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Bibliography, specially recommends the perfidious editions. It is plain, therefore, that the remarks of the Biographie Universelle were made without consulting the guide which is recommended to the reader.

A remark cannot be forborne on the utter folly which has consented to repeat the advice referred to as to the selection of a Ramusio. It is obvious that the great value of such a work resides in the assurance felt by the reader that the articles found there were subjected, at an early period, to the honest judgment of the compiler, and that before admitting them he satisfied himself that they had a fair claim to authenticity. The discrimination which Ramusio exercised has become an important item of evidence. Thus he rejects the first and second of the alleged voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, but republishes the two last. Though he speaks in respectful terms of Vespucci, we may fairly infer that he considered the first voyage as a fiction, and the account of the second as suspicious on account of the unwarrantable importance assumed by Vespucci for himself at a time when he was known to have been acting under the orders of Hojeda. Now what can be more obviously absurd than to recommend an edition where this valuable characteristic is completely lost sight of and new matter is interpolated, on no avowed responsibility, yet in such a manner as to have misled some of the most learned individuals and societies of the day, and of course fatally deceptive to those who make only an occasional hurried reference to the work?

One example of the pernicious consequence of this proceeding is too remarkable to be passed over. It relates to that memorable fraud, the pretended voyage of Nicholas and Antonio Zeno.

The Dedication of this work, as originally published by Marcolini, bears date December, 1558. Ramusio died in July 1557; and of course it is impossible that it could have been published by him, or that he could have marked it for insertion. It does not appear in the Ramusio of 1559, but was interpolated into the second volume in 1574, seventeen years after his death. This circumstance

is decisive against its authenticity. Ramusio, a native of Venice, was not only a diligent and anxious collector of voyages, but, it appears by his work, was familiar with the family of the Zeno of that

"In questo volume non si fa mentione delle navigationi fatte da Amerigo Vespucci all' Indie Occidentali per ordine de gli Re de Castiglia, ma solamente di quelle due che el fece di Commissionie del Re di Portogallo" (tom. i. fol. 130).

city, and he speaks with pride (Ed. of 1559, tom. ii. fol. 65, D.) of the adventurous travels of Caterino Zeno in Persia. Had the materials for such a narrative existed he would have eagerly seized the opportunity of embodying them, and it is plain that the imposture dared not make its appearance in his lifetime. Yet, from the subsequent interpolation, this tract, by almost unanimous consent, has been considered to bear the high sanction of Ramusio's name.

"This," says Forster (p. 180), " is the account given of the affair by Ramusio." The Biographie Universelle (art. Zeno) says "Cette Relation a été reimprimé par Ramusio." And the Quarterly Review (vol. xvi. p. 165, note) speaks of certain things known "before Ramusio published the Letters of the two Zeni." In short, the misconception has been universal.

Nor is it merely from the silence of Ramusio that an inference is drawn against this pretended voyage.

He declares in the Preface to the Third Volume, that he considers it not only proper, but in the nature of a duty, to vindicate the truth in the behalf of Columbus, who was the first to discover and bring to light the New World.

He answers in detail the calumny that the project was suggested to Columbus by a Pilot who died in his house, and refers for a refutation of the idle tale to persons yet living in Italy, who were present at the Spanish Court when Columbus departed. He recites the circumstances which had conducted the mind of Columbus, as an able and experienced mariner and Cosmographer, to the conclusion that his project was practicable.

"Such," he declares in conclusion, "were the circumstances that led to his anxiety to undertake the voyage, having fixed it in his mind that by going directly West the Eastern extremity of the Indies would be discovered."+

He breaks into an apostrophe to the rival city of Genoa which had given birth to Columbus, a fact so much more glorious than that about which seven of the greatest cities of Greece contended. +

• "No pure é convenevole, ma par mi anco di essere obligato a dire alquate parole accompagnate dalla verità per diffesa del Signor Christoforo Colombo, ilqual fu il primo inventore di discoprire et far venire in luce questa meta del mondo.”

"Tutte queste cose lo inducevano á voler far questo viaggio, havendo fisso nell' animo che andando a dritto per Ponente esso troverebbe le parti di Levanti ove sono l'Indie."

"Genoua si vanti et glorii di cosi excellente huomo cittadin suo et mettasi á paragone di quatunque altra citta percioche costui non fu Poeta, come Homero

The full force of this evidence cannot be understood without adverting to the strength of Ramusio's prejudices in favour of his native City. He honestly acknowledges that their influence may mislead him when he is disposed to rank the enterprize of Marco Polo, of Venice, by land, as more memorable than even that of the great Genoese by sea.

*

Yet this is the writer who is said to have given to the world undeniable evidence not only that the Venetian Zeno knew of these regions upwards of a century before the time of Columbus, but that traces had been discovered proving that the Venetians had visited them long before the time of Zeno. And in a work of the present day we have these monstrous assertions:

They [the Zeni] "added a Relation which, whether true or false, contained the positive assertion of a continent existing to the West of the Atlantic Ocean. This Relation was unquestionably known to Columbus."

