an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquired possession of its treasures and gave his name to a continent which should have derived its appellation from Columbus.

COLUMBUS NEITHER A VISIONARY NOR AN IMBECILE.

CHARLES P. MACKIE, an American author. From his "With the Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Published by Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.

Whatever were his mistakes and shortcomings, Colon was neither a visionary nor an imbecile. Had he been perfect in all things and wise to the point of infallibility, we could not have claimed him as the glorious credit he was to the common humanity to which we all belong. His greatness was sufficient to cover with its mantle far more of the weaknesses of frail mortality than he had to draw under its protection; and it becomes us who attempt to analyze his life in these later days, to bear in mind that, had his lot befallen ourselves, the natives of the western world would still, beyond a peradventure, be wandering in undraped peace through their tangled woods, and remain forever ignorant of the art of eating meat. In his trials and distresses the Admiral encountered only the portion of the sons of Adam; but to him was also given, as to few before or since, to say with the nameless shepherd of Tempe's classic vale, "I, too, have lived in Arcady."

Colon did not merely discover the New World. He spent seven years and one month among the islands and on the coasts of the hemisphere now called after the shipchandler who helped to outfit his later expeditions. For the greater part of that time he was under the constant burden of knowing that venomous intrigue and misrepresentation were doing their deadly work at home while he did what he believed was his Heaven-imposed dutv on this side the Atlantic.

THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT IN MADRID.

At the top of the Paseo de Recoletos is a monument to Columbus in the debased Gothic style of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was unveiled in 1885. The sides are ornamented with reliefs and the whole surmounted by a white marble statue. Among the sculptures are a ship and a globe, with the inscription:

A Castilla y á Leon

Nuevo mundo dió Colon.

(Translation.)

To Castille and Leon

Columbus gave a new world.

VISIT OF COLUMBUS TO ICELAND.

FINN MAGNUSEN, an Icelandic historian and antiquary. Born at Skalholt, 1781; died, 1847.

The English trade with Iceland certainly merits the consideration of historians, if it furnished Columbus with the opportunity of visiting that island, there to be informed of the historical evidence respecting the existence of important lands and a large continent in the west. If Columbus should have acquired a knowledge of the accounts transmitted to us of the discoveries of the Northmen in conversations held in Latin with the Bishop of Skalholt and the learned men of Iceland, we may the more readily conceive his firm belief in the possibility of rediscovering a western continent, and his unwearied zeal in putting his plans in execution. The discovery of America, so momentous in its results, may therefore be regarded as the mediate consequence of its previous discovery by the Scandinavians, which may be thus placed among the most important events of former ages.

THE NEW CEK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

STATUE OF COLUMBUS, BY SENOR G. SUÑOL, ON THE MONUMENT IN THE PASEO DE RECOLETOS (DEVOTEES' PROMENADE), MADRID, SPAIN.

SYMPATHY FOR COLUMBUS.

RICHARD HENRY MAJOR, F. S. A., late keeper of the printed books in the British Museum; a learned antiquary. Born in London, 1810; died June 25, 1891.

It is impossible to read without the deepest sympathy the occasional murmurings and half-suppressed complaints which are uttered in the course of his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella describing his fourth voyage. These murmurings and complaints were rung from his manly spirit by sickness and sorrow, and though reduced almost to the brink of despair by the injustice of the King, yet do we find nothing harsh or disrespectful in his language to the sovereign. A curious contrast is presented to us. The gift of a world could not move the monarch to gratitude; the infliction of chains, as a recompense for that gift, could not provoke the subject to disloyalty. The same great heart which through more than twenty wearisome years disappointment and chagrin gave him strength to beg and buffet his way to glory, still taught him to bear with majestic meekness the conversion of that glory into unmerited shame.

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We look back with astonishment and admiration at the stupendous achievement effected a whole lifetime later by the immortal Columbus-an achievement which formed the connecting link between the Old World and the New; yet the explorations instituted by Prince Henry of Portugal were in truth the anvil upon which that link was forged.

He arrived in a vessel as shattered as his own broken and careworn frame.