THE FIRST RUSSIAN BOTANIST. 



85 



piece of work to be produced bv a foreigner. He had evidently 

 intended to write the bistory of Enj^disb intercourse with Eussia, ; 

 but, finding Willoughby and Chancellor's voyage fully narrated in 

 Hakluyt and in Pinkerton, he dwelt mainly upon Tradescant's, of 

 which he had himself discovered the record. At the same time, 

 with characteristic love of genealogical and biographical detail, he 

 elaborated the history of the Willougbby family, incident;illy telling 

 the story of the life and friendship of Francis Willughby and John 

 Kay, and in the same way carefully gleaned everything he could 

 about the Tradescants, visiting Lambeth as well as Oxford in the 

 course of his investigations. 



An examination of the original memoir, or of the well-executed 

 translation by Mr. J. S. Leigh, shows that the eulogistic summary 

 above quoted from Kuprecht is inaccurate in some minor particulars. 

 The Ashmolean MSS. examined by Hamel had been removed from 

 the Ashmolean Museum to the Bodleian Library ; and, before the 

 publication of Hamel's work, had been partly catalogued by Mr. 

 W. H. Black, of the Kecord OflSce. In this Catalogue of MSS. 

 bequeathed to the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole, Part i. 

 (1845), No. 824, xvi. is entitled, " A Voiag of ambasad [to Russia] 

 undertaken by the right honnorable Sr. Dudlie Diggs, in the year 

 1618" (pp. 115-imh). This MS. is described by Mr. Black as 

 follows : — 



" This curious narrative of the voyage round the North Cape to 

 Archangel begins with a list of the chief persons employed in the 

 embassy, and contains observations of the weather, and on the 

 commercial, agricultural, and domestic state of Russia at that time. 

 It is written in a rude hand, and by a person unskilled in compo- 

 sition. The last half-page contains some chronological notes and 

 other stuff, perhaps written by the same hand." 



There is, or was, it seems, no indisputable autograph of 

 Tradescant, nor is he named in this MS. or in the Russian 

 archives which contain the names of most, if not all, of Sir Dudley 

 Digges's crew. Hamel, in fact, did not suspect the authorship of 

 the itinerary until he came to the description of "helebros albus 

 enoug to load a ship" — almost the very words of Tradescant as 

 quoted by Parkinson. When, however, we read the various de- 

 scriptions of plants which the MS. contains, we shall, I think, 

 considering where it was found, pronounce Dr. von Hamel to have 

 been fully justified in endorsing it, as he did, with the name of 

 Tradescant. But we do not altogether follow his reasons for 

 concluding that the name under which Tradescant sailed was 

 " John Coplie"; nor are we willing to adopt the suggestion that, 

 as Coplie is described, with another, as "wustersher men," 

 Tradescant was itself an assumed name, and its owner an English- 

 man, and not a Dutchman by birth. 



Digges's vessel was the ' Diana,' of Newcastle, and sailed from 

 Gravesend, June 3rd, 1618, reaching Tynemouth on the 16th, the 

 North Cape on July 6th, the bar of the mouth of the Dvina on the 

 13tb, and the harbour of Archangel, or rather that of Nikolskoi, 

 St. Nicholas' Monastery, on July 16th. They left Archangel on 



n 2 



