more remote section of his diocese. He never returned, that the chroniclers were aware of; and the presumption is strong that he perished on the journey.

julfsen, drifting under cover of a fog, in | adventures encountered there by the vi986, outside the limits of the known world, kings of old were recounted, century after sighted the densely wooded shore of century, by Icelandic firesides, but kindled Maine or Nova Scotia, but had not the no emulative zeal. Only a certain priest, curiosity to land, and made little of his named Erik Gnupsen, having been apadventure. Its significance was not, how-pointed by Pope Paschal II. "bishop of ever, lost upon Leif, son of the homicidal | Greenland and Vinland in partibus infiErik, a thoughtful and strenuous man, not delium," set out in 1121 to search for the devoid of grasp upon the present and insight into the future. A trip to Norway in 998 brought about his conversion to Christianity; he carried missionaries back with him to Greenland; then, in the year 1000, equipped a "dragon ship" for a journey to the west. His first landfall was most likely somewhere in Labrador; and he named the country, from its dreary and stone-strewn aspect," Helluland," i.e., "slate land," Further south, the explorers disembarked on the sylvan shore of the so-called "Markland," plausibly identified with some part either of Cape Breton Island or of Nova Scotia; but the dense forest-growth did not encourage tarrying, and they determined to draw another lot out of the lap of the sea. This time they were in luck. A short run before a stiff north-easter brought them to a fertile strand where the waters abounded with excellent fish, fields waved yellow with maize, and wild vines, in that autumnal season, drooped under a heavy burden of grapes. They called the place accord ingly "Vinland," and wintered there in great comfort.

Leif's return to Greenland with a cargo of timber prompted sundry colonizing efforts, notably an energetic one by Thor. finn Karlsefni; and since the natives, who seem to have been Algonquin Indians, eagerly bartered rich furs for worthless strips of scarlet cloth, trade with them was exceedingly profitable. These "Skraelings," as they are designated in the Sagas, were terribly afraid of the strange beasts brought from over the sea; and the bellowing of Thorfinn's bull on one occasion sent them into hiding for three weeks. Yet their hostility ended by becoming formidable, and led, in the course of twelve years, to the abandonment of this early attempt to secure a foothold for a European race on the western continent. Vinland became a dim tradition. The

From Greenland, too, the outposts of civilization were eventually withdrawn. The native Esquimaux, known only by archæological traces to the comrades of Erik the Red, again, in course of time, migrated southward, and before the close of the fifteenth century overwhelmed the intruders into their forsaken haunts. The massive ruin, however, of what was once the cathedral church of Gardar remains, and will probably long remain, standing by the melancholy fiord of Kakortok, a conspicuous memorial of antique Christian occupation. Only in the eighteenth century the devastation was to some extent repaired by the planting of fresh settlements along the barely habitable coasts fringing the glaciated central mass of the peninsula.

The Vinland of the Sagas may be located with some confidence on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. In the neighborhood of Cape Cod the fox-grape still ripens freely, and Indian corn unsheaths its tasselled ears almost spontaneously. The mildness of the winter climate, besides, and the length of the winter days, which excited the comments of unaccustomed Icelanders, suggest a region certainly not more inclement than New England. But material vestiges of this curious adventure in colonization are scanty, or non-existent. Only by a stretch of romantic credulity are we even allowed to suppose that the" skeleton in armor," dug up many years ago near Fall River, and sung of by Longfellow in a spirited ballad, represented the genuine remains of some slain comrade of Thorfinn or of Thorvald.

The Norse discovery of America remained absolutely barren of results. The

records of it assumed, as time went on, a In so far [our present authority continues] legendary air. They were not discredited, as the attention of people in Europe was but just inferences from them were ig- called to any quarter of the globe outside of nored. The performance, in fact, came to the seething turbulence in which they dwelt, nothing, because it came too soon. There it was directed toward Asia. Until after 1492, was not knowledge enough in men's minds Europe stood with her back toward the Atlantic. What there might be out beyond that to serve as a measure of its importance." Sea of Darkness" (Mare Tenebrosum), as it That "the merry world was round" was used commonly to be called, was a question not even a general conviction. Indeed, of little interest, and seems to have excited no the possibility of antipodal existence speculation. In the view of medieval Europe ranked merely as a learned extravagance the inhabited world was cut off on the west of opinion. Besides, the geographical by this mysterious ocean, and on the south by inquisitiveness of modern times had not the burning sands of Sahara; but eastward it then begun to develop; nor, in the back-stretched out no one knew how far, and in that ward state of navigation, could much sat- direction dwelt tribes and nations which isfaction have been procured for it, had it Europe, from time immemorial, had reason to fear. (Vol. i., p. 260.) been as full-fledged and keen-witted as it is now. All this is admirably explained by Mr. Fiske in the able work named at the head of this article. It is learned in substance, and lucid in style; and condenses a vast amount of varied information into a skilfully constructed and agreeable

narrative.

