PROPOSED HISTORY OF COLUMBUS. 427 



everybody looked up at him. Humboldt bowed to us, 

 with his usual good-nature, which put the youngsters 

 into the happiest humour. We felt ourselves elevated by 

 the presence of this great thinker and most laborious 

 student. We seemed to be joined with him in the pur- 

 suit of great scientific ends." 



Humboldt's next work of consequence was " A Criti- 

 cal Examination of the history of the Geography of the 

 New Continent, and of the Progress of Nautical Astro- 

 nomy in the 15th and 16th Centuries." It was written 

 in French, and was published in five octavo volumes, at 

 Paris, in 1836-89. He had once intended to write a his- 

 tory of Columbus — a task for which no one was so 

 well fitted — and had employed the leisure hours of thirty 

 *years in collecting materials for it ; but the multiplicity 

 of his labours, in other directions, prevented him from 

 completing it. He was not content, however, to lose his 

 valuable materials, so he gave them to the world in the 

 work just named. It is divided into four divisions. 

 The first discusses the causes which prepared and led to 

 the discovery of the New World. The second relates to 

 Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and the dates of several 

 important geographical discoveries. In the third he 

 treats of the early maps of the New World, and of the 

 time when the name America was first commonly used ; 

 the fourth is a history of the progress of nautical 

 astronomy, and map-making in the fifteenth and six- 

 teenth centuries. It is a fine subject, and Humboldt has 

 handled it, as no one besides himself could have done ; but 

 it is not equal to what we conceive his Life of Columbus 

 would have been, and we shall always regret that he 

 abandoned his first intention. 



