RICHARD HAKLUYT 



and trees, their properties and uses. 'If this care had 



not been heretofore in our ancestors, then had our life 



been savage now; for then we had not had wheat nor 



rye, pease nor beans, barley nor oats, pear nor apple, 



vine, nor many other profitable and pleasant plants ; 



bull nor cow, sheep nor swine, horse nor mare, cock 



nor hen, nor a number of other things that we enjoy, 



without which our life were to be said barbarous; for 



these things, and a thousand that we use more, the first 



inhabitors of this Island found not here.' By way of 



example the latest importations of strange commodities 



are cited, including some of those commemorated in the 



popular rhyme : 



* Turkeys, Carps, Hops, Pickerels, and Beer, 

 Came into England all in one year/ 



The Voyages record many great deeds ; but their 

 editor scorns nothing as trivial, if it is likely to be of 

 service for the material prosperity of England. 



This strong practical bent and concrete habit of The Method 

 mind served the Preacher well in the designing and °<^^^^ ^^-^' ^ 

 ordering of his book. He is not misled by any 

 encyclopaedic ambitions or by the lust of universality. 

 It is a credit to him, greater than can be readily conceived 

 by our scientific and empiric age, that he sets himself to 

 record individual observations and particular experiences. 

 He had been educated after the fashion of the time, in the 

 vague generalities of the scholastic learning ; and he would 

 have none of them. It is the story of the travels of 

 this man and that man, he says, which bring us to a 

 certain and full knowledge of the world ; ' not those 

 weary volumes bearing the titles of Universal Cosmo- 

 graphy, which some men that I could name have pub- 