None of the Icelandic references to Markland and Vinland [we read in it] betray a consciousness that these countries belong to a geographical world outside of Europe. There was not enough organized geographical knowledge for that. They were simply conceived as remote places beyond Greenland, inhabited by inferior but dangerous people. The accidental finding of such places served neither to solve any great commercial problem nor to gratify and provoke scientific curiosity. It was, therefore, not at all strange that it bore no fruit. (Vol. i., p. 257.) Moreover

even if it had been realized, and could have been duly proclaimed throughout Europe,

that across the broad Atlantic a new world lay open for colonization, Europe could not have taken advantage of the fact. Now and then a ship might make its way, or be blown, across the waste of waters without compass or astrolabe; but until these instruments were at hand anything like systematic ocean navigation was out of the question; and from a colonization which could only begin by creeping up into the Arctic seas and taking Greenland on the way, not much was to be expected

after all.

The westward tendency of the "star of empire," too, was, in the eleventh century, very far from being recognized.

The process by which the direction of outlook came to be reversed was slow and complex. First of all, the conquests of Genghis Khan cleared the way to Cathay

so China was designated from the ruling dynasty of the Khitai; and thus it came to European knowledge that the country was bounded on the east, not by the Ptolemaic swamp

neither sea

Nor good dry land

but by a navigable ocean. The bearers of this noteworthy intelligence, about the middle of the thirteenth century, were two Franciscan monks, Giovanni Carpini and Willem de Rubruquis, emissaries to the great khan from pope Innocent IV. and St. Louis of France, respectively. Then came the voyage of Ser Marco Polo, bringing experimental verification of the fact; while its significance was implied by Roger Bacon's citation of ancient opinions to the effect that, between the Pillars of Hercules and the Indian mainland, stretched one wide, yet by no means immeasurable or impassable, sea. It was this fortunately conceived and fortunately promulgated error that led to the discovery of America. For Columbus, enthusiast though he was, would never have pursued the setting sun across the sea of darkness unless he had been convinced that, on the other side, lay a land of light. Exploration in the abstract inspired him with no passion. He had a definite purpose in view; his eyes were fixed on a goal which he deemed it a certainty to

reach. A vague journey in search of an unknown continent never for a moment entered into his thoughts; nor, if it had, would he have ventured to demand the means for its accomplishment from the sagacious counsellors of Isabella. And assuredly, had his years of supplication been protracted from eight to eighty, not a ship, not a man, not a maravedi, would have been placed at his disposal in the interests of so foolhardy a design. What he sought, then, was not a new world, but a new way.

The need of finding that new way grew up as the result of the havoc wrought by the Turks. Commerce with the East had been rendered by the Crusades a European necessity; it was interrupted by the encampment of a horde of armed nomads on the long lines of communication connecting Italy with India and Cathay. The Mediterranean was thus, for the first time in history, virtually converted into a cul de sac; a state of things intolerable to irresistibly growing enterprise, for which, accordingly, means of exit had to be found, if not across Armenia or by Alexandria, then out between the Pillars of Hercules. There was nothing else for it. The opening up of an outside route to the Indies had become a condition sine quâ non of

progress.

A more startling question [Mr. Fiske remarks, than that of its possibility] has seldom been propounded; for it involved a radical departure from the grooves in which the human mind had been running ever since the days of Solomon. Two generations of men lived and died while this question was taking shape, and all that time Cathay and India and the islands of Spices were objects of increasing desire, clothed by eager fancy with all manner of charms and riches. The more effectually the eastern Mediterranean was closed, the stronger grew the impulse to venture upon unknown paths, in order to realize the vague but glorious hopes that began to cluster about those unknown countries. Such an era of romantic enterprise as was thus ushered in the world has never seen before or since. (Vol. i., p. 294.)

fectiveness on the possibility of reaching its waters by circumnavigating Africa. Urged by religion and patriotism, he devoted all his powers to the realization of the idea by which he was possessed, and not in vain. For it was he who gave the impulse which carried the flag of Portugal triumphantly round the "Cabo Tormentorio" to Calicut and Malacca. But this brilliant consummation of his labors he did not live to witness. When he died in 1463 the tropical continent had been slowly and painfully coasted no farther than to Sierra Leone. The crossing of the line by Santarem and Escobar soon afterwards (in 1471) dissipated prevalent bogey terrors connected with the torrid zone, but brought discouragement of a more serious kind. For the eastward trend of the Gold Coast, by which expectations of a speedy passage to Orient realms had for a time been flattered, was then found not to continue. Far on, immeasurably far on towards the south, the unwelcome land lay extended, inexorably barring the way against sea-borne explorers. Was then Prince Henry's lifelong hope after all delusive? Could it be that the Ptolemaic configuration of the globe hit the truth, and that access there was none from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean? A slackening of enterprise might, under the shadow of so dispiriting a doubt, well be excused; although other circumstances doubtless contributed to produce the pause that ensued. A perceptible reflux of thought, moreover, from the longcherished project of an African periplus marked the interval; and before it came to an end Christopher Columbus had fully matured his ideas on the subject of 2 alternative route to the Indies.

