The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is 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,[241] 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 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
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos
Detegat orbes, nec sit terris
Ultima Thule.”[242]
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.”[243] Fox, turning from statesmanship
to scholarship, wrote to Wakefield: “The prophecy in Seneca’s ‘Medea’
is very curious indeed.”[244] 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.”[245] These verses were adopted by Irving as
a motto on the title-page of the revised edition of his “Life of
Columbus.”
Two copies are extant in the undoubted handwriting of
Columbus,--precious autographs to tempt collectors,--both of them in
his book on the Prophecies.[246] By these the great admiral sailed.