discovering Asia by the west. It was a failure, and Columbus, indignantly refusing all further negotiation, fled the country with his elder son, Diego. His wife now was dead, and he was heavily in debt. For a year we have no trace of him; then suddenly he reappears as a penniless traveller, asking aid at the convent of Santa Maria de la Rabida, near Palos in Spain. This was the turningpoint of his destiny. The prior of the place, Juan Perez Marchena, a man deeply learned in cosmography, became interested in the wandering enthusiast, and furnished him with means and letters of recommendation to the queen's confessor at Cordova. Talavera, the confessor, had no faith in Columbus, and sent him away. After months spent in chart-making, for he was one of the best geographers of his age, he was brought into contact with Cardinal Mendoza, who gained him an audience with the king and queen. In their presence he stated the physical grounds supporting his theory, and the authors who concurred in his opinion. Speaking eloquently of the countries and people of Asia, he used almost the words of the narrative of Marco Polo. Isabella inclined toward the proposition, the more because he dwelt on the vast numbers to be converted to Christianity. He thought he might be the means of converting the Khan, and this had been a favorite hope with European sovereigns since Marco wrote his account of Cublai. The wary Ferdinand ordered a board composed of the most learned cosmographers and astronomers to be assembled at Salamanca to discuss the matter. Now geographical knowledge was backward in Spain, because of the long-continued struggle with the Moors; so as Talavera could not find many geographers, he selected men versed in other sciences and ecclesiastics. Some authorities claim that the Junta of Salamanca was only an informal gathering of wise men; others give a striking picture of the friendless adventurer forced to plead his cause before the scholars and church dignitaries of all Spain. The opinions advanced against Columbus were various; some declared the earth was habitable only in

the northern part; others denied its sphericity, while some believed the ocean boundless, or impassible because of heat. To all these he replied logically; he even had courage to set aside the authorities used against him, the Bible and the writings of St. Augustine, so that threats of the Inquisition arose, and he was saved only by the intervention of the cardinal. The next five years of his life are a succession of hopes and disappointments. At last, in 1491, Columbus demanded a decision. The board of wise

men was reconvened, but with no better results than before. As he had received invitations from France, Portugal, and England to visit them and explain his plans, he now started for France, intending, if successful, to go to England, whither he had sent his brother, Bartholomew, to treat with Henry VII. But when he had gone as far as Rabida, the intercession of the prior renewed negotiations with Ferdinand and Isabella which proved successful. Columbus, impressed with the riches of the kingdoms described by Polo, demanded to be made Admiral of the ocean and viceroy of all lands he might discover; he wanted the right to control all executive appointments for office in these countries; he stipulated that he should have one tenth of everything existing in his admiralty, and that his titles should be hereditary in his family. The sovereigns demurred, and he left the court. But Santangel, treasurer of the ecclesiastical revenues of Castile, had been so impressed with Columbus's accounts of the Indies that he persuaded the queen to recall him, and on his return to court, the articles of agreement were signed. So thoroughly had he urged Marco's account of the magnificence of Cublai upon the king and queen, that among his papers was a letter from the Spanish monarchs to the Khan. The cost of the expedition, since Ferdinand was still incredulous, devolved upon Castile. The queen had offered to pawn her jewels, but Santangel advanced the necessary funds. Palos was ordered to furnish two caravels with equipments for a year; but it was no easy matter to force these from the unwilling townspeople. In this crisis Martin Alonzo

Pinzon, a rich and influential citizen of Palos, came to the rescue. During a recent visit to Rome he had read, in the Papal Library, the "Book of "Book of Marco Polo"; and finding that it agreed with the words of Columbus, he threw himself into the undertaking. With his three little ships, carrying a hundred and twenty men, Columbus set sail from Palos, August 3, 1492. The Pinta proved unseaworthy, and had to be repaired at the Canaries. At sight of Teneriffe, the men, mostly taken by force from their homes, were terrified, and when land had faded from the horizon, lamented and became mutinous. The mystery of the sea unnerved them, and to add to their fears the magnetic needle was seen to vary. Columbus, to reassure them, told them that the needle pointed to the same spot, but that the north star revolved about this point. He tried to impart some of his own enthusiasm by giving accounts of Mangi and Cathay, like those in Marco's book. Using always the chart Toscanelli had drawn according to Polo's account, Columbus found that he had gone more than the seven hundred and seventy-five leagues which he supposed would bring him to Cipango. By the adBy the advice of Pinzon, now, he sailed southwest, following the flight of some birds, which seemed to be seeking land. If he had pursued his original course he would have reached the mainland of North America. On the morning of October 12, Guanahain or San Salvador, as Columbus named the island, was discovered. So confident was he that he had found Asia, that he called the natives, a gentle, hospitable people, Indians. Leaving the island, he sailed through the neighboring archipelago. It is an odd fact that the general formation of the West Indies is like that of the East Indies, so that Columbus had reasonable grounds for supposing he was in the midst of the countries described in the third book of Marco Polo. Everywhere he searched for gold and for the lands formerly explored by the Venetian. All his faculties seemed bent on tracing resemblances between his own observations and those of Marco. Helps writes in his "Spanish Conquest," that it is al

