Page 97, line 23. He spoke, and, at his call, a mighty Wind, The more Christian opinion is, that God, with eyes of compassion, as it were, looking down from heaven, called forth those winds of mercy, whereby this new world received the hope of salvation.-Preambles to the Decades of the Ocean. Page 98, line 6. Folded their arms and sate; To return was deemed impossible, as it blew always from home. Hist. del Almirante, c. 19. Nos pavidi—at pater Anchises-lætus. Page 99, line 1. What vast foundations in the Abyss are there, Tasso employs preternatural agents on a similar occasion, Trappassa, et ecco in quel silvestre loco xiii. 33. Gli incanti d'Ismeno, che ingannano con delusioni, altro non significano, che la falsità delle ragioni, et delle persuasioni, la qual si genera nella moltitudine, et varietà de' pareri, et de' discorsi humani. Page 99, line 3. ATLANTIC kings their barbarous pomp displayed; See Plato's Timæus; where mention is made of mighty kingdoms, which, in a day and a night, had disappeared in the Atlantic, rendering its waters unnavigable. Si quæras Helicen et Burin, Achaïdas urbes, At the destruction of Callao, in 1747, no more than one of all the inhabitants escaped; and he, by a providence the most extraordinary. This man was on the fort that over looked the harbour, going to strike the flag, when he perceived the sea to retire to a considerable distance; and then, swelling mountain-high, it returned with great violence. The people ran from their houses in terror and confusion; he heard a cry of Miserere rise from all parts of the city; and immediately all was silent; the sea had entirely overwhelmed it, and buried it for ever in its bosom: but the same wave that destroyed it, drove a little boat by the place where he stood, into which he threw himself and was saved. Page 99, line 12. We stop to stir no more The description of a submarine forest is here omitted by the translator. League beyond league gigantic foliage spread, Shadowing old Ocean on his rocky bed; The lofty summits of resounding woods, That grasped the depths, and grappled with the floods; Such as had climbed the mountain's azure height, When forth he came and reassumed his right. Page 99, line 14. "Land!" and his voice in faltering accents died. Historians are not silent on the subject. The sailors, according to Herrera, saw the signs of an inundated country (tierras anegadas); and it was the general expectation that they should end their lives there, as others had done in the frozen sea, "where St. Amaro suffers no ship to stir backward or forward."-Hist. del Almirante, c. 19. Page 99, line 16. And (whence or why from many an age withheld) The author seems to have anticipated his long slumber in the library of the Fathers. Page 100, line 21. From world to world their steady course they keep, As St. Christopher carried Christ over the deep waters, so Columbus went over safe, himself and his company.— Hist. c. 1. Page 101, line 2. And, rising, shoot in columns to the skies, Water-spouts.-See Edwards's History of the West Indies, I. 12. Note. Page 102, line 1. Tho' changed my cloth of gold for amice greyMany of the first discoverers ended their days in a hermitage or a cloister. Page 102, lines 15 and 16. 'Twas in the deep, immeasurable cave Of ANDES, Vast indeed must be those dismal regions, if it be true, as conjectured (Kircher, Mund. Subt. I. 202), that Etna, in her eruptions, has discharged twenty times her original bulk. Well might she be called by Euripides (Troades, v. 222) the Mother of Mountains; yet Etna herself is but "a mere firework, when compared to the burning summits of the Andes." Page 103, line 6. One half the globe; from pole to pole confessed! Gods, yet confessed later.-MILTON. -Ils ne laissent pas d'en être les esclaves, et de les honorer plus que le grand Esprit, qui de sa nature est bon.-LAFitau. Page 103, line 10. Where PLATA and MARAGNON meet the Main. Rivers of South America. Their collision with the tide has the effect of a tempest. Page 103, line 15. Of HURON or ONTARIO, inland seas, Lakes of North America. Huron is above a thousand miles in circumference. Ontario receives the waters of the Niagara, so famous for its falls; and discharges itself into the Atlantic by the river St. Lawrence. Page 103, line 28. By Ocean severed from a world of shade. La plupart de ces îles ne sont en effet que des pointes de montagnes et la mer, qui est au-delà, est une vraie mer Méditerranée.-BUFFON. Page 104, line 8. Hung in the tempest o'er the troubled main; The dominion of a bad angel over an unknown sea, infestandole con torbellinos y tempestades, and his flight before a Christian hero, are described in glowing language by Ovalle. Hist. de Chile, IV. 8. Page 104, line 13. No voice as erst shall in the desert rise; : Alluding to the oracles of the Islanders, so soon to become silent and particularly to a prophecy, delivered down from their ancestors, and sung with loud lamentations (Petr. Martyr. dec. 3. lib. 7) at their solemn festivals (Herrera, I. iii. 4), that the country would be laid waste on the arrival of strangers, completely clad, from a region near the rising of the sun. Ibid. II. 5. 2. It is said that Cazziva, a great Cacique, after long fasting and many ablutions, had an interview with one of the Zemi, who announced to him this terrible event (Hist. c. 62), as the oracles of Latona, according to Herodotus (II. 152), predicted the overthrow of eleven kings in Egypt, on the appearance of men of brass, risen out of the sea. Nor did this prophecy exist among the Islanders alone. It influenced the councils of Montezuma, and extended almost universally over the forests of America. Cortes. Herrera. Gomara. "The demons, whom they worshipped," says Acosta, "in this instance told them the truth." Page 104, line 19. He spoke; and all was silence, all was night! These scattered fragments may be compared to shreds of old arras, or reflections from a river broken and confused by the oar; and now and then perhaps the imagination of the reader may supply more than is lost. Si qua latent, meliora putat. "It is remarkable," says the elder Pliny, "that the Iris of Aristides, the Tyndarides of Nicomachus, and the Venus of Apelles, are held in higher admiration than their finished works." And is it not so in almost everything? Call up him that left half-told The story of Cambuscan bold Page 106, line 5. The soldier, &c. In the Lusiad, to beguile the heavy hours at sea, Veloso relates to his companions of the second watch the story of the Twelve Knights. —L. vi. U |