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hats curiously wrought of green feathers, held trumpets of a fine black wood, ingeniously carved; and there were six others, in large hats and white feathers, who appeared to be guests to the cacique. This gallant little armada having arrived alongside of the admiral's ship, the cacique entered on board with all his train. He appeared in his full regalia, Around his head was a band of small stones of various colours, but principally green, symmetrically arranged, with large white stones at intervals, and connected in front by a large jewel of gold. Two plates of gold were suspended to his ears by rings of small green stones. To a necklace of white beads, of a kind deemed precious by them, was suspended a large plate, in the form of a fleur-delys, of guanin, an inferior species of gold; and a girdle of variegated stones, similar to those round his head, completed his regal decorations. His wife was adorned in a similar manner, having also a very small apron of cotton, and bands of the same round her arms and legs. The daughters were without ornaments, excepting the eldest and handsomest, who had a girdle of small stones, from which was suspended a tablet, the size of an ivy leaf, composed of various-coloured stones, embroided on net-work of cotton.

with the most profound respect, and offered instantly to release him from his fetters.

"But to this he would not consent. No,' said he proudly, their majesties commanded me by letter to submit to whatever Bodadilla should order in their name; by their authority he has put upon. me these chains-I will wear them until they shall order them to be taken off, and I will preserve them afterwards as relics and memorials of the reward of my services.'

"He did so,' adds his son Fernando; I saw them always hanging in his cabinet, and he requested that when he died they might be buried with him!'"'

If there is something in this memorable brutality which stirs the blood with intense indignation, there is something soothing and still more touching in the instant retribution.

"The arrival," says Mr. Irving, "of Columbus at Cadiz, a prisoner and in chains, produced almost as great a sensation as his triumphant return from his first voyage. It was one of those striking and obvious facts, which speak to the feelings of the "When the cacique entered on board the ship, multitude, and preclude the necessity of reflection. he distributed presents of the productions of his No one stopped to inquire into the case. It was island among the officers and men. The admiral sufficient to be told that Columbus was brought was at this time in his cabin, engaged in his morn-home in irons from the world he had discovered! ing devotions. When he appeared on deck, the A general burst of indignation arose in Cadiz, and chieftain hastened to meet him with an animated in the powerful and opulent Seville, which was imcountenance. My friend,' said he, 'I have de-mediately echoed throughout all Spain." termined to leave my country, and to accompany "Ferdinand joined with his generous queen in thee. I have heard from these Indians who are with her reprobation of the treatment of the admiral, and thee, of the irresistible power of thy sovereigns, both sovereigns hastened to give evidence to the and of the many nations thou hast subdued in their world that his imprisonment had been without their name. Whoever refuses obedience to thee is sure authority, and contrary to their wishes. Without to suffer. Thou hast destroyed the canoes and waiting to receive any documents that might arrive dwellings of the Caribs, slaying their warriors, and from Bobadilla, they sent orders to Cadiz that the carrying into captivity their wives and children. prisoners should be instantly set at liberty, and All the islands are in dread of thee; for who can treated with all distinction. They wrote a letter to withstand thee now, that thou knowest the secrets Columbus couched in terms of gratitude and affecof the land, and the weakness of the people?tion, expressing their grief at all he had suffered, Rather, therefore, than thou shouldst take away my dominions, I will embark with all my household in thy ships, and will go to do homage to thy king and queen, and to behold their marvellous "The loyal heart of Columbus was again cheered country, of which the Indians relate such wonders.' by this declaration of his sovereigns. He felt conWhen this speech was explained to Columbus, and scious of his integrity, and anticipated an immediate he beheld the wife, the sons and daughters of the restitution of all his rights and dignities. He apcacique, and thought upon the snares to which peared at court in Granada on the 17th of Decemtheir ignorance and simplicity would be exposed,ber, not as a man ruined and disgraced, but richly he was touched with compassion, and determined not to take them from their native land. He replied to the cacique, therefore, that he received him under his protection as a vassal of his sovereigns; but having many lands yet to visit before he returned to his country, he would at some future time fulfil his desire. Then, taking leave with many expressions of amity, the cacique, with his wife and daughters, and all his retinue, re-embarked in the canoes, returning reluctantly to their island,

and the ships continued on their course.'

and inviting him to court. They ordered, at the same time, that two thousand ducats should be advanced to defray his expenses.

dressed, and attended by an honourable retinue.
He was received by their majesties with unqualified
favour and distinction. When the queen beheld
had deserved and all that he had suffered, she was
this venerable man approach, and thought on all he
Columbus had borne up firmly
moved to tears.
against the stern conflicts of the world, he had
endured with lofty scorn the injuries and insults of
ignoble men, but he possessed strong and quick
sensibility. When he found himself thus kindly

received by his sovereigns, and beheld tears in the benign eyes of Isabella, his long-suppressed feelle-ings burst forth; he threw himself upon his knees, and for some time could not utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings!"

