by study or
observation, which bore upon his theories; impatient of the scanty
aliment of the day, "his impetuous ardor threw him into the study of the
fathers of the Church, the Arabian Jews, and the ancient geographers";
while his daring but irregular genius, bursting from the limits of
imperfect science, bore him to conclusions far beyond the intellectual
vision of his contemporaries. If some of his conclusions were erroneous,
they were at least ingenious and splendid; and their error resulted from
the clouds which still hung over his peculiar path of enterprise. His
own discoveries enlightened the ignorance of the age, guided conjecture
to certainty, and dispelled that very darkness with which he had been
obliged to struggle.

In the progress of his discoveries, he has been remarked for the extreme
sagacity and the admirable justness with which he seized upon the
phenomena of the exterior world. As they broke upon him, these phenomena
were discerned with wonderful quickness of perception, and made to
contribute important principles to the stock of general knowledge. This
lucidity of spirit, this quick convertibility of facts to principles,
distinguish him from the dawn to the close of his sublime enterprise,
insomuch that, with all the sallying ardor of his imagination, his
ultimate success has been admirably characterized as a "conquest of
reflection."--_Ibid._

A VISIT TO PALOS.

I can not express to you what were my feelings on treading the shore
which had once been animated by the bustle of departure, and whose sands
had been printed by the last footstep of Columbus. The solemn and
sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate
and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet
melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the silent and empty stage of some
great drama when all the actors had departed. The very aspect of the
landscape, so tranquilly beautiful, had an effect upon me, and as I
paced the deserted shore by the side of a descendant of one of the
discoverers I felt my heart swelling with emotion and my eyes filling
with tears.--_Ibid._

COLUMBUS AT SALAMANCA.

Columbus appeared in a most unfavorable light before a select
assembly--an obscure navigator, a member of no learned institution,
destitute of all the trappings and circumstances which sometimes give
oracular authority to dullness, and depending on the mere force of
natural genius.

Some of the jun