He might with propriety have added to this simple clerical distinction other and broader titles. For, worthy as they may have been and doubtless were, the least of his accomplishments were those of a cleric. Yet under thirty when _Divers Voyages_ appeared, he had already attained an assured place among scholars for his learning in cosmography, or the science of geography, and was particularly known to English men of affairs as an authority on Western discovery. _Divers Voyages_ was skilfully designed for its special purpose. The various accounts then extant in print or in manuscript, giving particulars of the discovery of the whole of the coast of North America, were brought together and so artfully arranged as at once to enlighten his laggard countrymen and to inflame their ambition and their desire for gain. By way of introduction was presented an informing list of writers of “geographie with the yeare wherein they wrote,” beginning with 1300 and ending with 1580; and another of travellers “both by sea and by lande,” between the years 1178 and 1582, who also, for the most part, had written of their own “travayles” and voyages: Venetians, Genoese, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, as well as Englishmen. Next followed a note intended to show the “great probabilitie” by way of America of the much-sought-for Northwest Passage to India. Then came the “Epistle Dedicatorie” to “the right worshipfull and most vertuous gentleman” Master Sidney (not then knighted as Sir Philip Sidney), in which was detailed the compiler’s argument for the immediate colonization of the parts of North America claimed by England by right of first discovery made under her banners by the Cabots, with this pungent opening sentence, cleverly calculated to sting the English pride: “I maruaile [marvel] not a little that since the first discouerie of America (which is nowe full fourescore and tenne yeeres) after so great conquests and plantings of the Spaniardes and Portingales [Portuguese] there that wee of Englande could neuer have the grace to set footing in such fertill and temperate places as are left as yet vnpossessed of them.” And farther along this tingling snapper: “Surely if there were in vs that desire to aduaunce the honour of our countrie which ought to bee in euery good man, wee woulde not all this while haue foreslowne [forborne] the possessing of those landes whiche of equitie and right appertaine vnto vs, as by the discourses that followe shall appeare more plainely.” With these preliminaries the compiler first proceeded alluringly to exhibit “testimonies” of the Cabot discoveries of the mainland of North America for England a year before Columbus had sighted the continent.