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3. After a most tempestuous voyage, he was compelled to take shelter in the Tagus, sorely against his inclination. He experienced, however, the most honorable reception from the Portuguese monarch, John the Second, who did ample justice to the great qualities of Columbus, although he had failed to profit by them. After a brief delay, the admiral resumed his voyage, and crossing the bar of Saltes, entered the harbor of Palos about noon, on the 15th of March, 1493, being exactly seven months and eleven days since his departure from that port.

4. Great was the agitation in the little community of Palos, as they beheld the well-known vessel of the admiral reëntering their harbor. Their desponding imaginations had long since consigned him to a watery grave; for, in addition to the preternatural horrors which hung over the voyage, they had experienced the most stormy and disastrous winter within the recollection of the oldest mariners. Most of them had relatives or friends on board. They thronged immediately to the shōre, to assure themselves with their own eyes of the truth of their return.

5. When they beheld their faces once more, and saw them accompanied by the numerous evidences which they brought back of the success of the expedition, they burst forth in acelamations of joy and gratulation. They awaited the landing of Columbus, when the whole population of the place accompanied him and his crew to the principal church, where solemn thanksgivings were offered up for their return; while every bell in the village sent forth a joyous peal in honor of the glorious event.

6. The admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before the sovereigns, to protract his stay long at Palos. He took with him on his journey specimens of the multifarious products of the newly-discovered regions. He was accompanied by several of the native islanders, arrayed in their simple barbaric costume', and decorated, as he passed through the principal cities, with collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned: he exhibited, also, considerable quantities of the same metal in dust, or in crude masses, numerous vegetable exotics,' possessed of aromatic or medicinal virtue, and several kinds of quadrupeds

'Exotic (egz ot' ik), a foreign plant or production. Ar o mât' ic, spicy; fragrant.

unknown in Europe, and birds, whose varieties of gaudy plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant.'

7. The admiral's progress through the country was everywhere impeded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the extraordinary spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic language of that time, which has now lost its force from its familiarity, first revealed the existence of a "New World." As he passed through the busy, populous city of Sev'ille, every window, băl'cony, and housetop, which could afford a glimpse of him, is described to have been crowded with spectators.

8. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Barcelona. The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him, and escorted him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were seated, with their son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival. On his approach, they rose from their seats, and extending their hands to him to salute, caused him to be seated before them.

9. These were unprecedented marks of condescension to a person of Columbus's rank, in the haughty and ceremonious court of Castile. It was, indeed, the proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, sneer, skepticism, and contempt. He had achieved this, not by chance, but by calculation, supported through the most adverse circumstances by consum'mate conduct. The honors paid him, which had hitherto been reserved only for rank, or fortune, or military success, purchased by the blood and tears of thousands, were, in his case, a homage to intellectual power, successfully exerted in behalf of the noblest interests of humanity.

10. After a brief interval, the sovereigns requested from Columbus a recital of his adventures. His manner was sedate and dignified, but warmed by the glow of natural enthusiasm. He enumerated the several islands which he had visited, expatiated on the temperate character of the climate, and the capacity

'Pageant (på'jent), a spectacle; pompous show.—3 Extraordinary (eks trår de na ri).

of the soil for every variety of agricultural production, appealing to the samples imported by him, as evidence of their natural fruitfulness. He dwelt more at large on the precious metals to be found in these islands, which he inferred, less from the specimens actually obtained, than from the uniform testimony of the natives to their abundance in the unexplored regions of the interior. Lastly, he pointed out the wide scope afforded to Christian zeal, in the illumination of a race of men, whose minds, far from being wedded to any system of idolatry, were prepared, by their extreme simplicity, for the reception of pure and uncorrupted doctrine.

11. The last consideration touched Isabella's heart most sensibly; and the whole audience, kindled with various emotions by the speaker's eloquence, filled up the perspective with the gorgeous coloring of their own fancies, as ambition, or avarice, or devotional feeling predominated in their bosoms. When Columbus ceased, the king and queen, together with all present, prostrated themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgivings, while the solemn strains of the Te Deum' were poured forth by the choir of the royal chapel, as in commemoration of some glorious victory. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT..

