PURCHAS, Samuel, English clergyman, born in Thaxted, Essex, England, in 1577; died in London in 1628. He was educated at St. John's college, Cambridge, and in 1604 became vicar of Eastwood, Essex. Removing to London, he compiled from more than 1,300 authorities a work entitled "Purchas, his Pilgrimage; or, Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered from the Creation unto this Present" (4 parts, folio, London, 1613; 4th ed., 1626), and "Hakluyt's Posthumus: or, Purchas, his Pilgrimes," for which he used Hakluyt's manuscript collections, and which preserves the original narratives of the early English navigators and explorers of the western world (5 vols., folio, 1625-'6). He also published "The King's Tower and Triumphal Arch of London" (1623) and "Microcosmus, or the Historic of Man," which is sometimes called Purchas's "Funeral Sermon" (1627).