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SOUTHERN REVIEW.

NO. III.

AUGUST, 1828.

ART. I.—A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. By WASHINGTON IRVING. 3 vols. 8vo. NewYork. 1828.

IN the natural progress of things, this country seems to be fairly arrived at a new era. The educated citizens of the United States are gradually addicting themselves more and more to literary pursuits, and the talents which have hitherto so honourably distinguished them in every undertaking in which they have seriously engaged, will, we confidently believe, become no less illustrious in the department of letters, than in arts, in commerce, and in arms.

Among the writers who have hitherto been celebrated for their successful exertions, who have been increasing the reputation of our country while weaving a chaplet for their own brows, no one has been more generally, nor more deservedly popular in the United States, than Washington Irving.

His earliest publications were remarkable for their vivacity, their graphic delineations of persons and of character, their racy humour, the delicacy and truth of their reflections, and the freedom, yet correctness of their style. His later productions have, we think, lost in ease and vigour, all that they have gained in the more polished structure of their sentences and in the works published since his residence in Europe, there is, apparently, more restraint, more effort to be correct, and, consequently, more tameness, than in those of his earlier years. He no longer laughs with the hearty and cordial glee of inborn cheerfulness. In his later works, it is only when he reverts to his native land, to the scenes of his youth, to the traditions which beguiled and enkindled his awakening imagination, that we can discover the felicitous graces of his earlier writings, and the charms of his playful and interesting narratives. VOL. II.-No. 3.

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Nor can we wonder at this difference. In these domestic legends, he feels himself in full possession of his subject, revisits in fancy old and familiar scenes, recalls well remembered incidents, and moves with the certainty and confidence, with the buoyant step and firmness of one perfectly assured of his acquaintance with the ground on which he treads, while in treating of European topics and manners, his imagination is comparatively shackled, his mind oppressed with the constant apprehension of error, with the fear of trespassing unwittingly on some "bienséance," on some fact or opinion moral, political, topographical or mythical, (for each country has its fables) and he must, therefore, write with reserve and diffidence. It has, in consequence, happened, that his first publications continue to be more read, and are universally more popular than those which have succeeded them. The authentic history of Diedrich Knickerbocker may be considered among the permanent monuments of our literature. If the design has not the merit of originality, the outline has been filled up with so many diversified and fanciful details, ornamented with so many amusing, even if sometimes grotesque illustrations, as have sufficed to render the perusal of it delightful to all classes of society.

Within the last two years, Mr. Irving, like the great author of Waverly, has directed his attention to new objects, and leaving the pleasant regions of fancy and of fiction, has undertaken to record the life and fortunes of one of those extraordinary men, whose genius may be said to have changed the current of human affairs, and extended the limits of human knowledge, enterprise and power.

We rejoice in this determination—we rejoice that the fine talents of Mr. Irving have not been exclusively devoted to temporary subjects, to publications which, even if they possess a momentary popularity, may not secure him a substantial and enduring fame. He has now connected his literary fortunes with a name of great celebrity and of peculiar interest in the Western hemisphere, and we trust he will diffuse widely his own reputation, while making more familiar and more accurately known the life and adventurous voyages of Christopher Columbus.

Through our journals it is generally known that within a few years past, Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, one of the few names that now adorn the literature of Spain, had been permitted to withdraw from the recesses, where by a cautious and jealous cabinet they had long been concealed, and to publish to the world, some of the original documents relating to the early

discoveries of the Spaniards. Among these were an abstract of the original journal kept by Columbus on his first voyage, and many of his letters.

In the winter of 1825-6, Mr. Irving was invited to Madrid by. Mr. Everett, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Court of Spain, for the purpose of translating some of these valuable papers, if, upon examination he should deem it expedient.

He soon discovered that these documents furnished rather "a mass of materials for history, than a history itself,"* and encouraged by the many sources of original and authentic information which were opened to him at Madrid, and by the belief that an ample and complete account of the life and voyages of Columbus, "was a desideratum in literature," he engaged in this work as one "more agreeable to himself, and more acceptable to his country, than the translations he had contemplated."

In this change of purpose, we believe the public has been generally gratified. And even after the many accounts we already possess, from the pens of able and eloquent historians, of the discoveries of Columbus, we doubt not that this narrative will be considered as more full, more authentic, more satisfactory than any which has preceded it. The style of this work is chaste and elegant, occasionally elevated and eloquent, the narrative connected, well sustained, and unabated in its interest; the reflections candid and judicious, and the materials collected with diligence, and furnished him almost by fortunate casualties.

The subject is, indeed, worthy of the labours of the most distinguished scholars. History, perhaps, records no one man whose actions have exerted so decided and permanent an influence on the condition of the human race; whose discoveries have given rise to such extraordinary and magnificent events. Even at the present day, we see imperfectly the still increasing effects of this wonderful enterprise. Nor, when we look to its future and remote consequences, can we delineate the scenes that rise in visionary grandeur on the excited mind.

