SAMUEL

See also:

• SAMUEL PURCHAS (1575?-1626)

PURCHAS (1575?-1626)  , English compiler of works on travel and discovery, was born at Thaxted, Essex, and graduated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1600; later he became B.D., with which degree he was admitted at Oxford in 1615 . In 1604 he was presented by James I. to the vicarage of Eastwood, Essex, and in 1614 became chaplain to Archbishop Abbot and rector of St Martin's, Ludgate, London . He had previously spent much time in London on his geographical work . In 1613 he published Purchas, his Pilgrimage; or, Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages (4th ed. much enlarged, 1626); in 1619 Purchas, his Pilgrim . Microcosmus, or the histories of Man . Relating the wonders of his Generation, vanities in his Degeneration, Necessity of his Regeneration; and in 1625 Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes, contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and others (4 vols.) . This continuation of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations was partly based on MSS. left by Hakluyt . The fourth edition of the Pilgrimage is usually catalogued as vol. v. of the Pilgrimes, but the two works are essentially distinct . Purchas died in September or October 1626, according to some in a debtors' prison . None of his works was reprinted till the Glasgow reissue of the Pilgrimes in 1905-1907 . As an editor and compiler Purchas was often injudicious, careless and even unfaithful; but his collections contain much of value, and are frequently the only sources of information upon important questions affecting the history of exploration .