With
This Alexandrian Legend Some Of The Later Forms Of The Story Had Mixed Up
One Of Christian Origin About The Dry Tree, L'Arbre Sec.
And they had
also adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the mode of
escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 484 of vol.
Ii.
[Sidenote: Injustice long done to Polo. Singular modern instance.]
74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of the nickname
Milioni that Polo's popular reputation in his lifetime was of a
questionable kind; and a contemporary chronicler, already quoted, has told
us how on his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious friends to
retract his extraordinary stories.[20] A little later one who copied the
Book "per passare tempo e malinconia" says frankly that he puts no faith
in it.[21] Sir Thomas Brown is content "to carry a wary eye" in reading
"Paulus Venetus"; but others of our countrymen in the last century express
strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.[22] Marden's
edition might well have extinguished the last sparks of scepticism.[23]
Hammer meant praise in calling Polo "der Vater orientalischer
Hodogetik," in spite of the uncouthness of the eulogy. But another grave
German writer, ten years after Marsden's publication, put forth in a
serious book that the whole story was a clumsy imposture![24]
[1] M. d'Avezac has refuted the common supposition that this admirable
traveller was a native of Brabant.
The form Rubruquis of the name of the traveller William de Rubruk
has been habitually used in this book, perhaps without sufficient
consideration, but it is the most familiar in England, from its use by
Hakluyt and Purchas.
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