although, when regarded as a mere poetical vagary, it has not the weight which belongs to more serious suggestions, of similar import, in the writings of Aristotle and Strabo. The various allusions in the ancient classic writers to an undiscovered world form the subject of an elaborate essay in the Memorias da Acad. Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, (tom. v. pp. 101-112,) and are embodied, in much greater detail, in the first section of Hnmboldt's "Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent;" a work in which the author, with his usual acuteness, has successfully applied the vast stores of his erudition and experience to the illustration of many interesting points connected with the discovery of the New World, and the personal history of Columbus.
[10] It is probably the knowledge of this which has led some writers to impute part of his work to the learned Marsilio Ficino, and others, with still less charity and probability, to refer the authorship of the whole to Politian. Comp. Tasso, Opere, (Venezia, 1735-42,) tom. x. p. 129.—and Crescimbeni, Istoria della Volgar Poesia, (Venezia, 1731,) tom. iii. pp. 273, 274.
[11] Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, canto 25, st. 229, 230.—I have used blank verse, as affording facility for a more literal version than the corresponding ottava rima of the original. This passage of Pulci, which has not fallen under the notice of Humboldt, or any other writer on the same subject whom I have consulted, affords, probably, the most circumstantial prediction that is to be found of the existence of a western world. Dante, two centuries before, had intimated more vaguely his belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe.
"De' vostri sensi, ch' è del rimanente,
Non vogliate negar l'esperienza,
Diretro al sol, del mondo senza gente."
Inferno, cant. 26, v. 115.
[12] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Dipl., no. 1.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 17.—It is singular that Columbus, in his visit to Iceland, in 1477, (see Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 4,) should have learned nothing of the Scandinavian voyages to the northern shores of America in the tenth and following centuries; yet if he was acquainted with them, it appears equally surprising that he should not have adduced the fact in support of his own hypothesis of the existence of land in the west; and that he should have taken a route so different from that of his predecessors in the path of discovery. It may be, however, as M. de Humboldt has well remarked, that the information he obtained in Iceland was too vague to suggest the idea, that the lands thus discovered by the Northmen had any connection with the Indies, of which he was in pursuit. In Columbus's day, indeed, so little was understood of the true position of these countries, that Greenland is laid down on the maps in the European seas, and as a peninsular prolongation of Scandinavia. See Humboldt, Géographie du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. pp. 118, 125.
[13] Herrera, Indias Occidentals, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 19.—Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.—Benzoni, Novi Orbis Historia, lib. 1, cap. 6.—Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 10.—Faria y Sousa, Europa Portuguesa, tom. ii. part. 3, cap. 4.
[14] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Talavera.
[15] Salazar de Mendoza, Crón. del Gran Cardenal, p. 214.—Herrera, Indias Occidentales, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.—Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 11.
[16] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.—Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 104.—Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. sec. 60, 61, tom. ii., Col. Dipl., nos. 2, 4.