242 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF 



to say of this " uom della Liguria," is, that he was a vain 

 and fantastic talker : (homem fallador e glorioso em 

 mostrar suas habilidades e mais fantastico, e de imaginacoes 

 com sua Una Cypango.) It is thus that, throughout all 

 ages and all degrees of civilization yet attained, national 

 animosity has endeavoured to obscure the brightness of glo- 

 rious names. 



In the history of the contemplation of the Universe, the 

 discovery of tropical America by Christopher Columbus, 

 Alonso de Hojeda, and Alvarez Cabral, must not be regarded 

 as an isolated event. Its influence on the extension of phy- 

 sical knowledge, and on the enrichment of the world of 

 ideas, cannot be justly apprehended, without casting a brief 

 glance on the preceding centuries, which separate the age of 

 the great nautical enterprises from the period when the 

 scientific cultivation of the Arabians flourished. That which 

 gave to the era of Columbus its distinctive character, as a 

 series of uninterrupted and successful exertions for the 

 attainment of new geographical discoveries or of an enlarged 

 knowledge of the earth's surface, was prepared beforehand, 

 slowly, and in various ways. It was so prepared by a small 

 number of courageous men, who roused themselves at once 

 to general freedom of independent thought, and to the in- 

 vestigation of particular natural phsenomena ; by the in- 

 fluence exerted on the most profound springs of intellec- 

 tual life by the renewed acquaintance formed in Italy 

 with the works of Greek and Eoman literature ; by the 

 discovery of an art which lends to thought at once wings 

 for rapid transmission and indefinitely multiplied means of 

 preservation; and by the more extensive knowledge of 

 Eastern Asia, which travelling merchants, and the monks 