But we must turn from these bright gends; and hurry onward to the end of our extracts. It is impossible to give any abstract of the rapid succession of plots, tumults, and desertions, which blighted the infancy of this great settlement; or of the disgraceful calumnies, jealousies, and intrigues, which gradually undermined the credit of Columbus with his sovereign, and ended at last in the mission of Bobadilla, with power to supersede him in command-and in the incredible catastrophe of his being sent home in chains by this arrogant and precipitate adventurer! When he arrived on board the caravel which was to carry him to Spain, the master treated him

In the year 1502, and in the sixty-sixth year of his age, the indefatigable discoverer set out on his fourth and last voyage. In this he reached the coast of Honduras; and fell in with a race somewhat more advanced in civilization than any he had yet encountered in these romote regions. They had mantles of woven cotton and some small utensils of native copper. He then ran down the shore of Veragua, and came through tremendous tempests to Portobello, in search, it appears of a strait or inlet, by which he had per

flames, and leave them defenceless amidst hostile thousands."

suaded himself he should find a ready way | asperation of them might be fatal to the Spaniards A firebrand to the shores of the Ganges: The extreme in their present forlorn situation. thrown into their wooden fortress might wrap it in severity of the season, and the miserable condition of his ships, compelled him, however, to abandon this great enterprise; the account of which Mr. Irving winds up with the following quaint and not very felicitous observation: "If he was disappointed in his expectation of finding a strait through the Isthmus of Darien, it was because nature herself had been disappointed-for she appears to have attempted to make one, but to have attempted it in vain."

After this he returned to the coast of Veragua, where he landed, and formed a temporary settlement, with a view of searching for certain gold mines which he had been told were in the neighbourhood. This, however, was but the source of new disasters. The natives, who were of a fierce and warlike character, attacked and betrayed him--and his vessels were prevented from getting to sea, by the formation of a formidable bar at the mouth of the river.

At last, by prodigious exertions, and the heroic spirit of some of his officers, he was enabled to get away. But his altered fortune still pursued him. He was harassed by perpetual storms, and after having beat up nearly to Hispaniola, was assailed by

"The envy," says Mr. Irving, "which had once sickened at the glory and prosperity of Columbus, could scarcely have devised for him a more forlorn heritage in the world he had discovered; the tenant of a wreck on a savage coast, in an untraversed ocean, at the mercy of barbarous hordes, who, in a moment, from precarious friends, might be trans formed into ferocious enemies; afflicted, too, by excruciating maladies which confined him to his bed, and by the pains and infirmities which hardship and anxiety had heaped upon his advancing age. But Columbus had not yet exhausted his cup of bitterness. He had yet to experience an evil worse than storm, or shipwreck, or bodily anguish, or the violence of savage hordes, in the perfidy of those in whom he confided."

The account of his sufferings during the twelve long months he was allowed to remain in this miserable condition, is full of the deepest interest, and the strangest variety of adventure. But we can now only refer to it.Two of his brave and devoted adherents undertook to cross to Hispaniola in a slender Indian canoe, and after incredible miseries, at length accomplished this desperate undertaking-but from the cold-hearted indecision, or paltry jealousy, of the new Governor Ovando, it was not till the late period we have mentioned, that a vessel was at length despatched to the relief of the illustrious sufferer.

"A sudden tempest, of such violence, that, according to the strong expression of Columbus, it seemed as if the world would dissolve. They lost But he was not the only, or even the most three of their anchors almost immediately, and the memorable sufferer. From the time he was caravel Bermuda was driven with such violence superseded in command, the misery and opupon the ship of the admiral, that the bow of the pression of the natives of Hispaniola had inone, and the stern of the other, were greatly shat-creased beyond all proportion or belief. By tered. The sea running high, and the wind being boisterous, the vessels chafed and injured each other dreadfully, and it was with great difficulty that they were separated. One anchor only remained to the admiral's ship, and this saved him from being driven upon the rocks; but at daylight the cable was found nearly worn asunder. Had the darkness continued an hour longer, he could scarcely have escaped shipwreck.

