Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

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Chapter XIX The First English Book on America a Translation from the Dutch

More than one printer at Antwerp in the beginning of the 16th century published English books, and found a market in England, where book printing still was in the period of its first beginning. We know, for instance, that Gerard Leeu, who first had a printing office at Gouda, later came to Antwerp and printed some English books, and that the well-known printer, Jan van Doesburgh, at Antwerp, printed ‘The fifteen Tokens’ in 1505; ‘A Gest of Robin Hode’ in 1515; ‘The life of Virgilius’ in 1520, and ‘The Story of Mary van Nymwegen’ in 1520.

One of the pupils of this Jan van Doesburgh was Laurent Andrewe, who, after having, like Caxton, learned book printing in the Netherlands, settled in the year 1527 at London. During his abode in the Netherlands he had learned the Dutch language, and so he was able to translate some books from the Dutch into the English, translations which he then printed and published. So he published, as a translation from the Dutch, a little book entitled: ‘The Valuation of Gold and Silver,’ and another entitled: ‘The Art and Craft to know well to die.’ But the best known of all these translations is that of the Dutch book: ‘Die Reise van Lissabone,’ published in 1508, which he translated in 1520 and published with

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the title: ‘Of the New Landes.’ This was the first English book on America.¹

This simple fact would be, of course, more curious than important, if it stood alone. But it does not stand alone. It is just one of the single stones which together form a building. A good architect does not fix his eyes on only one stone at a time, afterwards on another, and then on a third and a fourth, but his mind takes them all together, connected and well-placed, so as to form a building in which every one of them has its proper place. So everybody who is not blinded by ignorance and prejudice against the Netherlands, and who honestly seeks the truth of history in order to have, in this case, the right idea of Holland's influence on English language and Literature, will do as the good architect does. He takes all the facts together and in connection with each other, and then he is able to see what he was looking for. He sees something which touches the world's history, taking, as a rule, its course from East to West, and so from the Netherlands to England, especially in those centuries, in which from 1400 till 1700, we can say that the headquarters of the World's History are in the Low Countries. And once arrived at that point of view, he understands the story of the traveller who took with him from a foreign country one single stone of an old building, famous in history. To him that one stone spoke more than volumes. The case is same with the one single fact that the first English book on America was a translation from the Dutch. How was that possible? There must be something behind that isolated fact. Yes, there is behind that fact the earlier development, and the superior civili-

1 De Hoog, Studien, II, 34.

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zation in the Netherlands during the 15th and 16th centuries. A part of the world's history, and a very interesting part, the beginning of modern history and of nearly all the good ideas of our modern times, is behind this simple fact.