Heaven is Round, Earth is Square - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 128

The two men were brought together in London by their common passion for
learning and the many friends they had in common. They were close enough by
1613 for Purchas to thank Selden, 'that industrious and learned gentleman', for
providing him with material for Purchas his Pilgrimage , and Selden could return
the compliment by contributing two poems to the front of the topic, plus a long
note praising Purchas for using Selden's historical method of tallying accounts in
the Bible against other historical sources. In personality they differed. Selden was
exact,reflective,evenfinicky;Purchascasual,extravagant,sloppy.Thedifferences
put their friendship on a collision course.
After the 1617 edition of Purchas his Pilgrimage came out, Selden discovered
to his dismay that Purchas had 'maimed' (his word) the essay he had contributed
onthehistoryoftheJewsinEngland,resultinginanaccountlesssympathetic than
the one he had written. Purchas never corrected the text. The two did not break
off contact entirely. They would have had to tolerate each other as members of the
Virginia Company (like the EIC, another Elizabethan merchant trading monopoly
enjoying state privilege) after Purchas was admitted in 1622, although Selden be-
came inactive in the Company's business shortly thereafter. Purchas's removal of
two poems by Selden from the final 1626 edition of Purchas his Pilgrimage sig-
nalledtheendoftheirfriendship.Purchasdiedthatyearbeforethebreachcouldbe
healed.
Volume 3 of Purchas his Pilgrimes contains a great deal that would have ap-
pealed to Selden: the journal of John Saris, the reports of Richard Cocks, the ex-
ploitsofWillAdams,tomentionjustafew.GivenhisintenseinterestindeGroot's
defenceoftheDutchmonopolyintheSpiceIslands,itwouldbestrangehadhenot
read these portions. Selden read everything.
It is in this volume that Purchas prints two maps of China. The first is entitled
Hondius his Map of China (Fig.19).ItcomesfromtheworldatlasthattheAmster-
damcartographicpublisherJodocusHondiusproducedin1608.TurningChina90°
to the right, so that west is at the top of the map, was a design decision by the great
commercial cartographer Abraham Ortelius. Purchas's copy of Hondius's map is
an almost exact replica of the map Ortelius published in 1584, minus a few stray
elephants and decorative sea creatures. It was re-circulated again in John Speed's
worldatlasof1627, Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World .Speedturned
China 90° to the left so that north was again at the top of the map, which is where
subsequent cartographers left it.