His proud career seemed now to be hastening to a miserable end. Incapable of struggling longer with the elements, he was obliged to run before the wind to Jamaica, where he was not even in a condition to attempt to make any harbour.

the miserable policy of the new governor, their services were allotted to the Spanish settlers, who compelled them to work by the cruel infliction of the scourge; and, withholding from them the nourishment necessary for health, exacted a degree of labour which could not have been sustained by the most vigorous men.

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"At the end of six days, the weather having moderated, he resumed his course, standing eastIf they fled from this incessant toil and barbaward for Hispaniola: his people,' as he says, 'dis-rous coercion, and took refuge in the mountains, mayed and down-hearted, almost all his anchors they were hunted out like wild beasts, scourged in lost, and his vessels bored as full of holes as a the most inhuman manner, and laden with chains honeycomb." to prevent a second escape. Many perished long before their term of labour had expired. Those who survived their term of six or eight months, were permitted to return to their homes, until the next term commenced. But their homes were often forty, sixty, and eighty leagues distant. They had nothing to sustain them through the journey but a few roots or agi peppers, or a little cassava. bread. Worn down by long toil and cruel hard. ships, which their feeble constitutions were incapable of sustaining, many had not strength to perform the journey, but sunk down and died by the way; some by the side of a brook, others under the shade of a tree, where they had crawled for shelter from the sun. I have found many dead in the road,' says Las Casas, others gasping under the trees, and others in the pangs of death, faintly crying, Hunger; hunger!' Those who reached their homes most commonly found them desolate. Du ring the eight months that they had been absent their wives and children had either perished or wandered away; the fields on which they depended for food were overrun with weeds, and nothing was left them but to lie down, exhausted and despairing, and die at the threshold of their habitations.

"His ships, reduced to mere wrecks, could no longer keep the sea, and were ready to sink even in port. He ordered them, therefore, to be run aground, within a bow-shot of the shore, and fastened together, side by side. They soon filled with water to the decks. Thatched cabins were then erected at the prow and stern for the accommodation of the crews, and the wreck was placed in the best possible state of defence. Thus castled in the sea, Columbus trusted to be able to repel any sudden attack of the natives, and at the same time to keep his men from roving about the neighbourhood and indulging in their usual excesses. No one was allowed to go on shore without especial licence, and the utmost precaution was taken to prevent any aflence from being given to the Indians. Any ex

It is impossible to pursue any farther the picture drawn by the venerable Las Casas, not of what he had heard, but of what he had seen-nature and humanity revolt at the details. Suffice it to say that, so intolerable were the toils and sufferings inflicted upon this weak and unoffending race, that they sunk under them, dissolving as it were from the face of the earth. Many killed themselves in despair, and even mothers overcame the powerful instinct of nature, and destroyed the infants at their breasts, to spare them a life of wretchedness. Twelve years had not elapsed since the discovery of the island, and several hundred thousands of its native inhabitants had perished, miserable victims to the grasping avarice of the white men."

"Sometimes," says Mr. Irving, they would hunt down a straggling Indian, and compel him, by torments, to betray the hiding-place of his companions, binding him and driving him before them as a guide. Wherever they discovered one of these places of refuge, filled with the aged and the infirin, with feeble women and helpless children, they massacred them without mercy! They wished to inspire terror throughout the land, and to frighten the whole tribe into submission. They cut off the hands of those whom they took roving at large, and sent them, as they said, to deliver them as letters to their friends, demanding their surrender. Numberless were those, says Las Casas, whose hands were amputated in this manner, and many anguish and loss of blood. of them sunk down and died by the way, through

The conquerors delighted in exercising strange and ingenious cruelties. They mingled horrible levity with their bloodthirstiness. They erected gibbets long and low, so that the feet of the sutterers might reach the ground, and their death be lingering. They hanged thirteen together, in reverence, says the indignant Las Casas, of our blessed Saviour and the twelve apostles! While their victims were suspended, and still living, they hacked them with their swords, to prove the strength of their arm and the edge of their weapons. They wrapped them in dry straw, and setting fire to it, terminated their existence by the fiercest agony.

