From this torpor they were at length awakened by the trumpet peal of fanaticism. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the crusading armies, bent on the famous project of recovering the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the Infidel hosts, scoured the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. These representatives of trans-Alpine barbarism were thus brought into immediate contact with the comparative civilization of the Saracenic empire. And while the balmy climate of Asia mellowed their rough and hardy temperament, they insensibly acquired a taste for luxuries and enjoyments previously unknown. The jewels, the silks, and the spiceries of India and the East, soon became objects of the most intense attraction. Accordingly, when driven from their short-lived conquests, they returned in scattered and straggling bands, to their native land, they carried along with them their newly acquired tastes, as well as the means of partial gratification. The exhibition, on their return, of sundry articles of Indian and other Oriental produce, at once aroused the curiosity and inflamed the covetous desires of their fellow-countrymen at home. But, how could foreign commodities be obtained without having something equivalent to barter in exchange? To create such an exchangeable equivalent, labour must be expended beyond what is required merely to secure the bare necessaries of life. To this additional labour, the people of the West were now greatly stimulated. The growing ambition to possess some share of the envied riches and luxuries of the East, infused the spirit of improvement into the varied operations of agriculture and manufactures. And thus, to use the words of a modern historian," nations hitherto sunk in listless indolence, or only roused from it when hunger urged them to the chase, or their chiefs led them to the battle, acquired INDUSTRY, the only efficient and legitimate source of all other acquisitions, and of national prosperity."

Singular subject for reflection! That distant India, under the overruling providence of God, should thus have proved one of the most direct and leading instruments in communicating the first decided impulse to modern civiliza

tion in Western Europe! But stranger still!-that distant India should ever since have continued to prove one of the most potent causes in accelerating the march of Western civilization, till that civilization immensely outstripped its own!—and thus helped in raising Europe to undisputed preeminence over all other quarters of the globe!

That this is no exaggeration, may be made to appear from the briefest summary of the progress of events.

The steady advancement of general society in the West created an extending demand for the varied products of the East. But such increasing demand could no longer be supplied by the precarious importations of disabled warriors, or wandering pilgrims from the Holy Land. There must now be some regular European channel of communication with the East. And where could such channel, with a view to the best local and maritime advantages, be more appropriately opened than in the central peninsula of Italy? Hence the rise of Genoa, Venice, and other cities which strove for the trident that might command an exclusive monopoly of Eastern trade. At length Venice out-peered all her rivals. And was not the historic law, expressive of the aggrandising influence of Indian commerce, true to itself? How was it that Venice, poor and mean, feeble and obscure, came to sit in state, "Throned on her hundred isles, a ruler of the waters and their powers?" How came she, with her proud tiara of proud battlements, to have so many a subject land looking to her "winged lion's marble piles?" How came she to be robed in purple, and so luxuriously magnificent, that of

"Her feast

Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased?".

It was, to draw still from the same poetic but unhappy genius, it was, because the exhaustless East had

"Pour'd into her lap all gems in sparkling showers."

When the monopoly of Indian and other Eastern commerce had made Venice thus to start, as by the wand of enchant

ment, in beauty and brightness, from the bosom of the Adriatic, challenging the admiration of Europe,-how could her unbounded prosperity fail to excite general envy too? Naturally and necessarily, were other communities incited to sue for some share in her all-enriching trade. But how could this be secured? Hitherto, the great routes for the transference of Indian produce lay along the Red Sea, the Euphrates, or the Caspian. The principal intermediate marts were Alexandria, St Jean de Acre, or Constantinople. Over these emporia Venice had acquired an almost unlimited command. What, then, was to be done? Why, there seemed no alternative but to attempt to establish some new line of communication with India. To compass this end, a hundred schemes were now propounded, entertained, and forsaken in swift and bewildering succession. Traveller after traveller issued forth to reconnoitre and survey the avenues to the Eastern World. And the marvellous reports carried back, and circulated by some of them on their return, tended still more to inflame the rage for discovery by sea

and land.

