The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way.
“Men shall descry another hemisphere,
Since to one common centre all things tend;
So earth, by curious mystery divine
Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.
At our Antipodes are cities, states,
And throngèd empires, ne’er divined of yore.
But see, the sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light.”[251]
This translation is by our own eminent historian, Prescott, who first called attention to the testimony,[252] which is not mentioned even by Humboldt. Leigh Hunt referred to it at a later day.[253] Pulci was born in 1431, and died about 1487, five years before Columbus sailed; so that he was not aided by any rumor of the discovery he so distinctly predicts.