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These pictures are sufficiently shocking; but they do not exhaust the horrors that cover the brief history of this ill-fated people. The province or district of Xaragua, which was ruled over by a princess, called Anacaona, celebrated in all the contemporary accounts for the grace and dignity of her manners, and her confiding attachment to the strangers, had hitherto enjoyed a happy exemption from the troubles which distracted the other parts of the island, and when visited about ten years before by the brother of Columbus, had impressed all the Spaniards with the idea of an "These are horrible details; yet a veil is drawn earthly paradise: both from the fertility and over others still more detestable. They are related sweetness of the country, the gentleness of by the venerable Las Casas, who was an eye-witness its people, and the beauty and grace of the of the scenes he describes. He was young at the women. Upon some rumours that the neigh-time, but records them in his advanced years. All bouring caciques were assembling for hostile these things,' says he, and others revolting to human nature, my own eyes beheld! and now I purposes, Ovando now marched into this de- almost fear to repeat them, scarce believing myself, voted region with a well-appointed force of near four hundred men. He was hospitably and joyfully received by the princess: and affected to encourage and join in the festivity which his presence had excited. He was even himself engaged in a sportful game with his officers, when the signal for massacre was given and the place was instantly covered with blood! Eighty of the caciques were burnt over slow fires! and thousands of the unarmed and unresisting people butchered, without regard to sex or age. "Humanity," Mr. Irving very justly observes, "turns with horror from such atrocities, and would fain discredit them: But they are circumstantially and still more minutely recorded by the venerable Las Casas-who was resident in the island at the time, and conversant with the principal actors in the tragedy."

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Still worse enormities signalised the final subjugation of the province of Higuey-the last scene of any attempt to resist the tyrannical power of the invaders. It would be idle to detail here the progress of that savage and most unequal warfare: but it is right that the butcheries perpetrated by the victors should not be forgotten-that men may see to what incredible excesses civilised beings may be tempted by the possession of absolute and unquestioned power-and may learn, from indisputable memorials, how far the abuse of delegated and provincial authority may be actually carried. If it be true, as Homer has alleged, that the day which makes a man a slave, takes away half his worth-it seems to be still more infallibly and fatally true, that the master generally suffers a yet larger privation.

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or whether 1 have not dreamt them.'

"The system of Columbus may have borne hard upon the Indians, born and brought up in untasked freedom; but it was never cruel nor sanguinary. punishments; his desire was to cherish and civilise the Indians, and to render them useful subjects, not to oppress, and persecute, and destroy them. When he beheld the desolation that had swept them from the land during his suspension from authority, he could not restrain the strong expression of his feelings. In a letter written to the king after his return to Spain, he thus expresses himself on the subject: The Indians of Hispaniola were and are the riches of the island; for it is they who cultivate and make the bread and the provisions for the Christians, who dig the gold from the mines, and perform all the offices and labours both of men and beasts. I am than three years,) six parts out of seven of the natives informed that, since I left this island, (that is, in less are dead, all through ill treatment and inhumanity! some by the sword, others by blows and cruel usage, and others through hunger. The greater part have perished in the mountains and glens, whither they had fled, from not being able to support the labour imposed upon them.'"

He inflicted no wanton massacres nor vindictive

The story now draws to a close. Columbus returned to Spain, broken down with age and affliction-and after two years spent in unavailing solicitations at the court of the cold-blooded and ungrateful Ferdinand (his generous patroness, Isabella, having died in mediately on his return), terminated with characteristic magnanimity a life of singular energy, splendour, and endurance. Indepen dent of his actual achievements, he was un doubtedly a great and remarkable man; and Mr Irving has summed up his general character in a very eloquent and judicious way.

"His ambition," he observes, "was lofty and noble. He was full of high thoughts, and anxious

to distinguish himself by great achievements. It has been said that a mercenary feeling mingled with his views, and that his stipulations with the Spanish Court were selfish and avaricious. The charge is inconsiderate and unjust. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same lofty spirit in which he sought renown; and the gains that promised to arise from his discoveries, he intended to appropriate in the same princely and pious spirit in which they were demanded. He contemplated works and achievements of benevolence and religion: vast contributions for the relief of the poor of his native city; the foundation of churches, where masses should be said for the souls of the departed; and armies for the recovery of the holy sepulchre in Palestine.

