"Plata" and "Florida." Before proceeding to note the circumstances under which this conversation took place, it is proper to correct some of the errors of the translation found in Hakluyt.

And first, surprise must have been felt at the manner in which Cabot speaks as to the date of his own celebrated voyage. The "so farre as I remember" seems to indicate a strange indifference on the subject. The expression has passed into Purchas (vol. iii. p. 808), and all the subsequent authorities. In Harris's account (Voyages, vol. ii. p. 190), adopted by Pinkerton (vol. xii. p. 158), it is said, "The next voyage made for discovery was by Sebastian Cabot, the son of John; concerning which, all our writers have fallen into great mistakes, for want of comparing the several accounts we have of this voyage, and making proper allowances for the manner in which they were written, since I cannot find there was ever any distinct and clear account of this voyage published, though it was of so great consequence. On the contrary, I believe that Cabot himself kept no journal of it by him, since in a letter he wrote on this subject, he speaks doubtfully of the very year in which it was undertaken." The same unlucky phrase continues down to Barrow (p. 33), and to a work published during the present year (Lardner's Cyclopædia, History of Maritime Discovery, vol. ii. p. 137). North West Foxe (p. 16) had changed it to what seemed, to that critical personage, more correct, "as neere as I can remember."

Now there is not a syllable in the original to justify any such expression.

"Feci intender questo mio pensiero alla Maesta del Re il qual fu molto contento et mi armo due caravelle di tutto cio che era dibisogno et fu del 1496 nel principio della state."

It will not be understood, that we consider Cabot to have named the year 1496; but it is only important here to negative an expression which seems to argue such a looseness of feeling as to this memorable incident.

It may not be without interest to show the source of Hakluyt's error.

The first English writer on this subject is RICHARD EDEN, who published, in 1555, a black-letter volume, of which a good deal will be said hereafter, entitled, "Decades of the New World, &c." It consists of a translation of the three first Books of Peter Martyr d'Angleria, to which he has subjoined extracts from various other works of an early date on kindred subjects; and amongst the rest, this passage of Ramusio is given (fol. 251), as found in "The Italian Hystories of Navigations." Eden was, as appears from his book, a personal friend of Cabot; and when he came to the round assertion as to the date, 1496, which he knew to be incorrect, he qualified it by introducing (fol. 255) the words in question.

It is the less excusable for Hakluyt and the rest, to have blindly adopted such an interpolation, as there were other translations within reach, in which a correct and elegant version is given of the passage. The "Biographie Universelle" considers Hakluyt as first bringing it forward, but the whole is found in the celebrated Collection of De Bry, published ten years before. At the end of the second part of the Grand Voyages, is a cento of authorities on the subject of the discovery of America, in which the passage from Ramusio is correctly given. It is needless to say, that the as farre as I remember " finds no place; "anno igitur 1496, in principio veris ex Anglia solvi.”

Bare justice to Ramusio demands a reference to another passage in which the English translators have made him utter nonsense. The reader must have been struck with the absurd commencement of the passage in Hakluyt-" Do you not understand how to pass to India towards the NorthWest, as did, of late, a citizen of Venice, &c.;" after which, we are informed that this citizen of Venice abandoned the effort at 56°❝ despairing to. find the passage!" Ramusio must not be charged with this blunder, for the original is, "Et fatto alquanti di pauso voltatosi verso di noi disse, Non

sapete a questo proposito d'andare a trovar l'Indie per il vento di maestro quel che fece gia un vostro cittadino," (" and making somewhat of a pause, he turned to us and said— Do you not know, on this project of going to India by the N. W., what did formerly your fellow-citizen, &c.") not at all asserting the success of the enterprise, but only that it was suggested by the subject of the previous conversation. A correct translation is found in De Bry:—“ An ignoratis inquit (erat autem sermo institutus de investiganda orientali India qua Thracias ventus flat) quid egerit civis quidam vester, &c."