most ludicrous to see how thoroughly Columbus was possessed by ideas gained from Polo. When the savages spoke of their enemies he thought they referred to the Khan's soldiers, who, according to Marco, were in the habit of making war on their less civilized neighbors. He heard repeatedly of Cuba, where ships came to trade in spices, pearls, and gold, and by comparison with Toscanelli's map, decided it must be Cipango, and that the ships were those of the Khan. On arriving at Cuba, Pinzon heard the name "Cubanacan," and was sure it was Cublai Khan. The Admiral now thought he was opposite Zayton and Quinsay, of which Polo had given such glowing accounts. He decided to go to the emperor's court and present the letter given him by the sovereigns. As the natives fled at sight of his vessels, he fancied they mistook them for those of the Khan, which, Marco wrote, were in the habit of trading among the islands on the Asiatic coast. Moreover, the Spaniards understood the natives to say that messengers had been despatched to tell the emperor of the arrival of the white men. As nothing was heard from any prince, the Admiral sent in search of the Tartar lord, an ambassador and an interpretor who could speak Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic, the languages most used in the interior of Asia. Their return convinced him that he had not reached the richest part of the east; still, when he heard the name Quisqueya, he supposed it was Quinsay. He even planned that the products of the islands among which he was sailing should be sold in the Tartar Empire. Thinking that the eastern end of Cuba was the extremity of Asia, he called it Alpha and Omega. Everything he saw or heard he accepted as additional proof that he was near the civilized kingdoms of the eastern continent. "Such was the singular nature of this voyage, a continual series of golden dreams, and all interpreted by the deluding volume of Marco Polo." 2 From Cuba he sailed on to an island 3 which he named Hispaniola ; and as spices and mastic were abundant, he believed that he had at last found the

1 Middle Cuba.

2 Irving's "Columbus." 3 Hayti.

Cipango of his dreams. Here one of the ships was wrecked, so Columbus built a fort called Navidad,' and leaving such sailors as wished to remain, sailed for Spain. On his way home he heard of two islands, one inhabited by men, the other by women, and seems to have been reminded of a similar story told by Marco. Off the Canaries, the Admiral wrote to Santangel, declaring that he had visited Cathay and Cipango, and had found them rich in gold and aromatic drugs. He even mentioned an Indian village in Hispaniola, which he thought would be a convenient place to carry on trade with the Khan's men. After a stormy voyage he anchored in the mouth of the Tagus, and travelled triumphantly to Spain. The sovereigns received him with every mark of honor, and their delight over the result of his expedition was unbounded. But although he was looked upon in Spain as the hero of the hour, it is wonderful how little general remark, even among scientific men, the news of the discovery of land in the west excited. Early in May, 1493, Pope Alexander VI. granted, in answer to the request of the Catholic monarchs, the famous Bull of Demarkation, according to which, a line drawn from pole to pole, a hundred leagues west of the Azores was to be the boundary between the discoveries of Spain and Portugal, all territory east of this was to belong to Portugal, all west of it to Spain. Through this decree Brazil, in later years, became a colony of Portugal.

Meanwhile Columbus was at Barcelona, preparing for another voyage. This was the one happy period of his life.

Seventeen vessels and twelve hundred men, priests, hidalgos, and adventurers accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. Abandoning the site of Fort Navidad, where he found the Spaniards had been massacred, he began the city of Isabella. The men were discouraged because they did not find the cities of Cathay as they had anticipated, and many sickened on account of the change of climate, the hidalgos, were unwilling to work, and their disobedience was fostered by the vicar, Fr. Boyle. Columbus

1 Nativity.

now explored the southern coast of Cuba, believing that he would arrive at Mangi, because he had heard of a country called Mangou, and of people clothed in robes; these, he thought, must be Tartars. A party from the ship fancied they saw white-gowned men,' and he was told by the natives of a saintly ruler in the interior, whom he probably associated with Prester John. The shores of Cuba agreed with the Venetian's description of Asia, and he believed that by continuing his course he could pass by the Golden Chersonesus of Ptolemy, and return to Spain by the Red and Mediterranean Seas. This hope was disappointed by the condition of his ships, which obliged him to return to Isabella. On his arrival he found Aguado had been sent out to inquire into the affairs of the colony, and he returned immediately to Spain to defend himself. Though Ferdinand was displeased that no more gold was forthcoming, Isabella helped him to fit out another expedition. After a painful voyage through intense heat, he reached the coast of Pavia in South America, which he called Porta Santo. He fancied that he was near the Terrestrial Paradise, and that the Orinoco was one of the rivers of Eden.

