=1576.= In April appeared Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s _Discourse of a Discoverie for a new passage to Cataia_, a Gothic-letter tract of great rarity in these days. It is credited with giving a new impulse to English explorations; and had exerted some influence in manuscript copies before being printed. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 258; _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 31, Heber’s copy, which brought $255. It is also in the Lenox Library; and this and the Carter-Brown copy have the rare map which in the Catalogue of the latter collection is given slightly reduced, and it is in part reproduced herewith. See Fox Bourne’s _English Seamen_, chs. 5 and 7. Gilbert in this had undertaken to prove, both from reasoning and report, that there was a northwest passage, and that America was an island, and he recounts traditions of its being sailed through. See Mr. Deane’s chapter on “The Cabots.” [Illustration: PART OF GILBERT’S MAP, 1576.] =1577.= Settle published in London his _True Reporte of the laste Voyage into the west and northwest regions_, the author having accompanied Frobisher on his voyage in 1577. Its rarity—for besides the Grenville copy in the British Museum, that in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 266, where its title is given in fac-simile, is the only one we have noted—may signify the eagerness there was to read it, with a consequent use great enough to destroy the edition, though there are said to have been two issues the same year. A fac-simile reprint (fifty copies) has been privately made from the Carter-Brown copy; and it is also reprinted in Brydges’s _Restituta_, 1814, vol. ii. See _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1869, p. 363,—a notice by John Russell Bartlett. =1577.= Richard Willes brought out in London, with some augmentation, an edition of Eden’s Peter Martyr, under the new title of _The History of Trauvayle_, a stout volume, which in the known copies has stood wear better. Willes’s preface tells the story of Eden’s labors, and adds, “Many of his Englysche woordes cannot be excused in my opinion for smellyng to much of the Latine.” It would seem that the arrangement was still mostly the labor of Eden, who did not die till 1576. Willes, however, suppressed Eden’s preface of 1555. This edition has likewise much appreciated in value. Rich, in his 1832 _Catalogue_, no. 57, priced a fine copy at £4 4_s._; now one is worth £20 or more. There are copies in Harvard College, Carter-Brown (no. 312), Charles Deane’s and Boston Athenæum Libraries. See also _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 41; _Sunderland Catalogue_, no. 4180; Field, _Ind. Bibl._, no. 485; _Huth Catalogue_, p. 922. [Illustration] =1577.= John Frampton translated and published, under the title of _Joyfull Newes out of the New founde Worlde_, a book of the Seville Physician, Nicholas de Monardes. See _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 46; Stevens’s _Nuggets_, 1924; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 313.