“Why, love forswore me in my mother’s womb: And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe, To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub; To make an envious mountain on my back, Where sits deformity to mock my body; To shape my legs of an unequal size; To disproportion me in every part. Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp That carries no impression like the dam.” Curious it is to note how slowly the continent which Columbus discovered became fully recognised as an integral portion of what had been denominated, ἡ οἰκουμένη,—“the inhabited world.” The rotundity of the earth and of the water was acknowledged, but Brucioli’s “TRATTATO DELLA SPHERA,” published at Venice, D.M.XLIII., maintains that the earth is immovable and the centre of the universe; and in dividing the globe into climates, it does not take a single instance except from what is named the old world; in fact, the new world of America is never mentioned. Somewhat later, in 1564, when Sambucus published his _Emblems_, and presented _Symbols of the parts of the Inhabited Earth_, he gave only three; thus (p. 113),— [Illustration: Partium τῆς οικουμένης ſymbola.] _Sambucus_, 1564. EST _regio quæuis climate certo Aëre diſtincta, & commoditate. Quælibet haud quidius terra feretq́ue. Africa monſtroſa eſt ſemper habendo Antea quod nemo viderat vſquam. Fert Aſia immanes frigidiore Nempe ſolo apros, & nimbigera vrſos: Sed reliquas vincit viribus omnes Belua, quam Europæ temperat aër. Taurus vt eſt fortis, bufalus vnà. Ergo ſit Europæ taurus alumnus, Africæ at inſigne ſitq́ue Chimæra. Sint Aſiæ immites vrſus, aperq́ue._ The Bull is thus set forth as the _alumnus_, or nursling of Europe; of Africa the Chimæra is the ensign; and to Asia belong the untamed Bear and Boar; America and the broad Pacific, from Peru to China, have neither token nor locality assigned. Shakespeare’s geography, however, though at times very defective, extended further than its “symbols” by Sambucus. In the humorous mapping out, by Dromio of Syracuse, of the features of the kitchen-wench, who was determined to be his wife (_Comedy of Errors_, act iii. sc. 2, l. 131, vol. i. p. 429), the question is asked,— “_Ant. S._ Where America, the Indies? _Dro. S._ Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o’er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain. In _Twelfth Night_ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. iii. p. 271) Maria thus describes the love-demented steward,—