The Isle of Pines | Page 4

number, and was surprised to find that the correct page was the one I had first given. This proved to be the case in all the references--except one. A book which could thus change its page numbering from week to week was bewitched--or I was careless. It occurred to me to compare the two copies of the tract as published by Green. The title-pages were exactly alike--not differing by so much as a fly speck, but one copy contained ten pages of text and the other only nine.
[ 9 ]More than that, the general style and the types were quite different One was printed in a well-known broad but somewhat used type, such as could be seen in Green's printing, and the other in a finer font with much italic. There was no possibility of confusing the two issues. Only one conclusion was possible. I had in this volume the publication by Green, and the original issue by Marmaduke Johnson, but with Green's title-page. So for we seem to rest upon solid ground. It may be surmised that Green set up his "Isle of Pines" in rivalry to Johnson, but did not incur the discipline of the authorities; or that he had set it up and also took over Johnson's edition, using his own title-page; and in either case it is possible that a simple subterfuge, the imprint, "by S. G. for Allen Banks and Charles Harper," a London combination of publishers, caused the tract to escape the attention of the examining local censors. Here was another step in developing the history of this tract--the discovery of one of Johnson's issues, except for the title-page. So far as the American connection is concerned, it only remains to discover a Johnson issue with a Johnson title-page, for in his apology and submission to the General Court he states that he had "affixed" his name to the pamphlet.

THE EUROPEAN EDITIONS
The European connection is also not without interest, for the skit--the first part of the "Isle of Pines," published without name of author--had an extraordinary run.
[ 10 ]In 1493 a little four-leaved translation into Latin of a Columbus letter announcing the discovery of islands in the west--De insulis nuper inventis--ran over Europe, startling the age by a simple relation which proved a marvellous tale as taken up by Vespuccius, Cortes, and a host of successors.{1} For a century the darkness of a new found continent slowly lifted and the record was collected in Ramusio, in De Bry, in Hulsius, and in Hakluyt, never felling treasuries of the wonderful, veritable schools for the adventurous. Another century had shown that, so fer from decreasing in greatness and in opportunities, the field of discovery had not begun to be tested, and in the summer of 1668 a new island--the Isle of Pines--was flashed before the London crowd, and proved that the flame of quest with danger was still burning. A new island! The interest was international, for nations had already long fought over the old discovered lands.
1 The intelligent industry of Mr. Wilberforce Eames has identified eleven issues of the letter of Columbus, printed in 1493, in Barcelona, Rome, Basle, Paris, and Antwerp; and twelve issues of the Novus Mundus of Vespucci us, printed in 1504, in Augsburg, Paris, Nuremberg, Cologne, Antwerp, and Venice. An earlier and even more extraordinary distribution of a letter of news is that of the letter purporting to be addressed by Prester John to the Emperor Manuel, which circulated through Europe about 1165. "How great was the popularity and diffusion of this letter," writes Sir Henry Yule, "may be judged in some degree from the fad that Zarncke in his treatise on Prester John gives a list of close on 100 mss. of it Of these there are eight in the British Museum, ten at Vienna, thirteen in the great Paris Library, and fifteen at Munich. There are also several renderings in old German verse." The cause of this popularity was the hope offered by the reported exploits of Prester John of a counterpoise to the Mohammedan power. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., xxii. 305.
An even greater contest was being waged for commerce, and with the experience of Spain in gathering the precious metals from new found lands, every discovery of hitherto uncharted territory opened the possibility of wealth and an exchange of commodities, if rapine and piracy could not be practised. The merchant was an adventurer, and politics, quite as much as trade, controlled his movements; for the line between trader, buccaneer, and pirate faded away before conditions which made treaties of no importance and peaceful relations dependent upon an absence of the hope of gain. A state of war was not necessary to prepare the way for attack and plunder in those far distant oceans, and the merchantman sailed armed