works of this class-brevity and truth. The first English traveler was a merchant named Sawulf, who lived in the time of Henry I. (1100-1135), and who, either from religious motives or from a desire for traffic, or, what is least likely, from a love for adventure, accompanied the first crusaders to the Holy Land. On his return home he wrote in Latin an account of all that he had seen in Greece, Asia Minor, and Palestine, and of the stirring scenes of which he had been an eye-witness. But his narrative is so brief and dry as to be of no value from an historical or literary point of view. Having become weary of the vanities of the world, Sawulf, soon after his return from his travels, retired to the monastery of Malmesbury, where he spent the remainder of his life. We have spoken of Sir John Mandeville, the most famous traveler of his time, and the writer of the first book of modern English prose. As a description of foreign lands and peoples in the fourteenth century, Mandeville's book is almost worthless; but as a literary monument. marking one of the most important eras in the history of our language it is of the very greatest value. It is a fair sample of the imperfect learning of that time, and of the superficial way of observing things, so characteristic of a semi-civilized age. The enthusiastic Mandeville, like some travelers of more recent times, seems to have had no faculty for distinguishing truth from falsehood; and hence, or one page, we find him recording, with reasonable veracity, his personal experiences and observations, while, on the next, he relates, with an equal appearance of honesty, stories of the wildest and most absurd character. He tells us of a great bird which caught up elephants in its talons and carried them to its mountain eyrie; of the phoenix which lives a hundred. years and then springs up with renewed youth from the ashes of its own funeral pile; of a race of Ethiopians who have but one foot, but which, in case of emergency, they are able to utilize as an umbrella. Then he gives us a pleasing and, we must believe, tolerably faithful account. of his personal observations among the various Mohammedan nations with whom he for a long time sojourned, That which he tells us concerning India and Cathay cannot be regarded as trustworthy, being in great part borrowed from a book of travels written some years earlier by one Odoric, a Franciscan monk of Friuli, in Lombardy. Mandeville's reasons for writing his famous Voyage and Travaile in the English language are thus briefly stated in the introduction to that work: And for als moche as it is longe time passed that ther was no generalle Passage ne Vyage over the See, and many Men desiren for to here speke of the holy Lond, and han thereof gret Solace and Comfort, I, John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the town of Seynt Albones, passed the See in the zeer of our Lord Jesu-Christ 1322, in the Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidreto have been long tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse Londes and manye Provynces and Kyngdomes and Iles. And zee shulle undirstonde that I have put this Boke out of Latyn into Frensche and translated it azen out of Frensche into Englysche, that every Man of my Nacioune may undirstonde it. In the year 1596 Sir Walter Raleigh published his narrative of a voyage to South America. The title of this remarkable work was: The Discoverie of the Empyre of Guiana, with a Relation of the Citie of Manoa (which Spanyards call El Dorado), and of the Provinces of Emeria, Arromaia, Amapaia, etc. Performed in the Year 1595. It was full of strange, improbable stories-"the most palpable lies," says Hume, “that were ever attempted to be imposed on the credulity of mankind." But whether these stories were deliberately manufactured by Raleigh, or whether he had been deceived into believing them true, it is impossible to say. Let us draw the mantle of charity over the name and fame of the great courtier, and believe him innocent of intentional falsehood. |