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-east 
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 2 d, 
166G.” 
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’st 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 lus several task, 
Froze into statues ; to the cordage glued 
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm. 
Thomson’s Witter, 
} Sir Jlogli de Wjl lough by. 