"In his testament, he enjoined on his son Diego, and whoever after him should inherit his estes, whatever dignities and titles might afterwards be granted by the king, always to sign himself simply the Admiral,' by way of perpetuating in the family its real source of greatness.' "He was devoutly pious; religion mingled with the whole course of his thoughts and actions, and shines forth in all his most private and unstudied writings. Whenever he made any great discovery, he celebrated it by solemn thanks to God. The voice of prayer and melody of praise rose from his ships when he first beheld the New World, and his first action on landing was to prostrate himself upon the earth and return thanksgivings. Every evening, the Salve Regina, and other vesper hymns, were chanted by his crew, and masses were performed in the beautiful groves that bordered the wild shores of this heathen land. The religion thus deeply seated in the soul, diffused a sober dignity and benign composure over his whole demeanHis language was pure and guarded, free from all imprecations, oaths, and other irreverent expressions. But his piety was darkened by the bigotry of the age. He evidently concurred in the opinion that all the nations who did not acknowledge the Christian faith were destitute of natural rights; that the sternest measures might be used for their conversion, and the severest punishments inflicted upon their obstinacy in unbelief. In this spirit of bigotry he considered himself justified in making captives of the Indians, and transporting them to Spain to have them taught the doctrines of Christianity, and in selling them for slaves if they pretended to resist his invasions. He was countenanced in these views, no doubt, by the general opinion of the age. But it is not the intention of the author to justify Columbus on a point where it is inexcusable to err. Let it remain a blot on his iilustrious name, and let others derive a lesson from it."

our.

He was a man, too, undoubtedly, as all truly great men have been, of an imaginative and sensitive temperament-something, as Mr. Irving has well remarked, even of a visionary-but a visionary of a high and lofty order, controlling his ardent imagination by a powerful judgment and great practical sagacity, and deriving not only a noble delight but signal accessions of knowledge from this vigour and activity of his fancy.

of glory would have broke upon his mind could he have known that he had indeed discovered a new continent, equal to the whole of the old world in magnitude, and separated by two vast oceans from all the earth hitherto known by civilised man! And how would his magnanimous spirit have been consoled, amidst the afflictions of age and the cares of penury, the neglect of a fickle public, and the injustice of an ungrateful king, could he have anticipated the splendid empires which were to spread over the beautiful world he had discovered; and the nations, and tongues, and languages which were to fill its lands with his renown, and to revere and bless his name to the latest posterity!"

The appendix to Mr. Irving's work, which occupies the greater part of the last volume, contains most of the original matter which his learning and research have enabled him to bring to bear on the principal subject, and constitutes indeed a miscellany of a singularly curious and interesting description. It consists, besides very copious and elaborate accounts of the family and descendants of Columbus, principally of extracts and critiques of the discoveries of earlier or contemporary navigators-the voyages of the Carthaginians and the Scandinavians,-of Behem, the PinZons, Amerigo Vespucci, and others-with some very curious remarks on the travels of Marco Polo, and Mandeville-a dissertation on the ships used by Columbus and his contemporaries on the Atalantis of Plato-the imaginary island of St. Brandan, and of the Seven Cities-together with remarks on the writings of Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Herrera, Las Casas, and the other contemporary chroni clers of those great discoveries. The whole drawn up, we think, with singular judgment, diligence, and candour; and presenting the reader, in the most manageable form, with almost all the collateral information which could be brought to elucidate the transactions to which they relate.

book-and such are parts of its contents. We Such is the general character of Mr. Irving's do not pretend to give any view whatever of the substance of four large historical volumes; and fear that the specimens we have ventured to exhibit of the author's way of writing are not very well calculated to do justice either to the occasional force, or the constant variety, of his style. But for judicious readers they will probably suffice-and, we trust, will be found not only to warrant the praise we have felt ourselves called on to bestow, but to induce many to gratify themselves by the perusal of the work at large.

Mr. Irving, we believe, was not in England when his work was printed: and we must say he has been very insufficiently represented by the corrector of the press. We do not book with so many gross typographical errors. recollect ever to have seen so handsome a

"Yet, with all this fervour of imagination," as Mr. Irving has strikingly observed, its fondest dreams fell short of the reality. He died in igno- In many places they obscure the sense-and rance of the real grandeur of his discovery. Until are very frequently painful and offensive. his last breath he entertained the idea that he had It will be absolutely necessary that this be merely opened a new way to the old resorts of opu- looked to in a new impression; and the aulent commerce, and had discovered some of the thor would do well to avail himself of the wild regions of the east. He supposed Hispaniola to be the ancient Ophir which had been visited by same opportunity, to correct some verbal inthe ships of Solomon, and that Cuba and Terra accuracies, and to polish and improve some Firma were but remote parts of Asia. What visions passages of slovenly writing.

