Literary and Critical Pro'tinium 



150 



had, two jear.s befoie, transferred liis 

 residence and woollen manufactory. Cliris- 

 toplicr became captain of a ship of war, 

 iu the service of Ken6 d'Anjou, Lord of 

 Provence, and King of Naples. About 

 1475, Colnmbiis commanded a squadron of 

 Genoese ships and galleys. He repaired 

 to Lisbon, where his brother Bartholomew, 

 an able cosmographer, found employment 

 in the preparation of sailing-charts for 

 navigators. Columbus did not remain 

 long idle; but set out immediately on a 

 very arduous voyage, during which he 

 went, in February 1477, as far as the 73(1 

 degree of north latitude, or, as he himself 

 expresses it, 100 leagries beyond the Thule 

 of Ptolemy, then called Fricslaud, and by 

 the moderns, Iceland. He undertook se- 

 veral other voyages, especially to Guinea, 

 to England, and to the islands possessed by 

 Spain and Portugal in the western ocean. 

 He drew maps, and made globes ; and, in 

 proportion to the number of his acquire- 

 ments, his thirst for every thing extraordi- 

 nary gained strength ; to the activity of his 

 enthusiasiic mind the ancient hemisphere 

 appeared too narrow, and the navigators 

 of his own lime too timid. Columbus, 

 being acquainted with the works of the 

 best geographers, and the narratives of 

 voyages left by preceding navigators, and 

 knowing how many degrees there were 

 from China to the meridian of Greenland, 

 bad no difficulty iu reckoning how many 

 degrees there remained to traverse. And 

 not only the degrees, but the miles ; as we 

 karn from his letter, published by Morelli, 

 thai he had calculated the degree to the 

 equinoctial line of the sun, at 56| miles 

 (Italian). Consequently, as he was cer- 

 tain that the form of the earth was spheri- 

 cal, when he had calculated the number of 

 miles tVom the meridian of Greenland, 

 which he knew, to China, nothing remained 

 for him to do but to commit himself to the 

 waves. At the period when he first pro- 

 posed the attempt, he was laughed at, 

 and regarded as a fool, or a man whose 

 intellects were deranged. His first thoughts 

 were turned towards Genoa, his native 

 country ; of this we are assured by Peter 

 Martyr, his friend, and the historian of 

 America. He therefore repaired thither, 

 and submitted his plan to the senate; but 

 he did not find the republic disposed to 

 embrace the ideas of a man, who was 



only 



A poor pilot, the promiser of kingdoms. 



Columbus next determined to apply to the 

 Venetians; and went to the court of 

 France, pud from thence to that of Eng- 

 land ; and, meeting with no favourable en- 

 couragement from either, he at last 

 returned to Portugal. King John, 

 even while he professed to be atten- 

 tively considering the proposals of Colum- 

 bus, by the advice of a certain Doctor Cal- 

 sadiglia,' • • . equipped a caravel with great 

 6 



[March 1, 



despatch and secresy ; and, under the pre- 

 tence of sending her with provisions and 

 assistance to some of his peo|»le who were 

 in the Cape de Verd islands, ordered her 

 to sail in the direction which the admiral 

 had proposed to go. As soon as Columbus 

 was informed of this attempt, he became 

 so indignant against the Portuguese, that, 

 taking with him his young son Diego, at 

 the end of the year 1484, he quitted Por- 

 tugal secretly, and went to Spain." Such 

 is the early history of this great man, and 

 the rest is known, though this new biogra- 

 pher determines many circumstances hith- 

 erto indoubt. Besides tliedocuments, which 

 as authentic are highly curious, two auto- 

 graph letters are annexed, by which we 

 are brought into a sort of personal contact 

 with this great man. Altogether, we have 

 not for a long time opened a more curious 

 volume. 



The Elements of Geometry and Trigono- 

 melry, translated from the French of 

 Legendre, edited by Dr. Brewster, 

 8vo. Edinburgh; Olivers. The estimation 

 in which Monsieur Legendie is held in his 

 own country, and the inopriety for the 

 maintenance of our own scientific charac- 

 ter, of embodying in our language every 

 commendable essay on the subject, im- 

 part a certain recommendation to this 

 volume. But otherwise, it gives no addi- 

 tion to the fund of information already in 

 our possession. It is a meritorious work ; 

 but, in perspicuity of expression, order, 

 and matter, it is not at all so jierfect a 

 performance as many native works on our 

 shelves. Nothing tends so highly to the 

 profit of any book of this severe nature, as 

 to contain no feature or iiii;redipnt which 

 is not minutely indispensable. Yet, as we 

 looked over the pages of these new ele- 

 ments, our eye caught some few matters in 

 that particular not the most judicious. 

 Thus, in the first exemplification of his 

 distinctions, he calls A C D B a broken 

 line ; btit how can that be broken which is 

 not disconnected ? A C 13 B, as described, 

 is a figure. Again, his separate distinc- 

 tions of rectangle, parallelogram, and 

 lozenge, are certainly unnecessary, for the 

 right angle is already described. Then we 

 would ask, whether, of the con tents of Book 

 8, of his three ronnd boilies, more than one of 

 them — the sphere, is really what it is named? 

 The cylinder, by his own demonstration, 

 has its iusfs jilunes: it may also here be 

 remembered, that a difference is properly 

 drawn in the work between the circle and 

 the sphere. As for the cone, whatever 

 force is in these observations on the one 

 figure, applies with still more reason to the 

 other. 



The Spaacije, in 3 vols, is the eighth 

 publication within four years, from a pen 

 which appears enudous to eclipse the 

 rapid fertility with which the author of 

 Waverley has so triumphantly made the 

 Norlherit 