News of cruelties inflicted on the Indians and of a series of rebellions at Hispaniola reached the king, and an officer of his household, Don Francisco de Boabdilla, was despatched to the island. When Columbus returned from Porta Santa, Boabdilla caused him to be put in irons and carried to Spain. The sight of the Admiral, loaded with chains like a common criminal, aroused popular indignation, and shocked the sovereigns; still, they did not restore him to his old office, but merely sent out Ovando to replace Boabdilla. Two years later, they ordered him to engage in a fourth voyage. That he still cherished hopes of finding the lands described by Polo is evident from the fact that he took with him interpreters, in case he should find the country of the Khan. His aim now was to find some strait through which he could sail to India. Observing the practice of magic among the natives of the present 1 It is supposed that these were cranes.

Mosquito Coast, he considered that he must be near Scotra, which Marco said was peopled by sorcerers. Faint rumors of the magnificence of Mexico may have reached him, for he was told of the wonderful land, Ciguare; but he supposed it was a province of the Khan, and that south of it he should find the Indian Ocean. In a letter to the king and queen written from Verague, he alluded to Marco's statement that the emperor desired to become a Christian, and offered to conduct any missionary to the Tartar country. After a year of struggles with mutinous sailors and Indians, and of great suffering and delay, Columbus, broken in mind and body, left the New World forever. In Spain, Isabella, his friend and patroness was dead, and Ferdinand was deaf to his claims. His last year was a mournful contrast to his earlier hopes; but to his final hour he clung to the idea that he had found the kingdoms of Asia, and in his will he devoted a portion of the income due him from the "Indies" to the purpose of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre.

Columbus performed his vast undertaking in an age of great deeds and great men, when Ficino taught the philosophy of Plato, when Florence was thrilled by the luring words and martyrdom of Savonarola, when Michael Angelo wrought his everlasting marvels of art. While Columbus, in his frail craft, was making his way to "worlds unknown and isles beyond the deep," on the shores of the Baltic a young novitiate, amid the rigors of a monastic life, was tracing the course of the planets, and solving the problem in which Virgil delighted,1-problems which had baffled Chaldean and Persian, Egyptian and Saracen. Columbus explained the earth, Copernicus explained the heavens. Neither of the great discoverers lived to see the result of his labors, for the Prussian astronomer died on the day that his work was published. But the centuries that have come and gone have only increased the fame of Columbus and Copernicus, and proven the greatness of their genius.

1" Docuit quae maximus Atlas. Hic canit errantem Lernam, Solisque labores." Æneid, 1, 741.

WALT WHITMAN has suffered more than any other poet or any other man of our time at the hands of those who have written about him. And he has not suffered more at the hands of conventional and superficial people, without insight and without red blood, who have not been able to approach him seriously, but have turned his pages with thin or scornful carelessness for rudenesses and extravagances wherewith to make merry, than at the hands of his friends. Good friends, strong, sensible, and sturdy, he has had indeed, in high degree. The list of them is such as ought to silence the shallow jesters who think that Whitman can be ignored; but he has suffered from the discipleship of adulatory and fulsome folk, of men without discrimination, who could not tell the good in him from the poor in him, but have found pleasure rather in lumping poor and good together, abdicating all critical function in weak glorification, and adding only too often exhibitions of a sickly self-consciousness in themselves, which an unsympathetic and rapid world has naturally enough imputed to the master's influence- whose larger, rugged, and healthier egotism has suffered just so much in popular re

gard. The Whitmanette is of all men most miserable.

In the midst, then, of the thin, self-conscious fulsomeness, and of the thin, mean merriment and ignorance, of both of which we have had a double portion since Whitman's death, it is a pleasure and a satisfaction of no ordinary sort to receive the little book on Whitman by William Clarke, published a few weeks ago in London and just now published here. Here, we feel, as we close its pages, is a sane, true book, the word of a lover who is at the same time master of himself, the judgment which will last. No other word has been written about Walt Whitman so good as this, and no other word so good is likely to be written, this we say with a firm and easy confidence as we lay down the book.

To the readers of this magazine, Mr. Clarke needs no general commendation. Its pages have given them more from his pen during these three years than the pages of any other American magazine. None who have read them have forgotten, or will easily forget, his strong and striking papers upon Parnell and Gladstone, upon Stopford Brooke and William Morris and Freeman.

