420 COSMOS. 



When classical literature acquired a more generally diffused 

 vigour by the intercourse suddenly opened with the politically 

 degenerated Greeks, we meet with the earliest evidence of this 

 better spirit in the works of Cardinal Bembo, the friend and 

 counsellor of Raphael, and the patron of art; for in the JEtna 

 Dialogus, written in the youth of the author, there is a charm- 

 ing and vivid sketch of the geographical distribution of the 

 plants growing on the declivities of the mountain, from the 

 rich corn-fields of Sicily to the snow-covered margin of the 

 crater. The finished work of his maturer age, the Histories 

 Venctce, characterises still more picturesquely the climate and 

 vegetation of the New Continent. 



Everything concurred at this period to fill the imaginations 

 of men with grand images of the suddenly extended bounda- 

 ries of the known world, and of the enlargement of human 

 powers, which had been of simultaneous occurrence. As, in 

 antiquity, the Macedonian expeditions to Paropamisus, and the 

 wooded alluvial valleys of Western Asia awakened impres- 

 sions derived from the aspect of a richly adorned exotic 

 nature, whose images were vividly reflected in the works or 

 highly gifted writers, even for centuries afterwards ; so, in like 

 manner, did the discovery of America act in exercising a 

 second and stronger influence on the western nations than 

 that of the crusades. The tropical world, with all the luxu- 

 riance of its vegetation on the plains, with all the gradations 

 of its varied organisms on the declivities of the Cordilleras, 

 and with all the reminiscences of northern climates associated 

 with the inhabited plateaux of Mexico, New Granada, and 

 Quito, was now first revealed to the eyes of Europeans. 

 Fancy, without whose aid no truly great work can succeed in 

 the hands of man, lent a peculiar charm to the delineations 

 of nature sketched by Columbus and Vespucci. The first of 

 these discoverers is distinguished for his deep and earnest sen- 

 timent of religion, as we find exemplified in his description of 

 the mild sky of Paria, and of the mass of water of the 

 Orinoco, which he believed to flow from the eastern paradise ; 

 while the second is remarkable for the intimate acquaintance 

 he evinces with the poets of ancient and modern times, 

 as shown in his description of the Brazilian coast. The reli- 

 gious sentiment thus early evinced by Columbus became 

 converted, with increasing years, and under the influence of 



