THE PICTURES OF COLUMBUS,
THE GENOESE[48]
Picture I.
Columbus making Maps[A]
[A] History informs us this was his original profession: and from the disproportionate vacancy observable in the drafts of that time between Europe and Asia to the west, it is most probable he first took the idea of another continent, lying in a parallel direction to, and existing between both.—Freneau's note.
As o'er his charts Columbus ran,
Such disproportion he survey'd,
He thought he saw in art's mean plan
Blunders that Nature never made;
The land in one poor corner placed,
And all beside, a swelling waste!—
"It can't be so," Columbus said;
"This world on paper idly drawn,[49]
"O'er one small tract so often gone
"The pencil tires; in this void space
"Allow'd to find no resting place.
"But copying Nature's bold design,
"If true to her, no fault is mine;
"Perhaps in these moist regions dwell
"Forms wrought like man, and lov'd as well.
"Yet to the west what lengthen'd seas!
"Are no gay islands found in these,
"No sylvan worlds that Nature meant
"To balance Asia's vast extent?
"As late a mimic globe I made
"(Imploring Fancy to my aid)
"O'er these wild seas a shade I threw,
"And a new world my pencil drew.
"But westward plac'd, and far away
"In the deep seas this country lay
"Beyond all climes already known,
"In Neptune's bosom plac'd alone.