"Why on these shores are we with pride survey'd,
Admir'd as heroes, and as gods obey'd!
Unless great acts superior merit prove,
And vindicate the bounteous powers above;
That when, with wond'ring eyes, our martial bands
Behold our deeds transcending our commands,
Such, they may cry, deserve the sov'reign state,
Whom those that envy dare not imitate?"
[Illustration: COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.]
Such is the animated apostrophe of Sarpedon in the energetic numbers
of Alexander Pope, and it is not more appropriate to Glaucus than to
the illustrious character who gives the subject of this print. Had
a Greek discovered America, Sculpture would have erected statues and
raised altars to his honour; Architecture built temples to perpetuate
his fame; and by Poetry he must have been deified.
The new creation of Columbus--for a new creation it may be
denominated--absorbed every former discovery, and sunk to
insignificance the boasted conquests of Alexander. Previous to this
voyage a world of water formed what was deemed an insurmountable
barrier between the inhabitants of one planet;--"He spread his canvas
wings, and pass'd the mound."
As our own Newton unveiled the celestial globe,[201] and removed that
cloud which had before shadowed the face of heaven, Columbus, from
the bare inspection of a map of one world, concluded that there must
be another. He sailed west, brought together continents that nature
had severed, and was the first adventurer in a voyage which, from its
consequent enterprises, has added more square miles to the dominions
of European powers than the sovereigns by whom he was employed
possessed acres.[202] His perseverance must have been equal to
his genius; for he had to struggle with the rooted prejudices of his
contemporaries,[203] as well as the freezing indifference of those
monarchs to whom he tendered his service.
Genoa, which was his native country, treated his scheme as visionary.
Our seventh Henry, mean, cold-blooded, and avaricious, would not
hazard the loss of that treasure which he adored; and the Emperor had
neither gold to fit out a fleet nor harbours to receive shipping.
The attention of John the Second of Portugal was engrossed by
the coast of Africa, and Charles the Eighth of France was in his
minority. The Venetians had maritime power, and maritime spirit;
but Columbus was a Genoese, and had too much of the _amor patriæ_
to throw such advantages as he foresaw would accrue to those who
prosecuted his plan into the hands of the rivals and enemies of his
country. He fixed his hopes on the court of Spain, and his hopes
were not disappointed. Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile
had by their marriage united all Spain under one dominion: to them
he applied; and, with a perseverance that could only be supported
by a conscious certainty that his project, if undertaken, must be
successful, attended their court eight tedious years! At the end of
this time, two merchants, trusting to royal security, and advancing
seventeen thousand ducats towards fitting out the vessels, Columbus
received his patent; and on the 23d of August 1492 set sail, with
three ships only, from the port of Palos in Andalusia.[204]
In less than a month after his departure from the Canaries, he
discovered the first island in America;[205] and like our immortal
Admiral Drake, found the fair harvest he had hoped to reap in great
danger of being blighted by the murmuring and discontent of his
crew. To check this mutinous spirit required both resolution and
address, and in Columbus they were united. He quieted his companions,
and, with true catholic formality, baptized his new discovery St.
Salvadore. He soon after made the Lucayan Islands, together with
those of Cuba and Hispaniola, now called St. Domingo; and, at the
end of nine months, returned with some of the natives, a quantity
of gold, and sundry curious productions of the places he had
visited,--all of which he laid at the feet of Isabella and Ferdinand.
Their Majesties were neither insensible of his merit nor ungrateful
for his services: they suffered him to be seated, and added a
privilege heretofore confined to grandees--the honour of being
covered in their presence; and crowned their favours by creating him
admiral and viceroy of whatever he should add to their dominions.
Columbus having found a new empire, and explored a new world, was
now considered as more than mortal. Those who had loudly decried
his plan as the chimerical project of a madman, were most eager to
patronize the heaven-born navigator, and embark under his command. He
a second time set sail, not with three small vessels, but an armament
of seventeen ships, manned by a crew who almost adored him, and
discovered Jamaica, the Caribbees, and several other islands.