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, the eminent historian, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 4th of May, 1796. His father, William Prescott, LL. D., a distinguished lawyer and judge, noted for intellectual and moral worth, died in the last month of 1844, at the advanced age of 84. His grandfather was the celebrated Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the American forces at Bunker Hill on the memorable 17th of June, 1775. But Mr. Prescott needs none of the pride of ancestry to stamp him as one of nature's noblemen. An untoward accident in college, by which he lost the sight of one eye, and the sympathy subsequently excited in the other, have rendered him almost totally blind; but, notwithstanding, his indefatigable industry, united with fine taste and a wellstored mind, has elevated him to the highest rank in that difficult department, historical composition. Indeed, it is the concurrent judgment of the best European critics that he has no superior, if he has an equal, among contemporary historians, His first work," Ferdinand and Isabella," was published in the beginning of 1838, and was soon republished in nearly all the great cities of Europe. That, with his second work, "The Conquest of Mexico," are not only among the finest models of historical composition, but in a very genuine sense they are national works. The choicest words of panegyric can not do injustice to the exquisite "beauty of Mr. Prescott's descriptions, the just proportion and dramatic interest of his narrative, his skill as a character writer, the expansiveness and complete

'Te Deum (te de' um), a hymn of thanksgiving, so called from the first words, Te Deum laudamus," Thee, God, we praise.

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ness of his views, and that careful and intelligent research which enabled him to make his works as valuable for their accuracy as they are attractive by all the graces of style." In private life, no man is more beloved than Mr. Prescot. He is as much admired for his amiability, simplicity, and highbred courtesy for his remarkable abilities and acquirements.

34. DESTINY OF AMERICA.

1. THE Muse, disgusted at an age and clime

THE

Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time

Producing subjects worthy fame:

2. In happy climes, where, from the genial sun
And virgin earth, such scenes ensue;
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true :

3. In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides, and virtue rules;
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:

4. There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts;

The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

5. Not such as Europe breeds in her decay:

Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

6. Westward the course of empire takes its way:
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:

Time's noblest offspring is the last.

BERKELEY.

GEORGE BERKELEY, Bishop of Cloyne, was born at Thomastown, county of Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1684, and died at Oxford, England, in 1753. He was the author of several works, principally on metaphysical science. He visited America in 1728 for the purpose of founding a college for the conversion of the Indians; but failing to obtain the promised funds from the government, after remaining seven years in Rhode Island, he returned to Europe. While inspired with his transatlantic mission, he penned the above fine moral verses, so truly prophetic of the progress of the United States.

CONCER

35. CHARACTER OF LOUIS FOURTEENTH

ONCERNING Louis the Fourteenth,' the world seeins, at last, to have formed a correct judgment. He was not a great general; he was not a great statesman; but he was, in one sense of the word, a great king. Never was there so consum'mate a master of what James the First of England called kingcraft; of all those arts which most advantageously display the merits of a prince, and most completely hide his defects.

2. Though his internal administration was bad; though the military triumphs which gave splendor to the early part of his reign were not achieved by himself; though his later years were crowded with defects and humiliations; though he was so ignorant that he scarcely understood the Latin of his mass-book; though he fell under the control of a cunning Jesuit, and of a more cunning old woman; he succeeded in passing himself öff on his people as a being above humanity. And this is the more extraordinary, because he did not seclude himself from the public gaze, like those Oriental despots whose faces are never seen, and whose very names it is a crime to pronounce lightly.

3. It has been said, that no man is a hero to his val'et; and all the world saw as much of Louis the Fourteenth as his valet could see. Five hundred people assembled to see him shave and put on his clothes in the morning. He then kneeled down at the side of his bed, and said his prayers, while the whole assembly awaited the end in solemn silence, the ecclesiastics on their knees, and the laymen with their hats before their faces. He walked about his gardens with a train of two hundred courtiers at his heels. All Versailles came to see him dine and sup. He was put to bed at night, in the midst of a crowd as great as that which had met to see him rise in the morning. He took his very emetics in state, and vomited majestically in the presence of all his nobles. Yet, though he constantly exposed himself to the public gaze, in situations in which it is scarcely possible for any man to preserve much personal dignity, he, to the last, im

'Louis the Fourteenth, who was but four years of age when he ascended the throne, reigned from 1643 to 1715.

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