Neither was this one of those fortunate discoveries over which chance may claim her dominion. It was no wandering mariner driven by gales, or swept by currents on an unknown or unlooked-for shore; no adventurer roaming abroad through curiosity or love of spoil, whose success the historian is called upon to commemorate. Columbus had formed in his own mind, through years of observation, reflection and study, a theory of

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the general structure of the surface of the earth; one which, though darkly prefigured in the speculations of ancient science, though mingled occasionally in the dreams of poets and philosophers, was, at the close of the fifteenth century, discredited and ridiculed, and even considered as a religious heresy. He, went a suppliant from court to court, from nation to nation, soliciting the paltry means which were necessary to put to the test his magnificent predictions, his simple yet sublime hypothesis. When at last, in despite of her counsellors, in despite even of her colleague on the throne, Isabella, of Castile, furnished three small vessels, scarcely calculated for a coasting voyage along a tranquil shore, Columbus, abandoning the track of all preceding navigators, quitting the shores and home of civilized man, turned his prow over the wide expanse of unnavigated waters, over the "ocean sea,' as it is termed in his commission, traversed those waves whence it was predicted there could be no return, dragged along a trembling and reluctant crew over billows which no keel before had ploughed, where even the favouring breeze that bore them onwards, became a cause of alarm, as threatening to fulfil each inauspicious prediction, until after a daring and unprecedented voyage, after thirty-three days and nights of anxious and painful vigilance, amidst murmurs and apprehensions, and almost amidst mutiny, he landed his astonished followers on the fair and fertile shores of this western continent.

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This was the splendid triumph of science and of courage-a proud trophy to the sagacity and persevering energy of the human understanding-an enterprise which, in the fable-loving days of antiquity, would have caused temples and altars to rise on the summits of each ocean cliff, and have filled heaven with a new race of heroes and demigods. Even if some errors mingled in the calculations of Columbus, if the circumference of the earth greatly exceeded his estimates, if he did not reach, as he expected, those golden realms of Cathay or of Cipango, on which his glowing imagination had so long been accustomed to dwell, his principles were just, and he, at least, proved that the great "ocean sea,' was not a boundless and interminable waste, but a belt of waters, separating the continent of Europe from other lands equally well calculated for the support, the enjoyment and the abode of man.

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The gradual improvements in the art of navigation during the two centuries that preceded this voyage of Columbus, certainly facilitated the adventures of the seaman. The discovery of the mariner's compass had released the navigator from the shore, and the improvements of the astrolabe, the precursor of the

quadrant, which took place while Columbus was attending on the Court of Spain, enabled him to determine his latitude with much exactness; but no circumstance can prove more strongly the feeble progress in this art, and the feelings of his contemporaries on the daring nature of his attempt, than the fact, that the opinions of Columbus were never concealed nor veiled, his ardent anticipations were never withheld from public scrutiny. He openly avowed and discussed his theory in the circles of experienced navigators, in the camps of ambitious and enterprising soldiers, in the councils of the learned and the wise, he corresponded with men of science, he made application to different governments for assistance in prosecuting his projected discoveries; and yet, in the eighteen or twenty years during which these negotiations were publicly conducted, no individual, we may say no government, was found adventurous enough to undertake with their own means, so hazardous an enterprise. Once, it is said, the king of Portugal was so ungenerous as to send out a vessel for discovery, furnished with the information obtained from Columbus, at the very time his ministers were pretending to negotiate with this gallant seaman, but the commander deterred by the first adverse weather, abandoned the voyage, and returned discouraged, and decrying the visionary scheme of traversing an illimitable ocean.

Even if it should be supposed that, with the improvement of navigation—and the voyages and discoveries of the Portuguese along the Coast of Africa were certainly increasing the skill and the audacity of mariners-this continent would eventually have been discovered, the merits of Columbus will not be diminished. It may be his boast, that in his projected voyage, he was guided by no precedent, he deserted the paths of man, fixed his eyes steadily on the west as on his polar star, and firm amidst all difficulties, varied not his course. If the accidental discovery of Brazil a few years afterwards, by Pedro Alvarez de Cabral, should be alleged as a proof how rapidly the world was approaching to a knowledge of the western hemisphere, and that accident might have accomplished in a few years, what it is the pride of science now to have performed,* it should, at least, be kept in remembrance, that the very course which Cabral held to avoid the equatorial calms along the Coast of Africa, and by which he was casually led to Brazil, had been taught him by the experience of Columbus. In his voyages to America, the trade winds had been found steady at a certain distance from land, this suggested to Cabral the means of avoiding those calms which had caused so

* Robertson's History of America, v. i. p. 21

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