160 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 172. 



besdiryvlnghen der Rycken, Eylanden, Hovenen, Ri- 

 vieren, Stroomen, Rheden, winden, diepten, ondiepten, 

 mitsgaders religien, manieren, aerdt, politie, ende re- 

 geeringhe der volckeren, oock mede haerder Speceryen, 

 drooghen, geldt ende andere koopmanschappen ; met 

 veele discoursen verryckt, nevens eenighe koopere 

 platen verciert. Nut ende dienstig alle curieuse ende 

 andere zee-varende. Met dry besondere tafels ofte re- 

 gisters ; in twee Delen verdeelt, waer het eerste begrypt 

 Teerttien voyagien den meerendeelen voor desen noyt 

 in 't licht geweest. Gedrukt in den jaere 1646." 



( Translation.) 



Commencement and progress of the United Dutch 

 Chartered East-India Company, containing the prin- 

 cipal travels made among the inhabitants of the pro- 

 vinces there, together with a description of the king- 

 doms, courts, islands, rivers, roadsteads, winds, deeps, 

 shallows, as well as religions, manners, character, 

 police, and governments of the people ; also their 

 spices, drugs, money, and other merchandise, enriched 

 ■with many discourses, and adorned with copperplates. 

 Useful and profitable to all curious and seafaring vir- 

 tuosi. With three separate tables or registers ; divided 

 into two parts, of which the first contains fourteen 

 voyages, the most part never before published. Printed 

 in the year 1646. 



The compiler, however, goes too far in asserting 

 that the greatest part of these voyages had never 

 been printed. The contrary appears when we 

 open the folio catalogue of the Leyden Library, 

 containing a fine collection of these early voyages 

 of our ancestors. 



These voyages were printed consecutively in 

 small folio before 1646; as also the Oost Indische 

 en West Indische Voyagien, Amsterdam, by Mi- 

 chel Colyn, boekverkooper {East Indian and West 

 Indian Voyages, Amsterdam, by Michel Colyn, 

 bookseller), anno 1619, one volume, in the same 

 form and thickness as those of 1646 : some of the 

 plates also in this volume are similar to those of 

 1646. 



This work was dedicated, 28th February, 1619, 

 to the Heeren Gecommitteerde Raden ter Admi- 

 raliteit residerende te Amsterdam (Advising Com- 

 mittee to the Admiralty residing at Amsterdam), 

 and begins with the Reis naar Nova Sembla 

 ( Voyage to Nova Zemhla), printed at Enkhuizen 

 in 1617, by Jacob Lenaertsz Meijn, at the Ver- 

 gulde Schryfboek (Gilt Writing-book), so that it 

 is not improbable that the whole work was printed 

 at Enkhuizen. Michel Colyn also published other 

 Dutch voyages in 1622. 



Concerning Cornells Claesz (i.q. son of Ni- 

 cholas), printer at Amsterdam, I have to observe 

 that he died before 1610, but that the late Lucas 

 Jansz. Wagenaer had bought all his plates, maps, 

 privileges, &c. 



By a notarial act passed 16th August, 1610, at 

 Enkhuizen, Tryn Haickesdr., widow of the above- 

 named Wagenaer, declared that the widow of 



Cornells Claesz might make over to Jacob Le- 

 naertsz all the above-mentioned maps, privileges, 

 &c. See a resolution of the States- General of 

 I3th September, 1610, In Dodt's KerkelJ/k en 

 Wereldli/k Archie/, p. 23. (Ecclesiastical and Civil 

 Archives). — From the Navorscher. Elsevier, 

 Leyden. 



J. A. de Chalmot, in his Biographical Dictionartf 

 of the Netherlands, vol. vll. p. 251., names as au- 

 thor, or rather as compiler of this work, Isaak 

 Commelln, born at Amsterdam 19th October, 

 1598, died 3rd Jan. 1676, and quotes Kasp. Com- 

 melln's Description of Amsterdam, which I have 

 not at hand to lefer to. The work was printed at 

 Amsterdam without printer's name : each voyagie 

 or description is separately paged; some places 

 have a French text. In the second volume Is a 

 Generale beschryvinghe xian Indien, ^c, naer de 

 copye ghedruckt tot Batavia in de druckerye van 

 Gansenpen, anno 1638 (General Description of 

 India, ^x., according to the copy printed at Ba- 

 tavia at the office of the Goose Quill). Whether 

 any other pieces which Commelln compiled had 

 been earlier printed, I have not been able to dis- 

 cover. — From the Navorscher. J. C. K. 



(VoLvi., p. 509.) 



The following are earlier instances of the em- 

 ployment of its by the poets, than any that your 

 correspondent seems to have met with : 



" How sometimes nature will betray its folly, 

 Its tenderness, and makes itself a pastime 

 To harder bosoms ! 



Winter's Tale, Act I. Sc. 2. 



" Each following day 

 Became the next day's master, till the last 

 Made former wonders its." 



Henry VIII., Act I. Sc. 1. 



" On the green banks which that fair stream in-bound. 

 Flowers and odours sweetly smiled and smell'd, 

 Which, reaching out its stretched arms around, 

 All the large desert in its bosom held." 



Fairefax, Godfrey of Bidloigne, xviii. 20., 1600. 



I doubt if there are any earlier instances' 

 among the poets. I have had no opportunity of 

 examining the prose writers of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, but think they must have employed its earlier 

 than the poets. As we may see In the version of 

 the Bible, and other works of the time, the English, 

 like the Anglo-Saxon, long continued to use the 

 genitive his for neuters as well as for masculines ; 

 and thereof for our present of it, its. 



Its leads me to reflect how Ignorant people were 

 of the old languages in the last century. If ever 

 there was a palpable forgery. It is the Poems of 

 Rowley : yet, if my memory does not deceive me. 



