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Travel
![[BOEMUS, Johannes.] WATERMAN, William, translator.](/photos/446/main/446.jpg "[BOEMUS, Johannes.] WATERMAN, William, translator.")
The book is important as a summary of anthropological knowlege of races, traits and customs of Africa and Asia from the early years of the age of discovery. A translation of Book 1 only by William Prat had appeared in 1554 (STC 3196.5, BL only) and text was reprinted in the 1812 edition of Hakluyt’s voyages. The dedication to Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel promises a translation of Book 3 (on Europe) but this never appeared. Very little is known of the author. ‘Born in Aub in Franconia and writing between 1515 and 1520, Boemus was a contemporary of Copernicus and of Sir Thomas More; he was an elder member of the generation of Jean Bodin and Giovanni Botero; and if still living in the sixth decade of the sixteenth century, an old man when Bacon and Shakespeare were born’ (Hodgen). His work was evidently well-read in Europe to judge from the various early editions and translations. His descriptions of Africa, include Ethiopia, Egypt and Carthaginia and are based largely on ancient sources while the Asian sections are devoted to the Middle East and India. At the end is printed a ‘treatise of Josephus conteyning the ordres, and Lawes of the Jewes commune wealthe’ a translation of book 4, chapter 8 of Antiquitates Judicae, the first appearance of part of thisJosephus’s text in English. Provenance: foliation in an early hand. Several short quotations in Latin from Horace, Ovid and elsewhere in a neat late 16th-century hand, vertically down outer margins, presumably by the Francis Smith who signs one of them, including on: (O6v) “I fire, i freese, I burne, i broyle. I starve i frett i fume / I live and die. i die and live, in langor I consume.” A direct quote from A Most lamentable and tragicall historie, containing the outrageous and horrible tyranny which a Spanish gentlewoman named Violenta executed upon her lover Didaco, beacuse he espouthed another being first betrothed to her (London, 1576, leaf D2r): adapted into verse by Thomas Achelley from William Painter’s translation of one of Bandello’s Novelles in The Palace of Pleasure. Achelley’s poem recorded in one copy only (STC 1256.4, Bodley, lacking leaf A4). Violenta became, probably via Painter, a speechless character (entering only once) in Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well that ends Well.’ (T6v): “Dives dives non omni tempore Vives / Da tua, dum tua sunt, post mortem tunc tua sunt. ffranciscus Smyth.” Later provenance: Henry Cunliffe, bookplate and his notes on first flyleaf; probably the Lancashire dialect lexicographer who collected Shakespearean sources and early books on the English language; bought from Boone of New Bond Street for £4 in 1859 [a letter from Boone concerning the incorrect catchword on T7v tipped in at end]; by descent to Rolf, 2nd Baron Cunliffe, sale, Sotheby’s 13 May 1946, lot 46, £38 to Maggs, Catalogue 817/334 (1953) £52/10. see full details...
![HUES, Robert. D[enis] HENRION, translator.](/photos/551/main/551.jpg "HUES, Robert. D[enis] HENRION, translator.")
Hues had studied at Oxford where he became acquainted with Richard Hakluyt and later, Walter Raleigh and Thomas Harriot, before taking part in a voyage to Newfoundland. In five parts, the book describes the practical uses of the globes designed by Molyneux and, especially, how mariners could find the sun’s position, latitude, course and distance, amplitudes and azimuths, and time and declination. The fifth part describes the use of rhumb lines in navigation. The translation is by Denis Henrion, the Paris mathematician remembered for his edition of the works of Viète and for the introduction of the calculating device known as the proportional compass to France. Henrion’s is a faithful translation with numerous interpolations of his own (indicated by italics). In these, Henrion adds several practical details to the methods of calculation but also takes the opportunity to advertise his Cosmographie, which was not to appear until two years later. At several points he affirms Hues’ text while stating ‘comme nous avons enseigné en nostre Cosmographie.’ The notes on the operation of the proportional compass promised by the title are confined to very sparse remarks on how a lengthy calculation, for example, could be achieved simply with the compass. They would appear to be an attempt to advertise another of Henrion’s works, Usage du compas de proportion (also 1618) and perhaps the instruments themselves. see full details...
![[PALMER, Sir Thomas.]](/photos/447/main/447.jpg "[PALMER, Sir Thomas.]")
Palmer’s intention was to explore the motivation for travel and explain the ways in which travel could be beneficial to the individual and to his country. Following the example of Zwinger’s Methodus Apodemica (1577) Palmer’s work contains four large and elaborate tables showing the diversity of types of foreign travellers (from tourists, to spies and exiles) and the priorities they should adopt while abroad. Palmer was not himself a seasoned traveller and the book is not a practical guide, but is culturally important as a complete exposition of an English Renaissance theory of travel. ‘Sir Thomas Palmer (1540–1626), “the Travailer,” born in 1540, was the third son of Sir Henry Palmer of Wingham, Kent... He was high sheriff of Kent in 1595, and in the following year went on the expedition to Cadiz, when he was knighted. In 1606 he published ‘An Essay of the Meanes how to make our Travailes into forraine Countries the more profitable and honourable,’ London, 4to. Here Palmer discussed the advantages of foreign travel, and some of the political and commercial principles which the traveller should understand. The book is dated from Wingham, where the author is said to have kept, with great hospitality, sixty Christmases without intermission. The book is dedicated to the young Henry, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the throne, who would then have been 12 years old’ (DNB). see full details...
