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CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Account of the Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville, 

 Knyghte,* 



Sir John Maundeville was one of those chivalrous charac- 

 ters who overpassed, even in a romantic age, the common bounds of 

 enterprize in quest of adventure or experience. He manifestly pos- 

 sessed an extraordinary mental constitution, and its prominent fea- 

 tures appear on every page of his Itinerary. His spirit was ardent, 

 credulous, enthusiastic. A concise but interesting notice of his Life, 

 including remarks on his communications, is prefixed to this valuable 

 and well-executed Reprint of his " Voiage and Travaile" by his edi- 

 tors. He was born at St. Alban's about the beginning of the four- 

 teenth century ; and, after completing a liberal education in litera- 

 ture, languages, philosophy and physic, he set out on his travels from 

 which he did not return till after the long period of thirty-four years. 

 Towards the end of his active life, he went to Liege where he died in 

 the year 1371 : he was buried there in the " Abbie of the Order of 

 the Guelielmites," and a monument with a descriptive epitaph was 

 erected in that church to the memory of our celebrated countryman. 



Scholars, collectors and other lovers of ancient Book-lore, owe a 

 large amount of gratitude to Mr. Lumley, the intelligent and very 

 spirited Publisher of Sir John Maundeville's extraordinary produc- 

 tion. For more than a century the editions of 1725 and 1727 were 

 the most esteemed of all others in the English language ; but thanks 

 to modern enterprize here so happily exemplified, the present Reprint 

 excels its predecessors, in the distinctness of its typography, and in 

 the number and beauty of its graphic illustrations. We too have 

 sincere pleasure in acknowledging our extreme obligation to the same 

 liberal Bibliopolist for the use of those wood-cuts by which the im- 

 portance of this article is essentially enhanced. 



Sir John Maundeville enters on his curious narrative with a 

 " Prologue," wherein he enumerates the objects of his various pere- 

 grinations, and specifies the design for which the history of his " tra- 

 vailes" was compiled. In the vernacular language of our ancestors, 

 in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, he states that 



• Cfte 1^'oiage antr Crabaile of S ir John Maundeville, Knt. which treat- 

 eth of the Way to Hierusalem ; and of marvayles of Ynde, with other 

 Hands and Countryes: reprinted from the edition of a.d. 1725 ; with an in- 

 troduction, additional notes, and a glossary, by J. O. Halliwell, Esq. F.S.A. 

 F.R.A.S. ; pp. xii, 325, London, 1839: nublished by Edward Lumley, 56, 

 Chancery Lane, with a Frontispiece, title-vignette, and seventy fac-sirailes 

 of the ancient Avood-cuts. 



