About this time, therefore, we find him making voyages to the Western Islands, Cape de Verd, the Guinea coast, in fine, to all the European establishments and trading factories along the coast of Africa. He preserved written accounts of everything memorable, which came within his notice,carefully collected and compared the observations of other voyagers, and continued to apply himself diligently to the cultivation of the sciences subsidiary to his chosen pursuit. By thus uniting close study with extensive experience, he soon became one of the most skilful and capable navigators of the age, and amply qualified himself for the mighty enterprise of discovering the hidden empires of the West.

I shall not attempt to follow him through his hard struggle with the superstitious ignorance of the princes, to whom he so frequently, and long so fruitlessly, sued for the privilege of making them monarchs of a richer realm than all Europe combined, and whose reiterated repulses would have discouraged any man, less endued with heroic perseverance and fortitude than himself; nor shall I think of describing his voyages to America. Nowhere, however, is the exalted character of this truly great man more strikingly displayed, than in the fortitude and magnanimity, with which he bore up against the manifold obstacles to the prosecution of his magnificent undertaking. He had suffered the hardships of penury and oppression, with spirits

unbroken, with hopes unrepressed. Animated by the conviction that undiscovered worlds lay hidden in the western sea, and that he was the instrument ordained to discover and explore them, he had happily overcome the superstitions of the priesthood, who in the outset stigmatized his hypothesis by the odious name of heresy. The incredulity of the government had yielded to the force of truth; and its parsimony was melted by his ardor. The narrowminded individuals, who, unable to rise themselves, hung the weight of their jealousy around his neck as usual, to hold down his lofty genius to the level of their own lowly career, he had shaken off at last in triumph. He was now floating upon the full tide of adventurous experiment. But here also the ignorance and envy of his fellows pursued him at every hour. His unalterable belief in the existence of the lands he sought, would have availed him little, had not his preeminent nautical skill exacted the confidence of those around him, and his intellect and courage proved equal to any emergency of fortune. For when his daring prow was pointed to the west, and his companions felt themselves on the bosom of the great deep, leaving home if not life behind, and sailing they knew not whither, it demanded a rare combination of extraordinary talents for one man, an obscure foreigner, to retain the obedience of his turbulent but fainthearted followers.

To whom, indeed, is the history of his successive

offers to Genoa, Portugal, England, France, Spain, unknown? Who has not followed with admiration his daring progress over the great deep, then in truth a mighty and untried abyss? Who has not felt a thrill of emotion pervade his breast, as he imagined the shattered bark laboring its course through waters never divided before by European keel, and bearing the Genoese pilot to lands never trodden yet by European feet? Who has not exulted in the richly merited honors, which awaited his splendid success, the power, titles, wealth, rank, which kings, and nobles, and pontiffs were eager to lavish on the poor woolcarder of Genoa? Who has not swelled with indignation at the thought of his subsequent wrongs, of the injustice heaped upon him by the evil arts of envious rivals, working on a jealous and wicked master; at the thought of Columbus, the discoverer of the New World, transported back again in chains to the Old; of Columbus, the rightful lord of the Indies, dying in penury and neglect in an obscure corner of Valladolid? The prophetic words of the maiden, who conducted Tasso's knights in quest of Rinaldo, confined by enchantment to Armida's palace in the Fortunate Isles, are now become fact.

Ere long, the venturous pilot will proclaim
The bounds of Hercules an empty tale;
Illustrious empires, now unknown to fame,
Shall time, in nameless western seas, unveil;
The gallant vessel, borne with dauntless aim
To distant lands, will court the auspicious gale,

And, o'er the boundless ocean wafted on,
Victorious emulate the earth-encircling sun.

Him, the Ligurian, whom the fates decree
Mid untrack'd waves his daring bark to steer,
No doubtful clime, no rude and savage sea,
No tempest, in its whelming wild career,
Nor aught beside, if aught more dread there be,
To threaten peril or awaken fear,

Will cause to blench, or chain his noble soul
To where, at Calpe's base, forbidden waters roll.

Thy sails, Columbus, far in western skies

Shall proud unfurl their canvass to the sight,
Whilst, with her thousand wings and thousand eyes,
Fame vainly strives to watch thy glorious flight.
Let hymns to Bacchus or Alcides rise;

Thy single name will pour diviner light

O'er history's pages; and thy fame inspire

Bards, who are yet unborn, with more celestial fire.

And there is now no tongue, which the genial influences of civilization ever touched, wherein the vicissitudes of Columbus' fortune have not been narrated by the historian, and sung by the poet, until all, of every age and every condition, are versed in his eventful story. We are Americans; and the name and the fame of Columbus, honored though it be with no monumental columns rising to the skies, are to us the fruitful theme of instruction in youth, and of entertainment in maturer age.

I turn aside, then, from the beaten path, to tread where the broader rays of general history have not shone upon his life. While Columbus resided in Lisbon, he afforded considerable aid to his father,

who was become very much reduced in circumstances; and when Genoa signified to him her inability or disinclination to accept his proposals, he went to Savona, where his father resided, to visit him, and gave him the means of re-establishing himself at Genoa. I gladly signalize these instances of filial piety, as honorable to the character of Columbus; for who does not love to see the mighty mind, which is grasping all time and space in the compass of its vast conceptions, still continue alive to the little charities of domestic life?

He repaired to Spain in 1484, carrying with him his motherless son Diego, then a child, whom he placed with the monks of the convent of Rabida n Palos, whilst he went to Cordova to treat with the Spanish court. At Cordova he became acquainted with a lady of good family, named Beatriz Enriquez, who made him the father of his son Ferdinand. A fact relating to this period, which we have on the authority of bishop Alessandro Geraldini, deserves to be mentioned here. The ineffectual efforts made by Columbus for several years to engage Ferdinand and Isabella in his project, are well known; but it may not be so generally understood how desperate his situation became, in the course of these negotiations. He had completely exhausted his limited means, in the prosecution of his long and harassing suit. Its rejection left him in a state of extreme need. Disheartened by the total disappointment of the darling hope of