CABINET DES
MERVEILLES
the pleasure....in
one hour to beholde those realmes, cittes, sees, ryvers and mountaynes
that unneth in an olde mannes life can not be journaiede and pursued; what
incredible
delight is taken in beholding the diversities of people, beastis, foules,
fiches, trees, frutes and herbes: to knowe the
sondry maners and conditions of people, and the variety of their natures
-- and that in a warme studie or perler, without
perill of the see or daunger of longe and painfull journayes: I can nat
tell what more pleasure shulde happen to a gentill
witte than to beholde in his owne house every thynge that with in all the
worlde is contained. (Sir
Thomas Elyot)
He may make
a tour of the world in books, he may make himself
master of the geography of the universe
in the maps, atlasses and measurements of our mathematicians. He may travell
by land with the historians, by sea with the navigators. He may go round
the globe with Dampier and Rogers, and kno’ a thousand times more doing
it than all those illiterate sailors. (Daniel
Defoe)