His elevation had been too sudden to be permanent; his talents
were too transcendent to be seen without envy. Notwithstanding the
services which he had rendered to Spain, the dignities with which he
was invested, and the flattering prospects with which he set sail, he
was brought home prisoner, by judges who had been sent on board the
same vessel as spies upon his conduct; and arrived at the court where
he had a short time before been covered with laurels--loaded with
chains.
For this mortifying degradation he was indebted to Fonseca, Bishop of
Burgos, the intendant of the expedition. Isabella, ashamed of seeing
a man to whom she was indebted for the brightest jewel in her crown
thus dishonoured, ordered him to be immediately set at liberty; but
it does not appear that either queen or king punished the person by
whose machinations he had been so ignominiously treated. Whether
his royal protectors feared that he would retain whatever he might
acquire, wished personally to scrutinize his actions, or had any
other inducement, he was not suffered to leave Spain for upwards of
four years. At the expiration of that time he was sent upon another
voyage, discovered the continent at six degrees distant from the
equator; and saw that part of the coast on which Carthagena has been
since built.
After several years' absence he returned to Spain, and in the year
1506 died at Valladolid. By the king's command, he was honoured with
a magnificent funeral; and on the marble which covered his remains
was the following concise and characteristic epitaph: COLUMBUS GAVE
CASTILE AND LEON A NEW WORLD.
By the success of his first voyage, doubt had been changed into
admiration; from the honours with which he was rewarded, admiration
degenerated into envy. To deny that his discovery carried in its
train consequences infinitely more important than had resulted from
any made since the creation, was impossible. His enemies had recourse
to another expedient, and boldly asserted that there was neither
wisdom in the plan nor hazard in the enterprise.
When he was once at a Spanish supper, the company took this ground;
and being by his narrative furnished with the reflections which
had induced him to undertake his voyage, and the course that he
had pursued in its completion, sagaciously observed, that "it was
impossible for any man a degree above an idiot to have failed of
success. The whole process was so obvious, it must have been seen by
a man who was half blind! Nothing could be so easy!"
"It is not difficult, now I have pointed out the way," was the answer
of Columbus; "but easy as it will appear, when you are possessed
of my method, I do not believe that, without such instruction, any
person present could place one of these eggs upright on the table."
The cloth, knives, and forks were thrown aside, and two of the party,
placing their eggs as required, kept them steady with their fingers.
One of them swore there could be no other way. "We will try," said
the navigator; and giving an egg, which he held in his hand, a smart
stroke upon the table, it remained upright.[206] The emotions which
this excited in the company are expressed in their countenances. In
the be-ruffed booby at his left hand, it raises astonishment; he is
a DEAR ME! man, of the same family with Sterne's Simple Traveller,
and came from _Amiens only yesterday_. The fellow behind him, beating
his head, curses his own stupidity; and the whiskered ruffian, with
his forefinger on the egg, is in his heart cursing Columbus. As to
the two veterans on the other side, they have lived too long to be
agitated with trifles: he who wears a cap exclaims, "Is this all!"
and the other, with a bald head, "By St. Jago, I did not think
of that!" In the face of Columbus there is not that violent and
excessive triumph which is exhibited by little characters on little
occasions: he is too elevated to be overbearing; and, pointing to
the conical solution of his problematical conundrum, displays a calm
superiority, and silent internal contempt.
Two eels, twisted round the eggs upon the dish, are introduced
as specimens of the line of beauty; which is again displayed on
the table-cloth, and hinted at on the knife blade. In all these
curves there is peculiar propriety; for the etching was given as a
receipt-ticket to the _Analysis_, where this favourite undulating
line forms the basis of his system.[207]
In the print of Columbus there is evident reference to the
criticisms[208] on what Hogarth called his own discovery; and in
truth the connoisseurs' remarks on the painter were dictated by a
similar spirit to those of the critics on the navigator: they first
asserted there was no such line, and when he had proved that there
was, gave the honour of discovery to Lomazzo, Michael Angelo, etc.
etc.