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THE HISTORICAL READER.

PART I.

AMERICAN HISTORY.

Discovery of America by Columbus.

[Introductory Remarks,-Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America, was born in the city of Genoa (jen'o-ah), about the year 1435. At a very early age he showed a remarkable fondness for the sea, and made several voyages in the Mediterranean. He afterward settled in Lisbon, having married the daughter of an Italian navigator who had distinguished himself in the Portuguese service. From him Columbus obtained many valuable charts and journals of voyages, by the perusal of which his passion for maritime adventure and enterprise was greatly stimulated. Some time after this, he conceived the idea that, as the earth is round, a shorter passage to the Indies could be found by sailing westward than by the then usual route by way of Egypt and the Red Sea; and, in order to carry this idea into effect, he applied for aid, in the first place, to Genoa, his native city, but it was refused. He then laid his scheme before John II., King of Portugal, a country which at that time took the lead in maritime discoveries; and that monarch referred it to a committee of learned men, by whom it was pronounced visionary and absurd. Columbus next repaired to Spain, and solicited aid from Ferdinand and Isabella, by the latter of whom, after a tedious and vexatious delay of nearly eight years, he was supplied with three small vessels, with which he sailed on his great and perilous voyage.]

I. COLUMBUS AND HIS MISSION.-Edward Everett.

[From a lecture delivered by the illustrious American scholar and orator, Edward Everett, on the 1st of June, 1853.

The pronunciation and definitions of the words marked with (v) are given in the Vocabulary at the end of the volume.]

1. IN the last quarter of the fifteenth century, an Italian mariner, a citizen of the little republic of Genoa, who had hitherto gained his livelihood as a pilot in the commercial marine of different countries, made his appearance successively at various courts in the south and west of Europe, soliciting patronage and aid for a bold and novel project in navigation.

The state of the times was in some degree favorable to the adventure.

2. The Portuguese had for half a century been pushing their discoveries southward upon the coast of Africa, and had ventured into the Atlantic as far as the Az'ores. Several conspiring causes, and especially the invention of the art of printing, had produced a general revival of intelligence. Still, however, the state of things in this respect was, at that time, very different from what we witness in the middle of the nineteenth century. On the part of the great mass of mankind, there was but little improvement over the darkness of the middle ages. The new culture centred in the convent, the court, and the university, places essentially distrustful of bold novelties.

3. The idea of reaching the East by a voyage around the African continent had begun to assume consistency; but the vastly more significant idea, that the earth is a globe and capable of being circumnavigated', had by no means become incorporated into the general intelligence of the age. The Portuguese navigators felt themselves safe as they crept along the African coast, venturing each voyage a few leagues further, doubling a new headland, ascending some before unexplored river, and holding a palaver" with some new tribe of the native

races.

4. But to turn the prows of their vessels boldly to the west, to embark upon an ocean not believed, in the popular geography of the day, to have an outer shore, to pass that bourne from which no traveller had ever returned, and from which experience had not taught that any traveller could return, and thus to reach the East by sailing in a western direction, this was a conception' which no human being is known to have formed before Columbus, and which he proposed to the governments of Italy, of Spain, and of Portugal, and for a long time without success. The state of science was not such as to enable men to discriminate between the improbable and untried on the one hand, and the impossible and absurd on the other.

5. But the illustrious adventurer persevered. Sorrow and disappointment clouded his spirits, but did not shake his faith

nor subdue his will. His well-instructed imagination had taken firm hold of the idea that the earth is a sphere. What seemed to the multitude, even of the educated of that day, a doubtful and somewhat mystical' theory"; what appeared to the uninformed mass a monstrous paradox', contradicted by every step we take upon the broad, flat earth which we daily tread beneath our feet;-that great and fruitful truth revealed itself to the serene intelligence of Columbus as a practical fact, on which he was willing to stake all he had,-character and life.

6. And it deserves ever to be borne in mind, as the most illustrious example of the connection of scientific theory with great practical results, that the discovery of America, with all its momentous consequences to mankind, is owing to the distinct conception, in the mind of Columbus, of this single scientific proposition, the terraqueous earth is a sphere. After years of fruitless and heart-sick solicitation, after offering in effect to this monarch and to that monarch the gift of a hemisphere", the great discoverer touches upon a partial success.

7. He succeeds, not in enlisting the sympathy of his countrymen at Genoa and Venice for a brave brother sailor; not in giving a new direction to the spirit of maritime adventure which had so long prevailed in Portugal; not in stimulating the commercial, thrift of Henry the Seventh, or the pious ambition of the Catholic king.* His sorrowful perseverance touched the heart of a noble princess, worthy the throne which she adorned. The new world, which was just escaping the subtle kingcraft of Ferdinand, was saved to Spain by the womanly compassion of Isabella.

8. It is truly melancholy, however, to contemplate the wretched equipment", for which the most powerful princess in Christendom was ready to pledge her jewels. Floating castles will soon be fitted out to convey the miserable natives of Africa to the golden shores of America, and towering gal leons will be dispatched to bring home the guilty treasures to Spain; but three small vessels, two of which were without a

Ferdinand of Spain, styled by some "Ferdinand the Catholic."

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