(June, 1827.)

Memoirs of ZEHIR-ED-DIN MUHAMMED BABER, Emperor of Hindustan, written by himself, in the Jaghatai Turki, and translated, partly by the late JOHN LEYDEN, ESQ. M.D., partly by WILLIAM ERSKINE, Esq. With Notes and a Geographical and Historical Introduction: together with a Map of the Countries between the Oxus and Jaxartes, and a Memoir regarding its Construction, by CHARLES WADDINGTON, Esq., of the East India Company's Engineers.

London 1826.

THIS is a very curious, and admirably edited work. But the strongest impression which the perusal of it has left on our minds is the boundlessness of authentic history; and, if we might venture to say it, the uselessness of all history which does not relate to our own fraternity of nations, or even bear, in some way or other, on our own present or future condition.

Tartars to the Celestial Empire of China. It will not do to say, that we want something nobler in character, and more exalted in intellect, than is to be met with among those murderous Orientals-that there is nothing to interest in the contentions of mere force and violence; and that it requires no very finedrawn reasoning to explain why we should turn with disgust from the story, if it had been preserved, of the savage affrays which have drenched the sands of Africa or the rocks of New Zealand-through long generations of murder-with the blood of their brutish population. This may be true enough of Madagascar or Dahomy; but it does not apply to the case before us. The nations of Asia generally-at least those composing its great states -were undoubtedly more polished than those of Europe, during all the period that preceded their recent connection. Their warriors were as brave in the field, their statesmen more subtle and politic in the cabinet: In the arts of luxury, and all the elegancies of civil life, they were immeasurably superior; in ingenuity of speculation-in literature-in social politeness-the comparison is still in their favour.

We have here a distinct and faithful account of some hundreds of battles, sieges, and great military expeditions, and a character of a prodigious .umber of eminent individuals,-men famous in their day, over wide regions, for genius or fortune-poets, conquerors, martyrs -founders of cities and dynasties-authors of immortal works-ravagers of vast districts abounding in wealth and population. Of all these great personages and events, nobody in Europe, if we except a score or two of studious Orientalists, has ever heard before; and it would not, we imagine, be very easy to show that we are any better for hearing of them now. A few curious traits, that happen to be strikingly in contrast with our own manners and habits, may remain on the memory of a reflecting reader-with a general confused recollection of the dark and gor- It has often occurred to us, indeed, to congeous phantasmagoria. But no one, we may sider what the effect would have been on the fairly say, will think it worth while to digest fate and fortunes of the world, if, in the fouror develope the details of the history; or be teenth, or fifteenth century, when the germs at the pains to become acquainted with the of their present civilisation were first disclosed, leading individuals, and fix in his memory the the nations of Europe had been introduced to series and connection of events. Yet the ef- an intimate and friendly acquaintance with fusion of human blood was as copious-the the great polished communities of the East, display of talent and courage as imposing and had been thus led to take them for their the perversion of high moral qualities, and the masters in intellectual cultivation, and their waste of the means of enjoyment as unspar-models in all the higher pursuits of genius, ing, as in other long-past battles and intrigues and revolutions, over the details of which we still pore with the most unwearied attention; and to verify the dates or minute circumstances of which, is still regarded as a great exploit in historical research, and among the noblest employments of human learning and sagacity.

polity, and art. The difference in our social and moral condition, it would not perhaps be easy to estimate: But one result, we conceive, would unquestionably have been, to make us take the same deep interest in their ancient story, which we now feel, for similar reasons, in that of the sterner barbarians of early Rome, or the more imaginative clans and colonies of immortal Greece. The experiment, however, though there seemed oftener than once

It is not perhaps very easy to account for the eagerness with which we still follow the fortunes of Miltiades, Alexander, or Cæsar-to be some openings for it, was not made. of the Bruce and the Black Prince, and the interest which yet belongs to the fields of Marathon and Pharsalia, of Crecy and Bannockburn, compared with the indifference, or rather reluctance, with which we listen to the details of Asiatic warfare-the conquests that transferred to the Moguls the vast sovereignties of India, or raised a dynasty of Manchew

Our crusading ancestors were too rude themselves to estimate or to feel the value of the oriental refinement which presented itself to their passing gaze, and too entirely occupied with war and bigotry, to reflect on its causes or effects; and the first naval adventurers who opened up India to our commerce, were both too few and too far off to communicate to

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