MONOGRAPH. HE discovery of America by Christopher Columbus Tis the greatest event of secular history. Besides the potato, the turkey, and maize, which it introduced at once for the nourishment and comfort of the Old World, and also tobacco, which only blind passion for the weed could place in the beneficent group, this discovery opened the door to influences infinite in extent and beneficence. Measure them, describe them, picture them, you cannot. While yet unknown, imagination invested this continent with proverbial magnificence. It was the Orient, and the land of Cathay. When afterwards it took a place in geography, imagination found another field in trying to portray its future history. If the Golden Age is before, and not behind, as is now happily the prevailing faith, then indeed must America share, at least, if it does not monopolize, the promised good. Before the voyage of Columbus in 1492, nothing of America was really known. Scanty scraps from antiquity, vague rumors from the resounding ocean, and the 1 In the Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicles, and dated 1586, one of these gifts is mentioned: "Of the potato and such venerous roots as are brought out of Spaine, Portingale, and the Indies to furnish vp our bankets, I speake not." Book II. Ch. VI., Vol. I. p. 281 (London, 1807). hesitating speculations of science were all that the inspired navigator found to guide him. Foremost among these were the well-known verses of Seneca, so interesting from ethical genius and a tragical death, in the chorus of his "Medea," which for generations had been the finger-point to an undiscovered world: "Venient annis Secula seris, quibus Oceanus These verses are vague and lofty rather than specific; but Bacon, after setting them forth, says of them, “A prophecy of the discovery of America"; and this they may well be, if we adopt the translation of Archbishop Whately, in his notes to the Essay on Prophecies: "There shall come a time in later ages, when Ocean shall relax his chains and a vast continent appear, and a pilot shall find new worlds, and Thule shall be no more earth's bound." 2 Fox, turning from statesmanship to scholarship, wrote to Wakefield: "The prophecy in Seneca's Medea' is very curious indeed." 3 Irving says of it: "Wonderfully apposite, and shows, at least, how nearly the warm imagination of a poet may approach to prophecy. The predictions of the ancient oracles were rarely so unequivocal." These verses were adopted by Irving as a motto on the title-page of the revised edition of his "Life of Columbus." 1 Act. II. 374-379. 2 Bacon's Essays, annot. Whately, (London, 1858,) p. 379. 8 June 20, 1800. Memorials and Correspondence, ed. Russell, Vol. IV. p. 393. 4 Life of Columbus, Appendix, No. XXIV., Author's Revised Edition, (New York, 1860,) Vol. III. p. 402. Two copies are extant in the undoubted handwriting of Columbus, - precious autographs to tempt collectors, - both of them in his book on the Prophecies.1 By these the great admiral sailed. Humboldt gives the verses in the following form: "Venient annis sæcula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum This sympathetic and authoritative commentator, who has illustrated the enterprise with all that classical or mediæval literature affords, declares his conviction that the discovery of a new continent was more completely foreshadowed in the simple geographical statement of the Greek Strabo,3 who, after a long life of travel, sat down in his old age, during the reign of Augustus, to write the geography of the world, including its cosmography. In this work, where are gathered the results of ancient study and experience, the venerable author, after alluding to the possibility of passing direct from Spain. to India, and explaining that the inhabited world is that which we inhabit and know, thus lifts the curtain: "There may be in the same temperate zone two and indeed more inhabited lands, especially near the parallel of Thinæ or Athens, prolonged into the Atlantic Ocean." 4 This was the voice of ancient Science. 1 Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos, Tom. II. pp. 264, 272. Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, Tom. I. p. 101. 2 Examen Critique, Tom. I. p. 162. Ibid., pp. 152, 165. 4 Geographica, Lib. I. p. 65, C. Comp. Lib. II. p. 118, C. See Humboldt, Examen Critique, Tom. I. pp. 147, seqq.; Cosmos, tr. Otté, Vol. II. pp. 516, 556, 557, 645. Before the voyage of Columbus two Italian poets seem to have beheld the unknown world. The first was Petrarca; nor was it unnatural that his exquisite genius should reach behind the veil of Time, as where he pictures "The daylight hastening with winged steps, The other was Pulci, who, in his "Morgante Maggiore," sometimes called the last of the romances and the earliest of Italian epics, reveals an undiscovered world beyond the Pillars of Hercules : "Know that this theory is false; his bark "Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common centre all things tend; This translation is by our own eminent historian, Prescott, who first called attention to the testimony,3 which is not mentioned even by Humboldt. Leigh 1 ".... che 'l di nostro vola A gente, che di là forse l'aspetta." 2 Canto XXV. st. 229, 230. Rime, Part. I. Canzone V. 8 History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. II. pp. 117, 118. Hunt referred to it at a later day.1 Pulci was born in 1431, and died about 1487, five years before Columbus sailed; so that he was not aided by any rumor of the discovery he so distinctly predicts. Passing from the great event which gave a new world not only to Spain, but to civilized man, it may not be uninteresting to collect some of the prophetic voices concerning the future of America and the vast unfolding of our continent. They will have a lesson also. Seeing what has been fulfilled, we may better judge what to expect. I shall set them forth in the order of time, prefacing each prediction with an account of the author sufficient to explain its origin and character. If some are already familiar, others are little known. Brought together in one body, on the principle of our National Union, E pluribus unum, they must give new confidence in the destinies of the Republic. Only what has been said sincerely by those whose words are important deserves place in such a collection. Oracles had ceased before our history began; so that we meet no responses paltering in a double sense, like the deceptive replies to Croesus and to Pyrrhus, nor any sayings which, according to the quaint language of Sir Thomas Browne, "seem quodlibetically constituted, and, like a Delphian blade, will cut on both sides."2 In Bacon's Essay on Prophecies there is a latitude not to be followed. Not fable or romance, but history, is the true authority; and here experience and genius are the lights by which our prophets have walked. Doubtless there 1 Stories from the Italian Poets, (London, 1846,) Vol. I. p. 295. 2 Christian Morals, Part II. Sec. 3: Works, ed. Wilkin, (London, 1835,) Vol. IV. p. 81. |