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was that goodly and great high tree, in which they had cut and made divers steps to ascend near to the top, where they had made a convenient bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit; and from thence we might see the Atlantic Ocean we came from, and the South Atlantic so much desired. South and north of this tree, they had felled certain trees, that the prospect might be the clearer.

"After our captain had ascended to this bower, with the chief Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at this time, by reason of the breeze, a very fair day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such golden reports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give him life and feave to sail once in an English ship in that sea: and then calling up all the rest of our men, acquainted John Oxnam especially with this his petition and purpose, if it would please God to grant him that happiness; who, understanding it, presently protested, that unless our captain did beat him from his company, he would follow him by God's grace.'

"To both was granted the desired boon of sailing upon the South Sea; but they went by different routes, at different times, and their enterprises finished with different success.

"The following testimony is borne to the ability and fidelity with which Oxnam served under Drake. There was occasion to send a party of men on shore, for a purpose which the people would not consent that their captain (Drake) should undertake. The relation says John Oxnam and Thomas Sherwell were put in trust for our service, to the great con

tent of the whole company, who conceived greatest hope of them next our captain, whom by no means they would condescend to suffer to adventure again this time.'

"Drake's return to England from the voyage just noticed was in August 1573. In 1575 Oxnam was again in the West Indies, having under his command a ship of 120 tons burden, and 70 men. The history here given of his adventure is extracted from An Account of the West Indies and the South Sea, written by Lopez Vaz, a Portuguese, which, with its author, fell into the hands of the English, in Rio de la Plata, in 1586, Portugal at that time being a part of the Spanish monarchy, and at war with England. An abridged translation of the work of Lopez Vaz is in Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 778.

"Oxnam went among the Sy merons (the Indians before described), who were equally well disposed to the English as on the former occasion. When he was informed that a new regulation had been made by the Spaniards, and that the treasure was now always conducted by a strong guard of soldiers, he determined on an enterprise equally bold and extraordinary.

in

"He landed his men in the same place where captain Drake had before landed, and laying his ship ashore, covered her with boughs of trees, and buried all his guns the ground, except two small pieces of ordnance, which he took with him, besides muskets, and a sufficient store of provisions and necensaries. Thus furnished, with-out leaving one man in the ship, he departed for the other sea, accom panied by a number of the Indians.

When

When they had marched twelve leagues, they arrived at a river which ran into the South Sea. In a wood by the side of this river Oxnam cut timber, and built a pinnace, which was forty-five feet long by the keel. When the pinnace was finished, he embarked with his people, and fell down the river into the South Sea, taking six Indians with him for guides. They sailed to the Pearl Islands, and remained near them ten days, at the end of which time they captured a small bark from Quito, in Peru, in which were 60,000 pesos of gold, and a quantity of wine and bread. Shortly after, they made prize of a vessel from Lima, with 100,000 pesos of silver in bars. These riches were all taken into the pinnace, and they went to a small town on one of the Pearl Islands, inhabited by Indians, from whom it was hoped pearls would be obtained; but the Indians had not many. From the Pearl Islands they went towards the main land, and after dismissing the two prizes, the pinnace re-entered the river from which she had sailed. Some of the Indians at the Pearl Islands, as soon as the Englishmen had departed, hastened in their canoes to Panama, to give notice of what had passed. The governor of that place, within two days after receiving the intelligence, sent four barks in search of the English, with 100 soldiers, and a number of Indians, under the command of Juan de Ortega. Ortega went first to the Pearl Islands, and was there informed what course the Englishmen had taken; and continuing his pursuit, he met the vessels that had been captured and dismissed. By them he was directed to the

river. When he came to the entrance, he was at a loss which way to take, as the river fell into the sea by three different mouths. Whilst he was deliberating, a quan. tity of feathers of fowls were observed floating out of one of the lesser branches; and that way Ortega entered. The fourth day, according to the account, of his advancing up the river, the pinnace of the Englishmen was descried lying upon the sand, with only six men near her, one of whom was killed by the Spaniards, and the others fled. The pinnace was searched, but there was nothing in her except provisions. Leaving twenty of his people to take care of the barks, Juan de Ortega landed with 80 men, armed with musketry. When they had marched half a league from the river, they found a place that was covered with boughs of trees, where the Englishmen had hid all their booty, which the Spaniards dug up, and with it returned to their barks, well satisfied with their success, and not intending to trouble themselves further about the English. But Oxnam, with all his men, and 200 Symerons, eager to recover the treasure, followed the Spaniards to the river's side, and attacked them with more impetuosity than good manage ment. Ortega disposed his men advantageously among the bushes, and the English were repulsed with the loss of 11 men killed, and seven taken prisoners; whilst, on the part of the Spaniards, only two were killed, and a few wounded. The prisoners were questioned, how it happened that they had not departed with their treasure, having been fifteen days unmo

"The peso of gold was 16 Spanish rials, nearly equal to eight shillings English: the peso of silver was half of that value."

lested.

lested. They answered, that their captain had commanded his men to carry all the gold and silver to the place where the ship was, and had promised them a share; but the seamen demanded an immediate division; upon which the captain, being offended at their distrust, would not suffer them to carry it, but said he would get Indians to undertake the business. The delay occasioned by these disagreements gave time for the Spaniards to overtake them. Oxnam received the first notice of their approach by the men who fled from the pinnace. He then came to an agreement with his people, and got the Indians to join with him; but in the attack, having lost several of his best men, he purposed to return to his ship.

