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 of 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.
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.