A more material error remains to be pointed out. The speaker in Ramusio says, that finding himself some years ago in the City of Seville, and desiring, &c. (" che ritrovandosi gia alcuni anni nella Citta di Siviglia, et desirando, &c."); but on the page of Hakluyt this becomes, "being certain years in the City of Seville, and desiring, &c." The Latin version in De Bry is correct, "Quem ante aliquot annos invisi cum essem Hispali." The importance of the error is apparent. As truly translated the words confess the great lapse of time since the conversation, and of course the liability to error, while the erroneous version conveys only the idea of multiplied opportunities of communication, and a consequent assurance of accuracy. The same form of expression occurs in another part of the paragraph, and the meaning is so obvious, that it has not been possible to misunderstand it. When the Legate represents Cabot as stating that his father left Venice many years before the conversation, and went to settle in London to carry on the business of merchandise, the original runs thus, "partito suo padre da Venetia gia molti anno et andato a stare in Inghiltera a far mercantie." Again, in that passage, in the third volume, which is properly translated," as many years past it was written unto me by Sebastian Cabot," the original is, "come mi fu scritto gia molti anno sono."

Having thus ascertained what is, in reality, the statement of Ramusio, we proceed to consider the circumstances under

which the conversation took place. It occurs, as has been seen, in the course of a Treatise on the trade in Spices. After expatiating on the history of that trade, and the revolution caused by the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, Ramusio says (Edit. of 1554, tom. iii. fol. 413 A.), that he cannot forbear to add a report of a conversation which he had heard at the house of his excellent friend Hieronimus Fracastor. He then proceeds to give the discourse, which is a very long one, on the subject of Cosmography, the conjectures of the ancients as to a Western World, and the discoveries which had taken place in the speaker's own time. It is only incidentally that Cabot's name is introduced, and with regard to the whole, Ramusio makes this candid prefatory remark, "Which conversation I do not pretend to be able to relate circumstantially as I heard it, for that would require a talent, and a memory beyond mine; nevertheless, I will strive briefly, and as it were by heads, to give what I am able to recollect"-(" Il qual ragionamento non mi basta l'animo di poter scriver cosi particolarmente com' ie le udi, perche visaria dibisogno altro ingegno et altra memoria che non e la mia; pur mi sforzero sommariamente et come per Capi di recitar quel che io me potro ricordare.")

Now what is there to oppose to a report coming to us by a route so circuitous, and expressed at last in a manner thus hesitating? The positive and explicit information conveyed in Cabot's own letter. Nor does Ramusio confine himself to the statement contained in the Preface to his third volume, for in the same volume (fol. 417), is a discourse on the Northern Regions of the New World; in which, speaking of the Baccalaos, he says, that this region was intimately known to Sebastian 'Cabot, "Il quale a spese del Re Henrico VII., d'Inghiltera, scorse tutta la detta costa fino a gradi 67°. ("Who at the cost of Henry VII., king of England, proceeded along the whole of the said coast, as far as 67°.") It is plain, therefore, that the communication from Cabot had completely satisfied the mind of Ramusio, when we find

him in this separate treatise assuming the fact asserted in the letter as conclusively settled.

This last consideration is strengthened by another circumstance. The passage in the third volume which refers to Cabot's letter, and which Hakluyt quotes as from the "Preface," is, in fact, part of a Discourse addressed to Hieronimus Fracastor, the very personage at whose house the conversation had taken place. Ramusio, in conveying the deliberate statement of Cabot, whose correspondent he had intermediately become, and whom he designates as "huomo di grande esperienza et raro nell' arte del navigare et nella scienza di cosmografia," does not think it necessary, even to advert to his own former representation. He is not

found balancing, for a moment, between this written and direct information, and what he had before stated from a casual conversation with a third person, which had rested, for some time, insecurely, in his own confessedly bad memory, aside from the peril to which it had been subjected, before reaching him, of misconception on the part of Butrigarius, or of his forgetfulness during the years which elapsed between the interview with Cabot and the incidental allusion to what had passed on that occasion.

A comparison of the two passages shows further that no great importance was attached to the latitude reached; for in the latter, Ramusio is found to drop the half degree. It furnishes, too, an additional item of evidence, as to the scrupulous accuracy with which the language of the Letter is reported. In giving us that, he is exact ever to the minutes; but when his eye is taken from the letter, and he is disengaged from the responsibility of a direct quotation, he slides into round numbers.

When we add, that in every fact capable of being brought to the test, the statement of the conversation is erroneous, and that the limited latitude is inconsistent with the continued day-light-a circumstance more likely to be remembered than a matter of figures-what can be more absurd, than, at the present day, to dwell on that which Ramusio himself, two