RICHARD HAKLUYT 



Pryhouse, of Guernsey, meets him in London, and 

 gives him news of the French scheme for colonising 

 Canada ; another friend, unnamed, brings him an account 

 of the setting up of a saw-mill in Worcestershire, 

 which suggests to him that saw-mills might be set up 

 on the Virginian coast. Among all these, his friends Never-ending 

 and fellows, the Preacher moves like a shadow, giving 

 his heart to search out concerning all things that are 

 done under heaven, exercised with sore travail, and 

 writing words of truth. The English nation may well 

 be proud of him, and glad that, while its great destinies 

 were still in the making, there lived a man quick 

 enough to discern the significance of the deeds done 

 around him, and steady enough, in purpose and perse- 

 verance, to encounter and overcome the difficulties of 

 giving to them an enduring chronicle. 



He was born, probably in London, about the year The Life of 

 1553. His family belonged to Eyton, or Yatton, in ^ ^^ ' 

 Herefordshire, and from the time of Edward II onward, 

 supplied not a few sheriffs and members of Parliament to 

 the service of the country. The family was English, and 

 the name, in its accepted form, owes its alien suggestion 

 to the preservation of archaic spelling. It was pro- 

 nounced, and sometimes spelt, Hacklewit. So Drayton, 

 in his Ode to the Virginian Voyage : 



* Thy Voyages attend, 



Industrious Hackluit ; 

 Whose reading shall inflame 

 Men to seek fame, 



And much commend 



To after times thy wit.' 



Richard Hakluyt was early left an orphan, and possibly 

 was under the guardianship of the cousin to whom he 



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