that discoverer, the benevolent mind would feel no sensations of regret in contemplating the extensive advantages arising from the discovery of America.

Returning across the Atlantic, he at length arrived in Spain, after having been driven from stress of weather into the port of Lisbon, where he had opportunity, in an interview with the King of Portugal, to prove the truth of his system by arguments more convincing than those he had before advanced in the character of an humble, unsuccessful suitor. He was re

ceived everywhere in Spain with royal honors, while all Europe resounded his praises and reciprocated their joy and congratulations on the discovery of a New World. The immediate consequence of this was a second voyage, in which Columbus took charge of a squadron of seventeen ships of considerable burden. Volunteers of all ranks and conditions solicited to be employed on the expedition. He carried over fifteen hundred persons, together with all the necessaries for establishing a colony and extending his discoveries.

[Jealousies at home made his return to Spain necessary, to counteract the schemes of enemies. He was received, however, with the usual honors, and in a third voyage discovered the American continent, opposite the mouth of the river Oronoco. Groundless complaints again accumulated at the court of Spain. His bitter enemy Bovadilla, ordered to supersede him in command, sent Columbus to Spain in chains. The removal of Bovadilla only opened preferment to Ovando, who was fully as jealous of Columbus, and his open enemy. At last Columbus secured a small squadron of four ships, with which he explored the Gulf of Mexico, only to find himself shipwrecked and helpless on the island of Jamaica.-ED.]

His cup of calamities seemed now completely full. Cast among savages, without provisions or vessel, thirty leagues from any Spanish settlement, he languished four months before a vessel brought relief. Columbus, worn out with fatigue and broken with misfortune, returned for the last time to Spain. Here a new distress awaited him, which he considered one of the greatest he had suffered in his whole life. This was the death of Isabella, his last and greatest friend. He did not suddenly abandon himself to despair. He called upon the gratitude and

justice of the king, and in terms of dignity demanded the fulfilment of the former contract. Notwithstanding his age and infirmities, he even solicited to be further employed in extending the career of discovery, without a prospect of other reward than the consciousness of doing good to mankind. But Ferdinand, cold, ungrateful, and timid, dared not to comply with a single proposal of this kind, lest he should increase his own obligations to a man whose services he thought it dangerous to reward. He therefore delayed any decision on these subjects, in hopes that the declining health of Columbus would soon rid the court of the remonstrances of a man whose extraordinary merit was in their opinion a sufficient occasion for destroying him. Columbus languished a short time, and gladly resigned a life which had been worn out in the most substantial services that perhaps were ever rendered by any human character to an ungrateful world.

NOAH WEBSTER.

NOTE. After the death of Columbus, King Ferdinand caused a monument to be erected to his memory, with this inscription: "A Castilla y á Leon

Nuevo mundo dió Colon."

("To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world.")

Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of Concord, Massachusetts, of repute in antiquarian research, after citing the very pronounced tribute of Humboldt to the labors and character of Columbus, also translated for the use of the Boston Journal certain passages from private letters to Ferdinand and Isabella, dated in July, 1503. One passage, written as he lay at anchor on the coast of Veragua, is cited as one of those peculiar experiences of a man with the temperament of Columbus, which defy the criticism of any sane sceptic. He is telling of a dream, or vision, and thus opens his soul:

"Overcome by fatigue, I fell asleep in my sorrow. Then a compassionate voice met my ear, saying to me, 'O thou of little faith! Why so slow to trust in God? What more has he done for his servants Moses and David than for thee? From thy birth he has cared for thee. He gave thee the keys to those chains of the distant ocean, those heavy fetters which held it imprisoned as under bolts of brass. Thou art obeyed in boundless provinces, and renown is thy portion among Christian people. The Lord holds in his hand a long and glorious

heredity of years. Fear not! Take courage! Thy great sorrows are carved in marble, and will not be inscribed there in vain!' I arose, weeping for my sins, and the stormy sea grew calm."

In a letter of July, 1503, he thus writes: "Seven years I spent at your royal court. For seven years everybody told me that my enterprise was absurd. To-day, everybody, tailors and all, beg to be sent out to discover new lands.'

