Part 24 (1/2)

I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's keel Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland sh.o.r.e.

Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams, O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night My heart flies on before me as I sail; Far on I see my life-long enterprise!

LYTTON (Lord). See _post_, ”Schiller.”

VESPUCCI AN ADVENTURER.

THOMAS BABINGTON, Baron MACAULAY, one of England's most celebrated historians. Born at Rothley Temple, Leicesters.h.i.+re, October 25, 1800; died, December 28, 1859.

Vespucci, an adventurer who accidentally landed in a rich and unknown island, and who, though he only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the sh.o.r.e, acquired possession of its treasures and gave his name to a continent which should have derived its appellation from Columbus.

COLUMBUS NEITHER A VISIONARY NOR AN IMBECILE.

CHARLES P. MACKIE, an American author. From his ”With the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.” Published by Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.

Whatever were his mistakes and shortcomings, Colon was neither a visionary nor an imbecile. Had he been perfect in all things and wise to the point of infallibility, we could not have claimed him as the glorious credit he was to the common humanity to which we all belong.

His greatness was sufficient to cover with its mantle far more of the weaknesses of frail mortality than he had to draw under its protection; and it becomes us who attempt to a.n.a.lyze his life in these later days, to bear in mind that, had his lot befallen ourselves, the natives of the western world would still, beyond a peradventure, be wandering in undraped peace through their tangled woods, and remain forever ignorant of the art of eating meat. In his trials and distresses the Admiral encountered only the portion of the sons of Adam; but to him was also given, as to few before or since, to say with the nameless shepherd of Tempe's cla.s.sic vale, ”I, too, have lived in Arcady.”

Colon did not merely discover the New World. He spent seven years and one month among the islands and on the coasts of the hemisphere now called after the s.h.i.+p-chandler who helped to outfit his later expeditions. For the greater part of that time he was under the constant burden of knowing that venomous intrigue and misrepresentation were doing their deadly work at home while he did what he believed was his Heaven-imposed duty on this side the Atlantic.

THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT IN MADRID.

At the top of the Paseo de Recoletos is a monument to Columbus in the debased Gothic style of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was unveiled in 1885.

The sides are ornamented with reliefs and the whole surmounted by a white marble statue. Among the sculptures are a s.h.i.+p and a globe, with the inscription:

_a Castilla y a Leon Nuevo mundo dio Colon._

(_Translation._)

To Castille and Leon Columbus gave a new world.

VISIT OF COLUMBUS TO ICELAND.

FINN MAGNUSEN, an Icelandic historian and antiquary. Born at Skalholt, 1781; died, 1847.

The English trade with Iceland certainly merits the consideration of historians, if it furnished Columbus with the opportunity of visiting that island, there to be informed of the historical evidence respecting the existence of important lands and a large continent in the west. If Columbus should have acquired a knowledge of the accounts transmitted to us of the discoveries of the Northmen in conversations held in Latin with the Bishop of Skalholt and the learned men of Iceland, we may the more readily conceive his firm belief in the possibility of rediscovering a western continent, and his unwearied zeal in putting his plans in execution. The discovery of America, so momentous in its results, may therefore be regarded as the mediate consequence of its previous discovery by the Scandinavians, which may be thus placed among the most important events of former ages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS, BY SENOR G. SUnOL, ON THE MONUMENT IN THE PASEO DE RECOLETOS (DEVOTEES' PROMENADE), MADRID, SPAIN. Erected, 1885. (See page 208.)]

SYMPATHY FOR COLUMBUS.

RICHARD HENRY MAJOR, F. S. A., late keeper of the printed books in the British Museum; a learned antiquary. Born in London, 1810; died June 25, 1891.