522 
While heroes, kings, and sages of their times, 
Those gods on earth, are gods in happier 
climes 5 
Minos in judgment sits, and Jove in power, 
And Odin’s friends are feasted there with 
gore,” 
The doubts entertained by Columbus, 
with respect to the furure/progress, that 
Hesper assures him that mankind are to 
make in civilization and science, and his 
idea that society may again retrograde, 
so far that men may even lose their 
present geographical knowledge, and Eu- 
rope in ber turn, some thousand ages 
hence, will need to be discovered by 
Awerican mariners, are expressed ina 
manner deeply affecting. 
¢ And why not lapse again ? Celestial Seer, 
Forgive my doubts, and ah, remove my fear! 
Man is my trother ; strong 1 feel the ties, 
From strong solicitude my doubts arise ; 
My heart, while opening with the boundless 
scope 
That swells before him, and expands his hope, 
Forebodes another fall ; ard tho’ at last 
Thy world is planted, and with light o’er- 
cast, 
Tho’ two broad continents their beams com- 
bine 
Round his whole globe to stream his day di- 
vine, 
Perchance some folly, yet uncured, may 
spread 
‘A storm proportion’d to the lights they shed, 
Veil both his continents, and leave again 
Between them stretch’d the impermeable 
main 5 
All science buried, sails and cities lost, 
Their lands uncultured, as their seas uncrost. 
‘Till on thy coast, some thousand ages hence, 
New pilots rise, bold enterprise commence, 
Some new Columbus (happier let him be, 
More wise, and great, and virtuous tar than 
me) 
Launch on the wave, and tow’rd the rising 
day 
Like a strong eaglet steer his untaught way, 
Gird half the globe, and to his age unfold 
A strange new world, the world we call the 
old. 
From Finland’s glade to Calpe’s storm-beat 
head 
He'll find some tribes of scattering wildmen 
spread 5 
But one vast wilderness will- shade the soil, 
No wreck of art, no sign of ancient toil 
Tell wherea city stood ; nor leave one trace 
Of all that honours now, and all that shames 
the race.” 
The exlrlarating scenes of the 10th 
book can hardly be abridged so as to give 
an idea of the general impression that 
the whole would make upon the mind. 
I shall only give the opening of the 
Observations on the Columbiad. 
tions. 
‘< Hesper again his heavenly power dise 
play’d, 
And shook the yielding canopy of shade. 
Sudden the stars their trembling fires with- 
drew, 
Returning splendors burst upon the view, 
Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn 
And more than midday glories grace the 
morn. 
So shone the earth, as if the sideral train, 
Broad as full suns, had sail’d the etherial 
plain 5 
When no distinguisht orb could strike the 
sight , : 
But one clear blaze of all surrounding light 
O’erflow’d the vault of heaven. For now in 
view 
Remoter climes, and future ages drew 5 
Whose deeds of happier fame, in long arrays - 
Call'd into vision, fill the newborn day. 
‘< Far as seraphic power could lift the eye, 
Or earth, or ocean, bend the yielding sky, 
Or circling suns awake the breathing gale, 
Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail ; 
Where Behren sever’d, with adventurous 
prow, 
Hesperia’s headland from Tartaria’s brow ; 
Where sage’ Vancouver’s patient leads were 
hurl’d, 
Where Diemen stretch’d his solitary world ; 
All lands, all seas that boast a present namey 
And all that unborn time shall give to fame, 
Around the pair in bright expansion rise, 
And earth, in one vast level, bounds the 
skies.” 
If I had not extended my obserya- 
tions on the body of this work to an 
unusual length, 1 should feel that con-' 
siderable attention, was due to the pre- 
face and the notes. They abound in 
oviginal matter, and cannot but excite 
the deepest reflection, In the preface, 
antl likewise in a note on the 10th book, 
we find some very just remarks on the 
moral tendency of several of the most 
famous poems, and on the general spirit 
in which history has been written. The 
preface takes notice, “ that modern 
modes of fighting, as well as the instru- 
ments now used in war, are not yet ren- 
dered familiar in our language,” though 
he contends that there is no good reason 
for our timidity or reserve in the use of 
such terms; that we are really richer 
than the ancients were in this respect, 
having better sounding names, and more 
variety in the instruments, works, stra- 
tagems, and other artifices in our war- 
system than they had in theirs. Accord- 
ingly he has been free in the use of all 
these modery military terms, and we) 
think 
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-book; and this shall close the list of cita- 