Alexander Humboldt, as the result of his study, thus sums up his estimate of his life and mission:

"The highest proof of the lofty and noble character of Columbus is that combination of strength and gentleness which we notice in him to the very end of a life which, with fourteen years of renown (from 1492 to 1506), had only six or seven years of good fortune. If sometimes he was dejected and plunged in melancholy and mystic dreams, he soon rallied and regained that force of will and that clear-sighted intelligence which are the source of great deeds. I have tried to indicate the subtle insight and perspicacity with which this great man seized upon the phenomena of the natural world. The variation of the earth's magnetism, the direction of ocean currents, the grouping of marine plants, geologic theories of the form of continents and the causes which produce them,—these, and such as these, are subjects upon which the sagacity of Columbus and the admirable clearness of his mind have had a favorable influence. The thought, or, rather, the energetic will, of the Genoese sailor is the first link in the complicated chain of human events since his time."

Mr. Sanborn thus sums up his own investigations, writing on the 15th of April, 1892: "We may safely follow the opinion of Humboldt and have no scruples about celebrating the virtues of Columbus. His faults, such as they were, concerned himself more than his successors."

A pertinent fact is also noticed by him, that while there were many families of the name Columbo, the pirate of that name conducted his operations in the Mediterranean Sea during a year when Christopher Columbus was, without possible dispute, urging his plans before the court of Spain.-ED.

THE CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS.

COLUMBUS was a man of great inventive genius. The operations of his mind were energetic, but irregular, bursting forth at times. with that irresistible force which characterizes intellect of such an order. His ambition was lofty and noble, inspiring him with high thoughts and an anxiety to distinguish himself by great achievements. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same elevated spirit with which he sought renown. They were to arise from the territories he should discover, and be commensurate in importance. His conduct was characterized by the grandeur of his views and the magnanimity of his spirit.

Instead of ravaging the newly-found countries, like so many of his contemporary discoverers who were intent only on immediate gain, he regarded them with the eye of a legislator. He sought to colonize and cultivate them, to civilize the natives, to build cities, introduce the useful arts, subject everything to the control of law, order, and religion, and thus to found regular and prosperous empires. That he failed in this was the fault of the dissolute rabble which it was his fortune to command, with whom all law was tyranny and all order oppression.

He was naturally irascible and impetuous, yet the quickness of his temper was counteracted by the generosity and benevolence of his heart. The magnanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career. Though continually outraged in his dignity, braved in his authority, foiled in his plans, and endangered in his person by the seditions of turbulent and worthless men, and that, too, at times when suffering under anguish of body and anxiety of mind enough to exasperate the most patient, yet he restrained his valiant and indignant spirit, and brought himself to forbear and reason, and even supplicate. Nor can the reader of the story of his eventful life fail to notice how free he was from all feeling of revenge; how ready to forgive and to forget on the least sign of repentance and atonement. He has been exalted for his skill in controlling others, but far greater praise is due to him for the firmness he displayed in governing himself.

His piety was genuine and fervent. Religion mingled with

the whole course of his thoughts and actions, and shone forth in his most private and unstudied writings. Whenever he made any great discovery, he devoutly returned thanks to God. The voice of prayer and the melody of praise rose from his ships on discovering the New World, and his first action on landing was to prostrate himself upon the earth and offer up thanksgivings. All his great enterprises were undertaken in the name of the Holy Trinity, and he partook of the Holy Sacrament before embarkation. He observed the festivals of the Church in the wildest situations. The Sabbath was to him a day of sacred rest, on which he would never sail from a port unless in case of extreme necessity. The religion thus deeply seated in his soul diffused a sober dignity and a benign composure over his whole deportment. His very language was pure and guarded, and free from all gross and irreverent expressions.

He was decidedly a visionary, but a visionary of an uncom mon kind, and successful in his dreams. The manner in which his ardent imagination and mercurial nature were controlled by a powerful judgment and directed by an acute sagacity is the most extraordinary feature in bis character. Thus governed, his imagination, instead of exhausting itself in idle flights, lent aid to his judgment and enabled him to form conclusions at which common minds never could have arrived; nay, which they could not conceive when pointed out. To his intellectual vision it was given to read the signs of the times, and to trace in the conjectures and reveries of past ages the indications of a new world. "His soul," observes a Spanish writer, "was superior to the age in which he lived. For him was reserved the great enterprise of traversing a sea which had given rise to so many fables, and of deciphering the mystery of his age."

With all the visionary fervor of his imagination, its fondest dreams fell short of the reality. He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discovery. Until his last breath he entertained the idea that he had merely opened a new way to the old resorts of opulent commerce, and had discovered some of the wild regions of the East.

What visions of glory would have broken upon his mind, could he have known that he had indeed discovered a new continent, equal to the Old World in magnitude, and separated by two vast