The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 01 — Reading Notes

A Defense of Iceland's Reputation

The bishop's preface, printed in Latin with a facing English translation, reveals a specific anxiety about how foreign writers have misrepresented Iceland. He names a 'sordid Rhythmista' (a poetaster) who in 1561 published a 'deformed impe' of a book, and a certain 'Ioachimus Leo' who 'exercised piracy in Iceland with impunity.' These are not abstract complaints; the bishop provides names, dates, and specific accusations. He argues that later writers, following such unreliable sources, have 'utterly strayed from the truth itself,' producing 'fables more than old wives' tales.' The preface thus functions as a scholarly corrective, insisting on eyewitness testimony and 'the judgment of truth and experience' over hearsay.

Editorial Layers Across Centuries

Goldsmidt's 1880s edition adds another layer to Hakluyt's 1598-1600 original. The editor's preface quotes William Oldys's 1737 complaint that the work had become 'so scarce and obscure' that a copy cost £42 in the 1880s. This framing turns the volume into a material artifact: a rare book that needed rescuing. The transcriber's notes explain that manuscript abbreviations have been 'silently expanded,' and that footnotes by the editor follow 'modern (19th-century) spelling conventions' while Hakluyt's own are not always marked. Readers thus encounter a text that is simultaneously Elizabethan and Victorian, with multiple voices—Hakluyt, Goldsmidt, Oldys, and the Icelandic bishop—competing for attention.

Latin as a Language of Authority

The inclusion of extensive Latin passages, including the bishop's preface and a poem 'Authoris ad Lectorem,' is a deliberate choice. Latin was the international language of learned discourse in the 16th century, and Hakluyt's collection often uses it to address a scholarly audience. The bishop's Latin is dense and rhetorical, filled with classical references ('Zoilorum proterviam') and legalistic phrasing ('iure flagitabat'). The facing English translation, provided by Goldsmidt, makes the content accessible but also highlights the distance between the original and the modern reader. This bilingual presentation underscores the collection's dual purpose: to document English achievements for a domestic audience and to assert England's place in European intellectual history.

Readers should attend to the editorial framing as much as to the voyage accounts. The prefatory materials—the bishop's defense, Goldsmidt's historical note, the transcriber's remarks—are not mere appendages but active interpretations. They reveal how each generation has reshaped Hakluyt's project to serve contemporary concerns about national identity, textual authority, and historical accuracy. The volume rewards those who read its margins as carefully as its main text.