THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



owed his initiation and calling. He was educated at 



Westmmter Westminster School, where he was a Queen's Scholar. 



and Christ ' . . 



Church. Thence he passed to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1570, 



and proceeded in due course to the degree of Bachelor of 



Arts in 1574, and of Master of Arts in 1577. But 



before ever he went to Oxford he had taken the ply that 



shaped his whole life. There is something of ritual and 



emphasis in the unusual detail with which he tells Sir 



Francis Walsingham of his chance visit, in his boyhood, 



to his cousin, also called Richard Hakluyt, of the Middle 



Temple. A map of the world lay on the table, and 



Master Richard Hakluyt took occasion to give his young 



cousin a lesson in geography, showing how knowledge 



had been recently advanced ; explaining also (what seems 



to have been his own special study) the application of 



geography to commerce, and enumerating the products 



and the wants of each country. Then, although no vows 



were uttered, there followed a kind of dedication of the 



Preacher to his life's work. ' From the map,' says 



Hakluyt, ' he brought me to the Bible, and turning to 



the 107th Psalm, directed me to the twenty-third and 



twenty-fourth verses, where I read that they which go down 



to the sea in ships^ and occupy by the great waters^ they see the 



works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. Which 



words of the Prophet, together with my cousin's discourse 



(things of high and rare delight to my young nature) 



took in me so deep an impression that I constantly 



resolved, if ever I were preferred to the University, 



where better time and more convenient place might be 



ministered for these studies, I would by God's assistance 



prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature, the doors 



whereof (after a sort) were so happily opened before me/ 



78 



His 



ordination. 



