A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
[126] Strabo, a philosopher of Crete and a geographer in the time of
Augustus.
[127] Born at Pelusium, flourished about the year 140, and died 162,
aged 78.
[128] Robert Stafford, born at Dublin, was of Exeter College, Oxford,
and published "A Geographical and Anthological description of all the
Empires and Kingdoms, both of Continent and Islands, in this terrestial
Globe," &c., 1607. Wood says it was reported that John Prideaux, who
was Stafford's tutor, had the chief hand in this work.
[129] [_Naked_, _i.e._, unarmed.] William Lithgow, a Scotsman, whose
sufferings by imprisonment and torture at Malaga, and whose travels on
foot over Europe, Asia, and Africa, seem to raise him almost to the
rank of a martyr and a hero, published an account of his peregrinations
and adventures, 1614; reprinted in 1616, &c., with additions. At
the conclusion of this work he says, "Here is the just relation of
nineteene yeares travells, perfited in three deare bought voyages:
the generall computation of which dimmensions spaces in my goings,
traversings, and returnings through kingdomes, continents, and ilands,
which my payneful feet traced over (besides my passages of seas and
rivers) amounteth to _thirty-six thousand and odde miles; which draweth
neare to twice the circumference of the whole earth_." [A list of his
other works may be found in Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, in _v._]
[130] The celebrated Thomas Coriat who, except Lithgow, is supposed
to have travelled more miles on foot than any person of his times, or
indeed in any period since. From his writings, and many parts of his
conduct, he cannot be supposed to have been in his perfect senses. He
was, notwithstanding, a man of considerable learning, and rendered
himself ridiculous, chiefly by dwelling with too much attention on
the trifling accidents which happened to him during his journey. In
the year 1608 he left England and went to Venice and back again; a
journey performed on foot in five months. On his return, he published
an account of it in a large quarto volume, 1611, containing 655 pages,
besides more than 100 filled with commendatory verses by Ben Jonson and
other wits of the age, who both laughed at and flattered him at the
same time. He afterwards travelled into Persia, and from thence into
the East Indies (still on foot), and died at Surat in the year 1617.
[131] Sir John Mandevile, Knight, born at St Albans. He was a traveller
for the space of thirty-four years, visiting in that time Scythia,
Armenia the Greater and Less, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria, Media,
Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldæa, Greece, Illyrium, Tartary, and divers
other kingdoms. He died at Liege, November 17, 1371. An edition of his
travels was printed in 8o, 1725, from a MS. in the Cotton Library.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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