unknown tracts, has been more successfully explored, we begin to perceive that Marco Polo, like Herodotus, was a man of the most rigid veracity, whose testimony presumptuous ignorance alone can call in question.
To relate the history of our traveller's work since its first publication would be a long and a dry task. It was translated during his lifetime into Latin (for the opinion of Ramusio that it was originally composed in that language seems to be absurd), as well as into several modern languages of Europe; and as many of those versions were made, according to tradition, under the author's own direction, he is thought to have inserted some numerous particulars which were wanting in others; and in this way the variations of the different manuscripts are accounted for. The number of the translations of Marco Polo is extraordinary; one in Portuguese, two in Spanish, three in German, three in French, three or four in Latin, one in Dutch, and seven in English. Of all these numerous versions, that of Mr. Marsden is generally allowed to be incomparably the best, whether the correctness of the text or the extent, riches, and variety of the commentary be considered.
IBN BATUTA.TA in ToC & text]
Born about 1300.—Died after 1353.
This traveller, whose name and works were little
known in Europe before the publication of Professor
Lee's translation, was born at Tangiers, in Northern
Africa, about the year 1300. He appeared to be designed
by nature to be a great traveller. Romantic
in his disposition, a great lover of the marvellous,
and possessing a sufficient dash of superstition in his
