TO SIR ROBERT CECIL 



for 3000. more on the backeside in the South Sea from 

 the Streight of Magellan to Cape Mendo9ino and Nova 

 Albion. So that it seemeth very fitly to be called A newe 

 worlde. Howbeit it cannot be denied but that Antiquitie 

 had some kinde of dimme glimse, and unperfect notice 

 thereof Which may appeare by the relation of Plato in 

 his two worthy dialogues of Timaeus and Critias under 

 the discourse of that mighty large yland called by him 

 Atlantis, lying in the Ocean sea without the Streight of 

 Hercules, now called the Streight of Gibraltar, being (as 

 he there reporteth) bigger then Africa & Asia : And 

 by that of Aristotle in his booke De admirandis audition- 

 ibus of the long navigation of certaine Carthaginians, 

 who sayling forth of the aforesaid Streight of Gibraltar 

 into the maine Ocean for the space of many dayes, in 

 the ende found a mighty and fruitfull yland, which 

 they would have inhabited, but were forbidden by their 

 Senate and chiefe governours. Moreover, above 300. 

 yeeres after these wee have the testimony of Diodorus 

 Siculus lib. 5. cap. 7. of the like mighty yland discovered 

 in the Westerne Ocean by the Tyrrheni, who were for- 

 bidden for certaine causes to inhabite the same by the 

 foresaid Carthaginians. And Seneca in his tragedie 

 intituled Medea foretold above 1500. yeeres past, that in 

 the later ages the Ocean would discover new worlds, and 

 that the yle of Thule would no more be the uttermost 

 limite of the earth. For whereas Virgile had said to Au- 

 gustus Caesar, Tibi serviat ultima Thule, alluding there- 

 unto he contradicteth the same, and saith, Nee sit terris 

 ultima Thule. Yea Tertullian one of our most ancient 

 and learned divines, in the beginning of his treatise de 

 Pallio alludeth unto Plato his Westerne Atlantis, which 

 there by another name he calleth Aeon, saying. Aeon in 

 Atlantico nunc quaeritur. And in his 40. chapter de 

 Apologetico he reporteth the same to be bigger then all 

 Africa and Asia. Of this New world and every speciall 

 part thereof in this my third volume I have brought to 

 light the best & most perfect relations of such as were 



Ixxv 



