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He tells us that it was when he was a young man of six-and-twenty, lately started on his professional career as second master in Westminster School, that the famous Dutch geographer, Abraham Ortelius, "dealt earnestly with me that I would illustrate this isle of Britain." This was no light task to undertake in 1577.
In his Theatrum orbis terrarum, Ortelius traces the shape of Hudson's Bay as it really is; he even indicates at its northern extremity a strait leading northwards. How can the geographer have attained to such exactness? "Who," says Mr. Nicholls, "can have given him the information set forth in his map, if not Cabot?"
The young man, on whose shoulder he leans, is his son, Alexander, who is also very learned. Before him is seated Abraham Ortelius, the great geographer, who is regarded as the Ptolemy of his age. Beside Ortelius is his friend and fellow-laborer Gerard, also a learned geographer, and one of the luminaries of the day.
We possess some particulars of one of these journeys, that which occupied 1582, in which he started by Suffolk, through Yorkshire, and returned through Lancashire. He was a very rapid worker, he spared no pains, and in 1586, nine years after Ortelius set him going, his first draft was issued from the press.
The stock of maps of all parts of the world is produced by renowned cartographers, such as Ortelius, Mercator, Blaeu, Janssonius, Hondius, Visscher, de Wit, etc. The company also sells atlases, globes, travel books, Medieval manuscripts and playing cards.
Later, the chart of Ortelius, in the sixteenth century, carried it to the neighborhood of Ireland; then it was carried south again, and was supposed all the time to change its place through enchantment, and when Emanuel of Portugal, in 1519, renounced all claim to it, he described it as "The Hidden Island."
Being arriued againe in England, and hauing seene the wickednes of that age, he gaue out this speach. He died at Leege, in the yeere 1311. the 17. day of Nouember, being there buried in the Abbie of the Order of the Guilielmites. The Tombe and Epitaph of Sir Iohn Mandeuil, in the citie of Leege, spoken of by Ortelius, in his booke called Itinerarium Belgiae, in this sort.
Geog. Ortelius in his vniuersall tables, in his particular Mappes of the West Indies, of all Asia, of the Northern kingdomes, of the East Indies, Mercator in some of his globes, and generall Mappes of the world, Moletius in his vniuersall table of the Globe diuided, in his sea Carde, and particuler tables of the East Indies, Zalterius, and Don Diego, with Ferdinando Bertely, and others, doe so much differ from Gemma Frisius and Cabota, among themselues, and in diuers places from themselues, concerning the diuers situation and sundry limits of America, that one may not so rashly, as timely surmise, these men either to be ignorant in those points touching the aforesaid region, or that the Mappes they haue giuen out vnto the world, were collected onely by them, and neuer of their owne drawing.
Againe, that parte from the equinoctiall to the southe ys not inhabited by the Spaniarde any further then unto the Tropicke of Capricorne, as ys to be seene by the mappe of Peru this presente yere, 1584. published by Ortelius; neither is it peopled by the Spaniardes to any purpose savinge onely alonge the sea coaste.
GEMMA FRISIUS, SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, JULIUS SCALIGER, ORTELIUS and MERCATOR contended for the former; SALMASIUS, BOCHART, CLUVERIUS, and VOSSIUS for Ceylon: and the controversy did not cease till it was terminated by DELISLE about the beginning of the last century.
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