This new spirit of discovery,-affecting alike prince and peasant, merchant and mariner,-found, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, its most chivalrous head and champion in Henry of Portugal. Deeply imbued with the characteristic zealotism of his age, and eminently distinguished for those attainments in general science which enabled him at once to project and superintend the most daring enterprises, he summoned around him all the most skilful and adventurous spirits in Christendom. The grand object of his ambition was to find out some new passage to India, that might supersede all the old routes already preoccupied. To the prosecution of this object, he unweariedly devoted the labour of his life; and on it prodigally lavished the resources of his kingdom. And though he lived not to witness its accomplishment, the valuable discoveries made by his commanders along the coast of Africa encouraged his successors to follow, with unabated ardour, in his romantic

career.

It was to the furtherance of the same design that the celebrated Columbus dedicated his life. The desire of discovering a new passage to India supplied the ruling motive: an implicit belief in a geographical error chalked out his course. By studying, as we are credibly informed, "Aristotle's description of the world, and the tables of Ptolemy, who extends the eastern parts of the Continent of Asia so enormously as to bring it almost round to the western parts of Europe and Africa, he very properly concluded (supposing their descriptions to be correct, and they were then universally received as such) that, instead of a long and tedious voyage round the extremity of Africa, a much shorter passage to India might be made by sailing directly west from Europe." In undoubting confidence, as to the practicability of this scheme, he eventually did set sail to the West; and stumbled unexpectedly on those islands, which he fondly concluded to be the long-wished for land of promise; and which, from that erroneous impression, were designated, and still bear the name of, "West Indies."

At length, the perseverance of the Portuguese monarchs. overcame all difficulties. In 1486, Diaz reached the most southern extremity of Africa, giving it the significant appellation of "The Cape of Storms; -a name which his sovereign, overjoyed at the good hope which it held out of ultimate success, changed into the more auspicious one of “The Cape of Good Hope."

In 1498, Vasco De Gama doubled the Cape, and made good his landing at Calicut, the principal city on the Malabar, or western shore of the Indian Peninsula.

Next to the voyage which terminated in the discovery of the American Continent,-if second even to that in its influence over the destinies of man,-this was, beyond all debate, the most important one that had ever been accomplished since the world began. Of its successful issue, it has, without the slightest exaggeration, been remarked, that it "effected a complete revolution in the commerce and policy of all civilized nations." The doom of Venice, and other flourishing cities was at once sealed. The trade of India being

now diverted into a new channel, all their power and glory evanished along with it; and as these fell, the new monopolist cities and nations must rise.

Gama's safe return to Lisbon, was hailed as the harbinger of a new and glorious era. The city rung with transports of joy. The inhabitants, concluding that the rich commerce of India and the East was now secured to them, "proposed nothing less than to become immediately, the first commercial and maritime power in the world." And to crown all with the inviolable sanction and ratification of heaven itself, a bull from "God's vicegerent," conferred on the Portuguese monarch the proud title of "Lord of the Navigation, Conquests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India."

So long as Lisbon enjoyed the exclusive monopoly of Indian commerce, she sat as queen among the cities of the nations. But her days of glory were numbered too. One century had scarcely run its course, when the emporium of Eastern trade was transferred from Lisbon to Amsterdam. Forthwith, the law of co-existent prosperity came into full operation. The former sank in proportion as the latter rose. When Portugal might almost be blotted out from the map of independent sovereignties, Holland was enabled to assume the rank of a first-rate power in the balance of Europe.

Meanwhile, that nation, which was destined one day to reap the largest harvest of fruit from India, and destined also, we trust, to confer the largest amount of benefit in return, was no unconcerned spectator. The spirit of industry and improvement, already partially awakened, received, from the long and peaceful reign of Elizabeth, an accelerative impetus, which opened for itself outlets-from Spitzbergen to the Canary Isles in the Old World,-and from Newfoundland to Brazil, in the New. In the case of a nation thus predisposed for maritime discovery and bold enterprise, the early brilliant successes of the Portuguese were enough to set all into ferment and combustion,-inflaming at once the cupidity and the fancy of a mercantile and imaginative people. Over the trade of India, all history and