No. 44.— 1893.] knox's "ceylon." 



31 



which, is wrong. The derivation is from " gluten." Perhaps 

 he thought "glew" ought to keep company with "blew." 



Knox never mentions any books except the three alluded 

 to above, and I have searched his work through to find any 

 indications of his having received an education in what is 

 vulgarly styled "book learning." It would seem that he knew 

 Latin, or at least knew of the existence of Latin, for he says of 

 the Sinhalese : " They have a language somewhat differing 

 from the vulgar tongue (like Latin to us) " ; but the only 

 Latin words in his book are the not very erudite words " per 

 annum," so we can hardly set him down as a Latin scholar. 

 Or perhaps he forgot his Latin like the Claimant, the would- 

 be Sir Roger Tichborne. He uses a few phrases which 

 somewhat smack of the law, e.g., " Scot or lot," " Hand and 

 seal," " Heriots." But these are all I have been able to find. 



He is very reticent about himself outside of his cap- 

 tivity. He says nothing about his birthplace, parentage, or 

 education. All we know is that he was an Englishman, and 

 that he had a brother and sister whom his dying father- 

 commended to his care. 



He makes very few references to England, and hardly 

 ever draws any parallel between what he saw in Ceylon and 

 what he must have seen in England. He mentions that the 

 divisions of Ceylon are like the counties and hundreds in 

 England, and he speaks of one chief as the " high sheriff." 

 He compares the king's palace to Woodstock Bower, and 

 notes that the Sinhalese ploughs do not bury the grass as 

 ours do, and that is about all. 



And while on this part of the subject it is curious to note 

 that Knox nowhere in his book makes the faintest allusion to 

 home politics, though his book was written during the time 

 of the fiercest civil and religious persecution in England, 

 and only a few years before the revolution which overthrew 

 the Stuart dynasty. We know that he was not a Roman Catho- 

 lic, and we can infer that he was not a Puritan, as he and his 

 comrades mention a feast they had on Christmas Day, but 

 we do not know whether he was an advocate of monarchy 



