Chancery folio (267 x 171 mm). Additional engraved title by William Marshall, 36 engraved illustrations and maps in the text, woodcut device on penultimate page. (Engraved title reinserted on stub, a few marginal stains.) Contemporary paneled calf (rebacked, fore-corners and endpapers renewed, covers worn). Provenance: early ownership signature dated 1773 on title-page.

FIRST EDITION. Herbert accompanied the mission led by Sir Dodmore Cotton to the court of the King of Persia, arriving in the Persian Gulf in January 1627-8. Cotton died in July of the same year, but Herbert continued, making an extensive tour of the kingdom and returning to England at the end of 1629. On his return, Herbert sailed close to the eastern shores of North America. His chapter "A Discourse and Proofe that Madoc ap Owen Gwynedd first found out that Continent now call'd America" is "illustrated with quotations from the early Welsh Bards in evidence of the departure of Madoc with a number of ships and men for an unknown country at the west. The analogies in language which the author gives to prove the identification of Cymric words in Mexican names is entirely fanciful." Alden & Landis 634/68; Arents 191; Sabin 31471; STC 13190.