Adolph hurried into the church with hasty steps; but the old man, who went before him to show the way, delayed him with his reflections-so that their progress was but Even at the threshold he slow. stopped, and flung the light of his lantern upon the gilded rods over the door, to which it is a custom to add a fresh one every year, that people may know how long the reigning elector has lived. "That is an excellent custom," said Hans;" one has only to count those staves, and one learns immediately how long the gracious elector Not has governed us simple men." a monument would be pass without first stopping to examine it by the lantern-light, and requesting the Burgomaster to explain its inscription, although he had spent his three-andsixty years in Cologne, and, during that period, had been in the habit of frequenting it almost daily. Adolph, who well knew that no representations would avail him, submitted patiently to the humors of his old servant, contenting himself with answering his questions as briefly as possible; and in this way they at last got to the high altar. Here Hans made a sudden stop, and was not to be brought any farther. fluence of a delusion which he was Being thus deprived of his most "Indeed!" said the Burgomaster. "Do you think, then, that you have courage enough to go into the church at night ?"" In the way of my duty, yes," replied Hans; "not otherwise. It is not right to trifle with holy matters." "Do you believe in ghosts, Hans?" continued Adolph.-"Yes, Mr. Burgomaster." "Do you fear them ?"-" No, Mr. Burgomaster.-I hold by God, and he holds up me; and God is the strongest." "Will you go with me to the cathedral, Hans? I have had a strange dream to-night it seemed to me as if my deceased wife called to me from the steeple-window."-"I see how it is," answered Hans: "the sexton has been with you, and put this whim into your head, Mr. Burgomaster. These grave-diggers are always seeing ghosts." "Put a light into your lantern," said Adolph, avoiding a direct reply to this observation of the old man. "Be silent, and follow me."-" If you bid me," said Hans, "I must of course obey; for you are my magistrate as well as my master." Herewith he lit the candle in the lantern, and followed his master without farther opposition. "" 30 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series. "Quick!" exclaimed the Burgomaster, who was beginning to lose his patience; for his heart throbbed with expectation. "Heaven and all good angels defend us!" murmured Hans through his chattering teeth, while he in vain felt for his rosary, which yet hung as usual at his girdle. "What is the matter now ?" cried Adolph. "Do you see who sits there?" replied Hans. "Where?" exclaimed his master; "I see nothing; hold up the lanteru." "Heaven shield us!" cried the old man; "there sits our deceased lady, on the altar, in a long, white veil, and drinks out of the sacramental cup !" With a trembling hand he help up the lantern in the direction to which he pointed. It was, indeed, as he had said. There she sat, with the paleness of death upon her face-her white garments waving heavily in the night wind, that rushed through the aisles of the church-and bolding the silver goblet to her lips with long, bony arms, wasted by protracted illness. Even Adolph's courage began to waver." Adelaide," he cried, "I conjure you in the name of the blessed Trinity, answer me is it thy living self, or but thy shadow ?" ? "Ah!" replied a faint voice, "you buried me alive, and, but for this wine, I had perished from exhaustion. Come up to me, dear TO MRS. HEMANS, ON HER INTENDED PUBLICATION, OH! 'tis not for her lovely face, With youth and rapture teeming, My sweet, my blue-eyed Mary. "Twill be as when the eye entranced explores SONG. Oh no! 'tis for her happy mind, Not formed with time to vary, My sweet, my blue-eyed Mary. LIFE AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.* IT was about the year 1435 or 1436, that Christopher Columbus was born at Genoa, the sagacious and heroic discoverer of the New World: a man whose exploits must always command a nearly equal interest, whether we look to them as the sources of so many important changes in the condition as well of Europe as of America, or for the attractions they impart to history itself. The difficulties which Columbus surmounted before he obtained from the Spanish sovereigns the means of commencing his enterprise; the perseverance by means of which alone he accomplished his first and most important voyage; the lands he discovered; the appearance, manners, and traditions of the natives; the persecutions which he subsequently underwent; the court intrigues and malevolent machinations of which he was the victim; and the comparative affliction and penury amid which he died-all these are particulars of his history well known. Mr. Irving, in his first four Chapters, has developed many of the sources of that spirit of geographical discovery which took possession of the mind of Columbus, and which was fostered by the restless spirit of the age in which he lived. In the fifth Chapter our author presents, upon the authority of Columbus's son Fernando," the precise data upon which his father's plan of discovery was founded." was absent on his first voyage: it contains no trace of the New World, and thus furnishes conclusive proof, that its existence was yet unknown to Behem." The renown and triumph of Co lumbus's success, when first achieved, is thus narrated by Mr. Irving. "The joy occasioned by this great discovery was not confined to Spain. The tidings were spread far and wide by embassies, by the correspondence of the learned, by the negotiations of merchants, and the reports of travellers. Sebastian Cabot mentioned that he was in London when news was brought there of the discovery, and that it caused great talk and admiration in the court of Henry VII. being affirmed to be a thing more divine than human,’ "The whole civilized world, in fact, was filled with wonder and delight. Every one rejoiced in it as an event in which he was more or less interested, and as opening a new and unbounded field for inquiry and enterprise." To other observations, Mr. Irving subjoins refutations of the pretended debt of Columbus to the discoveries of a pilot who died in his house, or to those of Martin Behem. With respect to the latter he tells us : "Notwithstanding all this triumph, however, no one as yet was aware of the real importance of this disNo one had an idea that covery. this was a totally distinct portion of the globe, separated by oceans from the ancient world. The opinion of Columbus was universally adopted, that Cuba was the end of the Asiatic continent, and that the adjacent islands were in the Indian seas." "The land visited by Behem, was the coast of Africa beyond the equator; the globe he projected was finished in 1492, while Columbus The mind of Columbus was constantly obliged to grope amid the twilight of his age, here obscured through the defect of scientific principles, there by the dogmas of false learning, and there, again, by the absence of that acquaintance with fact which nothing but experience can bestow. "The singular speculation of Co A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. By Washington Irving. 