About six hundred books, it is estimated, have been written about this extraordinary personage, individually and expressly, besides innumerable others treating of his career as part of a more general subject. Yet we are very little, if at all, the wiser. The respectable edifice of early biography has been undermined where it has not been utterly overthrown, Portugal led the way under the guidance and materials for rebuilding it on a surer of Prince Henry the Navigator, whose foundation are not at present forthcoming. Plantagenet descent on the mother's side Destructive criticism has played havoc for he was a grandson of John of Gaunt with much that had seemed well ascer- Englishmen may be proud to remem-tained, and has thickly sprinkled with the ber. He was a man who had convictions, dust of doubt statements which it has not and the courage of them. He believed, found the means of actually disproving, for instance, in spite of Ptolemy, in the Cape of Good Hope. Totally rejecting the landlocked theory of the Indian Sea, he laid the great stake of his life's ef

the result being that very few circumstances connected with the life of Columbus stand free from the critical note of interrogation.

and it is too true that he was no unsullied hero of the Cross. Yet it does not follow that his professions were insincere, or his devotion hypocritical. His American appraiser, however, loses no opportunity of treating them with contempt. He fails, indeed, to perceive that the first duty imposed upon him, as the biographer of a man of exceptional genius, is that of endeavoring to rise to the "height of his great argument."

The champion of the cause of negation is Mr. Henry Harrisse, a Franco-American scholar of distinguished attainments and indefatigable industry. His arguments against the authenticity of the biography, professing to be the work of Columbus's son, Ferdinand, but known only in an Italian version published at Venice in 1571, were formulated one-and-twenty years ago. Although unreservedly accepted by very few, they have availed to damage on several points the credit of a There is no certainty either as to the narrative supposed, until then, to be of date or as to the place of the birth of fundamental and unalterable authority, Columbus. The "seven cities" claiming and thus to throw the whole subject into Homer as a native are thrice multiplied in apparently hopeless confusion. The con- the towns and hamlets competing for the troversy has given rise to a still grow honor of having cradled the "Admiral of ing literature, but Mr. Harrisse has not the Ocean." He himself, however, plainly retreated by a hair's breadth from his asserted his Genoese origin, and, in the original position. He is a hardy sceptic. absence of documentary proof to the conHe doubts or denies to the utmost limit of trary, he should in all fairness be believed. what is rational. Yet he has been assidu- His autobiographical hints are, none the ous in his endeavors to replace what he less, both perplexed and perplexing. has removed; and some few grains of fact, They seem to imply his birth in the year hard enough to resist the utmost efforts of 1446 or 1447, while the apparently trustcritical grinding, he certainly has suc- worthy statement of Bernaldez that he was ceeded in extracting from the numerous seventy at the time of his death antedates archives explored by him. The results of the event by fully ten years. But it is many years of patient study are thus em-likely enough that he seemed a much bodied in the two bulky volumes of his older man than he really was. What is "Christophe Colomb," cited among our beyond doubt is that he was the eldest of authorities; and they are indeed of pri- the four children of Domenico Colombo, mary importance to inquirers judicious a poor, shiftless weaver, never long out of enough to make proper allowance for their difficulties. Christopher, as he himself hyper-negative tendencies. relates, went to sea at the age of fourteen; but he must have filled up the intervals of his voyages with weaving or wool-comb

lanerio in a notarial act registered at Savona in 1472. The story of his having studied at the University of Pavia may safely be dismissed as apocryphal; nevertheless he managed one way or another to learn some Latin, cosmography, and astronomy.

The only considerable recent English work on Columbus is that by Mr. Justin Winsor. Favorably known as the judi-ing, since he is described as by trade a cious editor of a monumental "History of America," the author was exceptionally well prepared for the task subsequently undertaken. His book, accordingly, contains much valuable information, and attests a complete command of the bibliography of the subject. The portraits and antique maps with which it is copiously illustrated are also highly interesting. The style of writing is not indeed always correct, and the method of arrangement leaves something to be desired. But these are venial faults; a more serious defect is the imperfect appreciation betrayed throughout of the singular and complex character attempted to be portrayed. The work suffers not from the lues Boswelliana, but from its opposite. We hear far too much of the "common clay" of the great discoverer, and far too little of the lofty purposes, the noble and profound emotions, of the spirit it enshrined. Mr. Winsor is disappointed to find Columbus "but a creature of questionable grace,"

Enterprising seamen were, in those days, naturally drawn to Portugal. There was the centre of navigating adventure; there the emporium, so to speak, of exploratory talent. And so Columbus followed his brother Bartholomew to Lisbon about the year 1473. His appearance must soon have become familiar to the idlers of the town as he paced along the banks of the Tagus to Belem, or mounted by steep, evil-smelling alleys to catch the sun's last radiance from one of the seven hills of the city of Ulysses. No wearer of hereditary dignities, indeed, could have presented a more striking figure than that of this weaver's son from the Vico Dritto Ponticello in Genoa. His hair, once auburn,