PREFACE.

EW OF US adequately realize the immense Leitrature which has descended to us from our ancestors. Generation after generation has passed away; each of which has produced (in the order of its own thought, and with the tuition of its inherited or acquired experience)

many a wise, bright, or beautiful thing: which having served its own brief day, has straitway passed away into utter forgetfulness, there to remain till Doomsday; unless some effort like the present, shall restore it to the knowledge and enjoyment of English-reading peoples.

This Collection is to gather, for the gratification of this and future ages, a vast amount of incomparable poesy and most stirring prose; which hardly any one would imagine to be in existence at all. Of many of the original impressions there survive but one or two copies, and these often are most difficult of access; so that it is not too much to say of the following contents as a whole, that they have never hitherto come within the ken of any single English scholar.

The reader must be prepared often to find most crude and imperfect theories or beliefs, which later experience has exploded, mixed up with most important facts or allusions as to the times, manners, or customs of the period then under illustration: leaving to us the obligation to reject the one, and to receive the other.

Many of the following books and tracts are the original materials out of which modern historians have culled the most graphic touches of their most brilliant pages. In fact, the Series is, in regard to much of its prose, a Study on a large scale of detached areas of English history; and stands in the same relation to the general national Story, as a selected Collection of Parish Maps would do to the Ordnance Survey of English land.

THOMAS SANDERS.

The unfortunate Voyage of the Jesus to Tripoli, in 1584.

[This Narrative was entered at Stationers' Hail on 31st of March 1587 (Transcript, &c., ii. 467. Ed. 1875) as a distinct publication under the title of A most lamentable Voyage made into Turkey, &c.; but we have not been able to meet with a copy of the original edition, and have taken the text from the early reprint in HAKLUYT's Voyages, 1589.1

The voyage made to Tripoli in Barbary, in the year 1584, with a ship called the Jesus; wherein the adventures and distresses of some Englishmen are truly reported, and other necessary circumstances observed.

HIS voyage was set forth [chartered] by the right worshipful Sir EDWARD OSBORNE, Knight, Chief Merchant of all the "Turkey Company," and one Master RICHARD STAPERS; the ship being of the burden of 100 tons, called the Jesus. She was built at Farmne [? Fareham], a river by Portsmouth. The owners were Master THOMAS THOMSON, NICHOLAS CARNABIE, and JOHN GILMAN, The Master (under GOD) was one ZACCHEUS HELLIER of Blackwall, and his Mate was one RICHARD MORRIS of that place. Their Pilot was one ANTHONY JERADO, a Frenchman of the province of Marseilles. The Purser was one WILLIAM THOMSON, Our owner's son. The Merchants' Factors [supercargoes] were ROMAINE SONNINGS a Frenchman, and RICHARD SKEGS servant unto the said Master STAPERS.

The owners were bound unto the merchants by charterparty thereupon, in 1000 marks [=£333, or in present value about £2000], that the said ship, by GOD's permission, should go for Tripoli in Barbary: that is to say, first from Portsmouth to Newhaven [Havre] in Normandy; from thence to San Lucar de Barrameda in Andalusia; and from thence to Tripoli, which is in the east part of [the northern shore of] Africa; and so to return unto London.

But here ought every man to note and consider the works of our GOD; that, many times, what man doth determine, GOD doth disappoint. The said Master having some occasion to go to Farmne, took with him the Pilot and the Purser; and returning again, by means of a perry [gust] of wind the boat, wherein they were, was drowned with the said Master, Purser, and all the company; excepting the said Pilot, who by experience in swimming saved himself. These were the beginnings of our sorrows.

After which, the said Master's Mate would not proceed in that voyage; and the owner hearing of this misfortune, and the unwillingness of the Master's Mate, did send down one RICHARD DEIMOND, and shipped him for Master; who did choose for his Mate one ANDREW DIER, and so the said ship