COLUMBUS BREAKING THE EGG.
"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?"
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.