The professed author of the book, Marcolini, was a bookseller and publisher of Venice. It bears his well-known device, of which Dr Dibdin has given a fac-simile. The motive for getting it up is pretty well disclosed in the concluding remarks which allude to the prevailing appetite of the public for such works. It is stated that

del qual sette citta dell maggiori che havesse la Grecia contesero insieme affermando ciascuna che egli era su Cittadino, ma fu un huomo il quale ha fatto nascer al mondo un altro mondo che é effetto incomparabilment molto maggiore del detto di sopra." The terms in which he denounces the effort to disparage Columbus, on the ground of pretended hints from the Pilot, assure us of the manner in which he would have treated the subsequent imposture absurdly attributed to himself; "questa favola laqual malitiosamente dopo suo ritorno fu per invidia finta dalla gente bassa et ignorante." Again: "una favola pieno di malignita et di tristitia.” He loftily denounces the baseness with which a low envy had seized on and dressed up this tale, "ad approvar la detta favola et dipingerla con mille colori."

"Et se l'affettione della patria non m'inganna, mi par che per ragion probabile si possa affermare che questo fatto per terra debba esser anteposto à quello di mare," Pref. tom. ii.

Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. i. p. 225.

Bibliographical Decameron, vol. ii. p. 244-5. In Singer's learned "Researches into the History of Playing Cards, with Illustrations of the origin of Printing and Engraving on Wood," is an account (p. 64-65) of Marcolini's beautiful volume, entitled Le Sorti. "The decorative woodcuts are very numerous, and many of them very beautiful; great numbers of them afterwards served to decorate the Capriccios of that odd genius Doni, who seems to have been employed by Marcolini to write some of his whimsical productions as vehicles for these Woodcuts."

the slight materials extant had been put together that they might not be altogether lost at a period "most studious of new narratives, and of the discoveries of strange countries, made by the bold and indefatigable exertions of our ancestors" ("studiosissima delle Narrationi nuovi et delle discoperte de paesi non conosciuti fatte dal grande animo et grande industria de i nostri maggiori").

A full exhibition of the evidence which establishes this production to be a rank imposture would require more space than can here be justifiably devoted to a topic purely incidental. As it is likely to engage attention, anew, in connexion with the rumoured discoveries in East or Lost Greenland, such a degree of interest may be thrown round it as to warrant, hereafter, in a different form, a detailed examination.

Reverting to the immediate subject under consideration-the alterations of Ramusio in recent editions-an example occurs in reference to this voyage of the Zeni, which shews not only that new matter has been unwarrantably introduced, but that the text has been corrupted, without hesitation, to suit the purposes of the moment.

It has been made a charge against Hakluyt, that in translating the work of Marcolini, he has interpolated a passage representing Estotiland, the Northern part of the new Region, as abounding in gold and other metals:

"In Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages, it is added, they have mines of all manner of metals, but especially they abound in gold. This passage, however, is not to be found in the Italian original of Ramusio."*

The English Translator of Forster, referring (p. 189) to the alleged infidelity of Hakluyt, says,

"From many circumstances, it appears, that Hakluyt's collection was made principally with a view to excite his countrymen to prosecute new discoveries in America, and to promote the trade to that quarter of the globe. Considering it in this light, and that hardly any thing was thought worthy of notice in that age but mines of silver and mountains of gold, we need not wonder at the interpolation !”

Thus has Hakluyt been made, alternately, the theme of extravagant eulogium and groundless denunciation! The passage about gold is in the original (fol. 52) precisely as he translates it: "Hanno lingua et lettere separate et cavano Metalli d'ogni sorte et sopra tutto abondano d'Oro et le lor pratiche sono in Engroneland di dove traggono pellerecie, &c." The misconception of later writers

• Forster's Northern Voyages, p. 189, note

is due to a complex piece of roguery running through the several editions of Ramusio.

The story of Nicolo and Antonio Zeno gains a footing, for the first time, in the second volume of the Venice edition of 1574, of which there is a copy in the Library of the British Museum The passage of the original representing Estotiland to abound in Gold is found there (fol. 224 A.). But before the next edition came out, the well-known result of Frobisher's magnificent hopes was calculated to throw ridicule on such representations. The passage, therefore, disappears from the editions of 1583 and 1606 (fol. 232 A.). The suppression is executed in rather an awkward manner. On turning to the passage indicated of the more recent editions, there will be discovered, at the eleventh line from the top of the page, a chasm in the sense between "cavano” and “di dove." The suppression of the intermediate words, which are marked in italics in our quotation from the original, constitutes the fraud, and renders what remains unintelligible. Hakluyt made his translation from the Ramusio of 1574, and not from the original work of Marcolini. This is evident from the fact, that in his translation (vol. iii. p. 124) immediately after the death of Nicolo Zeno, there follows a deduction of descent from him to "the other Zenos that are living at this day," of which there is not a syllable in the original (fol. 51), but it is interpolated into the Ramusio of 1574. He escaped the falsification of the edition of 1583, because his translation was made prior to that time, it having appeared in his early work "Divers Voyages, &c." published in 1582. The matter, then, stands thus. Hakluyt followed a vicious copy, but one which had reached only the first stage of depravation. Those who denounce him merely happen to have got hold of a subsequent edition which has been further tampered with. Neither party went back to the Original, though by no means a rare book; and it is curious that the critics of Hakluyt, while talking of the "original," had before them neither the original Marcolini, nor the original Ramusio, nor even, if the expression may be used, the original counterfeit of Ramusio. In this last particular Hakluyt has the advantage over them.

It has been ascertained from Oxford that the tract which figures in the Catalogue of the Bodleian Library is not to be found in a separate form, but only as an item of the second volume of Ramusio. The person who prepared the Catalogue was doubtless caught by the attractive name of Cabot, and unfortunately gave to it this deceptive prominence.

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