Others will remember his edition of selections from Mazzini, with its valuable preliminary essay upon Mazzini's work and genius, his equally valuable contribution to the Fabian Essays on Socialism, and his many contributions both to the English and American reviews upon the various questions of social and industrial reform which now enlist the attention of earnest men. Mr. Clarke is an earnest man; he is a courageous and unconventional man, the slave of no literary or social orthodoxies; he is a cultivated man; he is a democrat; he is an Englishman who understands America, American literature, and American life, better far than most Americans; and he has been for many years a sympathetic reader and student of Whitman. No man could be better qualified for the task which he has executed so well and for which all Americans owe him gratitude.

Mr. Clarke, we say, is a lover of Whitman. No one should write of Whitman who is not a lover, who cannot bring to him the sympathetic and docile spirit, who is not concerned with his purpose and his soul, and is not willing to make generous excuses for what is halting and uncouth in expression. This lover is a critical and intelligent lover, never making the mistake of commending what at best is simply to be pardoned and what cannot abide the test of the rational canons of mankind. Whitman "lacked," he says plainly at the outset of his discussion of the matter of poetic form, "discrimination and art. He had absorbed divine influences from past thinkers, but he had no sense of the laws of style, or, indeed, the sense that there were any laws. Hence, the sometimes - one might be induced to say, the frequent-formless lines, and the attempts to produce effects which no great artist would have employed. The poet was unable, through lack of literary culture, to clothe his novel and often glowing conceptions in any ideal, poetic form. Rather, he flings his ideas at us in a heap, leaving it to us to arrange them in order in our own minds. His results, therefore, fail to satisfy many not unsympathetic readers." "Those are very doubtful guardians of Whitman's reputation," says Mr. Clarke, "who do not admit his serious defects, mingled as these are with passages of surprising and even sublime beauty." He fills a page with specimen “shocking lines" from the poet, and adds: "Enough of these. Every rational person who knows what poetry is, and who is willing to concede the widest limits to poetic form, will rightly declare that this is not poetry. Nor can those long categories of objects and places which Dr. Peter Bayne made so merry over be defended, except at the risk of being rightly charged with Whitmania.' Whitman wants to tell us that the modern man, as a democrat, shares in the general life of mankind; a true and faithful idea. But the way in which this idea is set forth shocks our sense of form, while it amuses us by its imitation of a cheap shopkeeper's advertisement." "However suggestive the long roll of far-off cities and lands may have been to the poet's own mind, they have no place in anything that can lay claim to an ideal treatment of man and his world. They give the enemy occasion to blaspheme, and they

furnish the young gentlemen of the Oxford Maga. zine with good subject matter for amusing parody. The writer intends to be impressive, but he is actually tiresome."

Mr. Clarke's criticism of Whitman's art is not in the least the criticism of the pedant or the petty stickler for regular metres, the criticism which, urged often in our time against the rug. gedness and great liberties of Emerson and of Browning, is so wearisome and so depressing. His definition of poetry and of the poet is a free and noble definition. He makes short shift with any judgment that included, say, Addison and Johnson in the list of poets (not to mention Blackmore and Cibber) and left out Whitman.” "What is a poet?" he asks. "Is he the manufacturer of rhyming stanzas? If so, we should have to include under the head of poetry that interesting verse, so full of incident:

'I put my hat upon my head And walked into the Strand; And there I met another man Whose hat was in his hand.'

This stanza contains rhyme, grammar, incident, and suggestion, but it is not poetry. But when we read such great words as

'Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all'—

we feel at once that this is poetry, this is creative art." This large and true view of poetry and the poet is Mr. Clarke's view, and it is with this view that he discusses Whitman's poetry -as indeed one can discuss it intelligently or fruitfully with no other. "The early rhapsodists," says Mr. Clarke, "the Celtic bards, the makers of sagas and of the songs charged with primal human experiences chanted in rude chorus by boatmen rocking on the tide or by peasants joyously treading the vintage-these would hardly have satisfied Boileau and the French Academy. Voltaire would have pronounced them 'intoxicated barbarians,' as he pronounced Shakespeare. They knew nothing of formal rules, but they had the power of divination. They treated in an ideal spirit the civilization of their land and time; they uttered its faith and aspirations, they expressed the deepest feelings for its social sanctities, for the ideal side of its traditions and laws. They loved and interpreted Nature, they felt in their souls the beauty of her life, they delighted in heroism and comradeship. Surely it is these elements that constitute the very soul of poetry. He who is possessed with this spirit has a far loftier title to the name of poet than has the manufacturer of flawless, brilliant, mechanical versicles. To these bardic ranks, Whitman belongs."

This is the most that can be said for Whitman's poetry, the best of it, the real poetry,- but this is a very great thing to say. We do not remember to have read any discussion of the vexed question so just and true at this of Mr. Clarke's. "The claim made for Whitman," he says in conclusion, "is, not that he is a great artist, for he is not, not even that he is a great poet; but that he has apprehended the needs of our time, has perceived that some restraining shackles must be