resisted. He joined with his generous queen in her reprobation of the treatment of the admiral, and both sovereigns hastened to give evidence to the world, that his imprisonment had been without their authority, and contrary to their wishes... Without waiting to receive any documents that might arrive from Bobadilla, they sent orders to Cadiz that the prisoners should be instantly set at liberty, and treated with all distinction... They wrote a letter to Columbus, couched in terms of gratitude and affection, expressing their grief at all that he had suffered, and inviting him to court. They ordered at the same time, that two thousand ducats should be advanced to defray his expenses.

The loyal heart of Columbus was again cheered by this declaration of his sovereigns. He felt conscious of his integrity, and anticipated an immediate restitution of all his rights and dignities. He appeared at court in Granada on the 17th of December, not as a man ruined and disgraced, but richly dressed, and attended by an honorable retinue. He was received by the sovereigns with unqualified favor and distinction. ... When the queen beheld this venerable man approach, and thought on all he had deserved and all he had suffered, she was moved to tears. Columbus had borne up firmly against the rude conflicts of the world; he had endured with lofty scorn the injuries and insults of ignoble men; but he possessed strong and quick sensibility... When he found himself thus kindly received by his sovereigns, and beheld tears in the benign_eyes of Isabella, his long-suppressed feelings burst forth he threw himself on his knees, and for some time could not utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings.

But the death of Isabella, in 1505, was a fatal blow to the fortunes of Columbus. He was left to the cold indifference and prejudiced mind of King Ferdinand. Lingering yet a few months in vain suspense, he died unrequited-a victim to a terrible disease, and to the still more terrible malice of his enemies.

Columbus was a man of great inventive genius, the operations of his mind burst forth with that irresistible force which characterises intellect of such an order. His ambition was lofty and noble, inspiring him with high thoughts, and an anxiety to distinguish himself by great achievements. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same elevated spirit with which he sought renown; they were to rise from the territories he should discover, and be commensurate in importance.

His conduct was characterised by the grandeur of his views,

and the magnanimity of his spirit. Instead of ravaging the newly found countries, like many of his contemporary discoverers, who were intent only on immediate gain, he regarded them with the eyes of a legislator; he sought to colonise and cultivate them, to civilise the natives, to build cities, introduce the useful arts, subject everything to the control of law, order, and religion, and thus to found regular and prosperous empires. That he failed in this, was the fault of the dissolute rabble which it was his misfortune to command, with whom all law was tyranny, and all order oppression.

He was naturally irascible and impetuous, and keenly sensible to injury and injustice; yet the quickness of his temper was counteracted by the generosity and benevolence of his heart. The magnanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career Though continually outraged in his dignity, braved in his authority, foiled in his plans, and endangered in his person, by the seditions of turbulent and worthless men, and that too, at times when suffering under anguish of body and anxiety of mind, enough to exasperate the most patient, yet he restrained his valiant and indignant spirit, and brought himself to forbear, and reason, and even to supplicate... Nor can the reader of the story of his eventful life fail to notice how free he was from all feeling of revenge, how ready to forgive and forget, on the least sign of repentance and atonement. He has been exalted for his skill in controlling others, but far greater praise is due to him for the firmness he displayed in governing himself.

His piety was genuine and fervent. Religion mingled with the whole course of his thoughts and actions, and shone forth in his most private and unstudied writings. The religion thus deeply seated in his soul, diffused a sober dignity and a benign composure over his whole deportment; his very language was pure and guarded, and free from all gross or irreverent expressions.

A peculiar trait in his rich and varied character remains to be noticed; namely, that ardent and enthusiastic imagination, which threw a magnificence over his whole course of thought. A poetical temperament is discernible throughout all his writings, and in all his actions. We see it in all his descriptions of the beauties of the wild lands he was discovering, in the enthusiasm with which he extolled the blandness of the temperature, the purity of the atmosphere, the fragrance of the air,"full of dew and sweetness," the verdure of the forests, the grandeur of the mountains, and the crystal purity of the running

streams. It spread a glorious and golden world around him, and tinged everything with its own gorgeous colors.

