C «« 1 



obfervation may well enough apply to the Romans, who at that 

 time had no knowledge of thefe Northern people, yet it is not 

 eafy to conceive, that the Suevi could fall into this miftake ; or, 

 if they did not, that they mould attempt to impofe upon the 

 Romans. It appears inconteftably, that, in the time of king 

 Alfred, the Northern feas were conftantly navigated upon the 

 fame motives they are now ; that is, for the fake of catching 

 whales and fea-horfes n . Nicholas of Lynn, a Carmelite friar, 

 failed to the moil diftant iflands in the North, and even as 

 high as the Pole. He dedicated an account of his difcoveries 

 to King Edward the Third, and was certainly a perfon of great 

 learning and an able aftronomer °, if we may believe the cele- 

 brated Chaucer, who, in his Treatife on the Aftrolabe, mentions 

 him with great refpedt. 



After Columbus difcovered America under the aufpices of Fer- 

 dinand and Ifabella, the fovereigns of Europe, and efpecially 

 Henry the Seventh, turned their thoughts towards, and gave 

 great encouragement to difcoveries. Mr. Robert Thorne, who 

 relided many years as a merchant in Spain, and who was after- 

 wards mayor of Briffcol, wrote a letter to Henry the Eighth, in 

 which he ftrongly recommended a voyage to the North Pole. 

 He gave his reafons more at large in a long memorial to our 

 ambaffador in Spain, which mew him to have been a very ju- 

 dicious man, and for thofe times a very able cofmographer ; and 

 accompanied this memorial with a map of the world, to prove 



" See Harrington's Tranllation of Orofius from the Anglo-Saxon of king 

 Alfred, part li. p. 9. 



0 Leland. Comment, de Script. Biritan. cap. 370. Bale, vi. 25. Pits, 

 p. 505. His defcription was intituled, Jnventio Fortunata; belides which, 

 he wrote, amongft other things, a book, De Miindi Rcvolutione, which 

 poflibly may £1111 remain in the Bodleian Library. This friar, as Dr. 

 Dee aflerts, made five voyages into thefe Northern parts, and left an ac- 

 count of his difcoveries from the latitude of 54 0 to the Pole. 



4 the 