4 vols. 8vo. 1828. lumbus, which he details at full length in a letter to the Castilian sovereigns, citing various authorities for his opinions, among which were St. Augustine, St. Isidor, and St. Ambrosi us, and fortifying his theory with much of that curious and speculative erudition in which he was deeply versed, shows how his ardent mind was heated by the magnificence of his discoveries. Shrewd men, in the coolness and quietude of ordinary life, and in these modern days of cautious and sober fact, may smile at such a reverie, but it was countenanced by the speculations of the most sage and learned of those times, and if this had not been, could we wonder at any sally of the imagination in a man placed in the situation of Columbus? He beheld a vast world, rising, as it were, into existence before him, its nature and extent unknown and undefined, as yet a mere region for conjecture. Every day displayed some new feature of beauty and sublimity; island after island, whose rocks, he was told, were veined with gold, whose groves teemed with spices, or whose shores abounded with pearls. Interminable ranges of coast, promontory beyond promontory, stretching as far as the eye could reach; luxuriant valleys sweeping away into a vast interior, whose distant mountains, he was told, concealed still happier lands, and realms of still greater opulence. When he looked upon all this region of golden promise, it was with the glorious conviction that his genius had called it into existence; he regarded it with the triumphant eye of a discoverer. Had not Columbus been capable of these enthusiastic soarings of the imagination, he might, with other sages, have reasoned calmly and coldly about the probability of a continent existing in the west, but he would never have had the daring enterprise to adventure in search of it into the unknown realms of ocean." It would have been easy to swell this notice of Mr. Irving's work, by adverting to many of the numerous passages which, among other things, "Columbus was a man of great and inventive genius. The operarions of his mind were energetic, but irregular; bursting forth at times with that irresistible force which characterises intellects of such an order. His mind had grasped all kinds of knowledge connected with his pursuits; and though his information may appear limited at the present day, and some of his errors palpable, it is because that knowledge, in his peculiar department of science, was but scantily developed in his time. His own discoveries enlightened the ignorance of that age; guided conjecture to certainty; and dispelled numerous errors with which he himself had been obliged to struggle. "His ambition was lofty and noble. He was full of high thoughts, and anxious to distinguish himself by great achievements. It has been said that a mercenary feeling mingled with his views, and that his stipulations with the Spanish court were selfish and avaricious. The charge is inconsiderate and unjust. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same lofty spirit in which he sought renown; but they were to arise from the territories he should discover, and be commensurate in importance. condition could be more just. He asked nothing of the sovereigns but No a command of the countries he hoped to give them, and a share of the profits to support the dignity of his command. If there should be no country discovered, his stipulated viceroyalty would be of no avail; and if no revenues should be produced, his labour and peril would produce no gain. If his command and revenues ultimately proved magnificent, it was from the magnificence of the regions he had attached to the Castilian crown. What monarch would not rejoice to gain empire on such conditions? But he did not merely risk a loss of labour, and a disappointment of ambition, in the enterprise ;-on his motives being questioned, he voluntarily undertook, and, with the assistance of his coadjutors, actually defrayed one-eighth of the whole charge of the first expedition. "The gains that promised to arise from his discoveries, he intended to appropriate in the same princely and pious spirit in which they were demanded. He contemplated works and achievements of benevolence and religion vast contributions for the relief of the poor of his native city; the foundations of churches, where masses should be said for the souls of the departed; and armies for the recovery of the holy sepulchre in Palestine." "His conduct was characterised by the grandeur of his views, and the magnanimity of his spirit. Instead of traversing the newly found countries, like a grasping adventurer eager only for immediate gain, as was too generally the case with contemporary discoverers, he sought to ascertain their soil and productions, their riv ers and harbours: he was desirous of co onizing and cultivating them; of conciliating and civilising the natives; of building cities, introducing the useful arts, subjecting every thing to the control of law, order, and religion; and thus of founding regular and prosperous empires. In this glorious plan he was constantly defeated by the dissolute rabble it was his misfortune to command; with whom all law was tyranny, and all order restraint. They interrupted all useful works by their seditions; provoked the peaceful Indians to hostility; and after they had thus heaped misery and warfare upon their own heads, and overwhelmed Columbus with the ruins of the edifice he was building, they charged him with being the cause of the confusion." "Columbus was a man of quick sensibility, liable to great excitement, to sudden and strong impressions, and powerful impulses. He was naturally irritable and impetuous, and keenly sensible to injury and injus tice: yet the quickness of his temper was counteracted by the benevoleuce and generosity of his heart. The maguanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career. Though continually outraged in his dignity, and braved in the exercise of his command; tho' 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 anxiety of mind and anguish of body sufficient to exasperate the most patient, he restrained his valiant aud indignant spirit, and, by the strong powers of his mind, brought himself to forbear, and reason, and even to supplicate: nor should we fail to notice how free he was from all feeling of revenge, how ready to forgive and forget, on the least signs of repentance and atonement. He has been extolled for his skill in controlling others; but far greater praise is due to him for the firmness he displayed in governing himself. "His natural benignity made him accessible to a 1 kinds of pleasurable sensations from external objects. In his letters and journals, instead of detailing circumstances with the technical precision of a mere navigator, he notices the beauties of nature with the enthusiasm of a poet or a painter." "He was devoutly pious, religion mingled with the whole course of his |
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