RICHARD, a celebrated naval historian, descended from an ancient family at Eton or Yetton, in Herefordshire, is supposed to have been born in London about the year 1553. He was educated at Westminster School; and thence, in 1570, he removed to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he applied himself particularly to the study of cosmography, and read public lectures in that science. When Sir Edward Stafford was sent ambassador to France in 1583, Mr Hakluyt attended him, probably in the capacity of chaplain. He was at this time master of arts and professor of divinity. In 1585 he obtained the royal mandate for the next vacant prebend of Bristol, to which preferment he succeeded during his residence at Paris. Constantly attentive to his favourite cosmographical inquiries, Hakluyt, in searching the French libraries, found a valuable manuscript history of Florida, which had been discovered about twenty years before by Captain Loundière and others; and this he caused to be published in the French language, at his own expense. Soon afterwards he revised and republished Peter Martyr's book De Orbe Novo, with marginal notes, a commodious index, and a map of New England and America. After five years residence in France, Hakluyt returned to England in 1588; and in 1605 he was appointed prebendary of Westminster, which, with the rectory of Wetheringset in the county of Suffolk, seems to have been the summit of his preferment. He died in 1616, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Hakluyt was an indefatigable and faithful historian, and his various collections are equally curious, instructive, and interesting. His works are, 1. A collection of Voyages and Discoveries, in one small volume; 2. History of Florida; 3. The principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land to the farthest distant Quarters of the Earth, at any time within the compass of these 1500 years, in three vols. folio; 4. The Discoveries of the World, from the first Original to the year 1555, written in the Portugal tongue by Antonio Galvano, corrected, much amended, and translated into English, by Richard Hakluyt; 5. Virginia richly valued, by the Description of the Main Land of Florida, her next neighbour, written by a Portugal gentleman of Elvas, and translated by Richard Hakluyt. Besides these, he left several manuscripts, which were printed in Purchas's collection.