"The Spanish captain, with his prisoners and the treasure, returned to Panama, the governor of which place immediately dispatched messengers to Nombre de Dios, with intelligence where the English ship lay concealed; in consequence of which, before Oxnam arrived at the place, his ship, ordnance, and stores, were taken.

"In this destitute condition the Englishmen lived some time among

the Indians; and had begun to build canoes on the north side of the isthmus, as the means by which they might escape from their present situation; but having lost all their tools, their work was advancing very slowly, when 150 Spaniards, sent by order of the viceroy of Peru, came upon them, and put an end to their occupation. Fifteen, who were sick, were at that time taken prisoners; and, in the end, they all fell into the hands of the Spaniards, and were carried to Panama. Oxnam was questioned whether he had the queen's commission, or a license from any other prince or state to which he replied that he had no commission, but that he acted upon his own authority, and at his own risk. Upon this answer, Oxnam and his men were all condemned to death, and the whole, except five boys, were executed. Thus unfortunately did the first exploit of the English in the South Sea terminate. Of Oxnam, their leader, it has been remarked, that if the same spirit of enterprise and resolution had been exerted by him in a legal cause, he would have been entitled to lasting praise."

CLASSICAL

CLASSICAL AND POLITE CRITICISM.

DECLINE and REVIVAL of LITERATURE.

[From MR. ASTLE'S ORIGIN and PROGRESS of WRiting.]

"MA

ANY events have contributed to deprive us of a great part of the literary treasures of antiquity. A very fatal blow was given to literature, by the destruction of the Phenician temples, and of the Egyptian colleges, when those kingdoms, and the countries adjacent, were conquered by the Persians, about 350 years before Christ. Ochus, the Persian general, ravaged these countries without mercy, and 40,000 Sidonians burnt themselves, with their families and riches, in their own houses. The conqueror then drove Nectanebus out of Egypt, and committed the like ravages in that country; afterwards he marched into Judea, where he took Jericho, and sent a great number of Jews into captivity. The Persians had a great dislike to the religion of the Phoenicians and the Egyptians; this was one reason for destroying their books, of which Eusebius (De Preparat. Evang.) says they had a great

number.

"Notwithstanding these losses, Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, who reigned about 200 years before the Christian æra, collected the greatest library of all antiquity, which he deposited in

his palace at Alexandria, where it was burnt by Cæsar's troops.

"Another great loss was occasioned by the destruction of the Pythagorean schools in Italy; when the Platonic or new philosophy prevailed over the former. Pythagoras went into Egypt, before the Persian conquests, where he resided 22 years he was initiated into the sacerdetal order, and, from his spirit of inquiry, he has been justly said to have acquired a great deal of Egyptian learning, which he afterwards introduced into Italy. Polybius (lib. ii. p. 175) and Jamblichus (in vita Pythag.) mention many circumstances, relative to these facts, quoted from others now lost; as doth Porphyry, in his life of Pythagoras.

"Learning, philosophy, and arts, suffered much by the loss of liberty in Greece; whence they were transplanted into Italy, under the patronage of some of the great men of Rome; who, by their countenance and protection, not only introduced them into their own country, but even contributed to the revival of them in Greece. The love of learning and of arts amongst the Romans was too soon neglected, through the tyranny of

the

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Learning and the arts also received a most fatal blow by the destruction of the heathen temples, in the reign of Constantine. The devastations then committed are depicted in the strongest and most lively colours by Mr. Gibbon, in the 28th chapter of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. p. 77, &

seq.

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Many valuable libraries perished by the barbarians of the North, who invaded Italy in the fourth and fifth centuries. By those rude hands perished the library of Perseus king of Macedon, which Paulus Æmilius brought to Rome with its captive owner; as did also the noble library established for the use of the public, by Asinius Pollio, which was collected from the spoils of all the enemies he had subdued, and was greatly enriched by him at a vast expense. The libraries of Cicero and Lucullus met with the same fate, and those of Julius Cæsar, of Augustus, Vespasian, and Trajan also perished, together with the magnificent library of the younger Gordian, founded by his preceptor Simonicus, which is said by some to have contained sixty thousand, and by others eighty thousand volumes. The repository for this vast collection is reported to have been paved with marble, and ornamented with gold; the walls were covered with glass and ivory, the armories and desks were made of ebony and cedar. 1803.

"The loss of Ptolemy's library at Alexandria had been in some measure repaired, by the remains of that of Eumenes, king of Pergamus, which Mark Anthony presented to Cleopatra, and by other collections, so that a vast library remained at Alexandria, till it was taken by storm, and plundered by the Saracens in the seventh century, A. D. 642. Though the Saracens were at that time a barbarous people, yet Amrus (or Amru Ebn al As), the comman der of the troops who took this city, was a man of good capacity, and greatly delighted in hearing philosophical points discussed by learned men.

John the grammarian, called Philoponus, from his love of labour, lived in Alexandria at this time; he soon became acquainted with Amrus, and, having acquired some degree of his esteem, requested that the philosophical books preserved in the royal library might be restored.

Amrus wrote to

Omar, the caliph, to know if his
request might be complied with;
who returned for answer, that if
the books he mentioned agreed in
all points with the book of God,
the Alcoran, this last would be
perfect without them, and conse-
quently they would be superflu-
ous; but if they contained any
thing repugnant to the doctrines
and tenets of that book, they ought
to be looked on as pernicious, and
of course should be destroyed.-
As soon as the caliph's letter was
received, Amrus, in obedience to
the command of his sovereign,
dispersed the books all over the
city, to heat the baths, of which
there were four thousand; but the
number of books was so immense,
that they were not entirely con-
sumed in less than six months.
K

Thus

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