44 MEMOIR OF 



who was more than thirty years a judge of the 

 King's Bench, and for some time Lord Chief 

 Justice of England in the reign of Edward the 

 Third. 



It also numbered among its early members Sir 

 Hugh de Willughby, Knight, who commanded 

 a fleet of ships sent out in the year 1553, being 

 the seventh and last year of the reign of King 

 Edward the Sixth, to discover the north-cast 

 passage to Cathay,* and who perished in the 

 ice.f The two families of Willughby de Eresby, 



* " Cathay is the name for the six northern provinces 

 of China, separated from the other nine by the great river 

 Kiang. , Philosophical Transactions, Munday, July 2J, 

 1666." 



t The event is alluded to by the author of the Seasons. 

 in his description of Winter within the polar circles : 



Miserable they 



Who, here entangled in the gathering ice, 

 Take their last look of the descending sun : 

 While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost, 

 The long, long night, incumbent o'er their heads, 

 Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's t fate, 

 As with first prow (what have not Briton's dared !) 

 He for the passage sought, attempted since 

 So much in vain, and seeming to be shut 

 By jealous Nature with eternal bars. 

 In these fell regions, in Arzina caught, 

 And to the stony deep his idle ship 

 Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew, 

 Each full exerted at his several task, 

 Froze into statues ; to the cordage glued 

 The sailor, and the pilot to the helm. 

 THOMSON'S 



t Sir Hugh de Willoughby. 