He was decidedly a visionary, but a visionary of an uncommon kind, and successful in his dreams. The manner in which his ardent imagination and mercurial nature were controlled by a powerful judgment, and directed by an acute sagacity, is the most extraordinary feature in his character. Thus governed, his imagination, instead of exhausting itself in idle flights, lent aid to his judgment, and enabled him to form conclusions at which common minds could never have arrived, nay, which they could not conceive, when pointed out To his intellectual

vision it was given to read the signs of the times, and to trace in the conjectures and reveries of past ages, the indications of an unknown world. "His soul," observes a Spanish writer, 66 was superior to the age in which he lived. For him was reserved the great enterprise of traversing a sea which had given rise to so many fables, and of deciphering the mystery of his age."

With all the visionary fervor of his imagination, its fondest dreams fell short of the reality. He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discovery. Until his last breath, he entertained the idea that he had merely opened a new way to the old resorts of opulent commerce, and had discovered some of the wild regions of the east... What visions of glory would have broken upon his mind, could he have known that he had indeed discovered a new continent, equal to the whole world in magnitude, and separated by two vast oceans, from all the earth hitherto known by civilised man! How would his magnanimous spirit have been consoled amid the afflictions of age and the cares of penury, the neglect of a fickle public and the injustice of an ungrateful king, could he have anticipated the splendid empires which would arise in the beautiful world he had discovered; and the nations, and tongues, and languages, which were to fill its lands with his renown, and to revere and bless his name to the latest posterity! W. Irving.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ;

THE PRINTER, PHILOSOPHER, AND STATESMAN.

WILLING to escape from a town where "good people" pointed with horror to his freedom; indignant, also, at the tyranny of a brother who, as a passionate master, often beat his apprentice,

Benjamin Franklin, when but seventeen years old, sailed clandestinely for New York, and, finding there no employment, crossed to Amboy; went on foot to Delaware; for want of a wind, rowed in a boat from Burlington to Philadelphia; and, bearing marks of his labor at the oar, weary, hungry, having for his whole stock of cash a single dollar, the runaway apprentice, greatest of the sons of New England of that generation, the humble pupil of the free school of Boston, rich in the boundless hope of youth and the unconscious power of genius, which modesty adorned, stepped on shore to seek food, occupation, shelter, and fortune.

On the foundation of sobriety, frugality, and industry, the young journeyman built his future fame; and he soon came to have a printing office of his own. Toiling early and late with his hands, he set types and worked at the press; with his own hands would trundle to the office, in a wheelbarrow, the reams which he was to use. His ingenuity was such, he could form letters, make types and woodcuts, and engrave vignettes in copper.

The Assembly of Pennsylvania respected his merit, and chose him its printer. He planned a newspaper, and when he became its proprietor and editor, he fearlessly defended absolute freedom of thought and speech, and the inalienable power of the people ... Desirous of advancing education, he proposed improvement in the school of Philadelphia. He invented the system of subscription libraries, and laid the foundation of one that was long the most considerable library in America; he suggested the establishment of an academy, which has ripened into a university; he saw the benefit of concert in the pursuit of science, and gathered a philosophical society for its advancement... The intelligent and highly-cultivated Logan bore testimony to his merits before they had burst upon the world:-"Our most ingenious printer has the clearest understanding, with extreme modesty. He is certainly an extraordinary man, of a singularly good judgment, but of equal modesty; excellent, yet humble. Do not imagine that I over-do in my character of Benjamin Franklin, for I am rather short in it."

When the scientific world began to investigate the wonders of electricity, Franklin excelled all observers in the marvellous simplicity and lucid exposition of his experiments, and in the admirable sagacity with which he elicited from them the laws which they illustrated. It was he who first suggested the explanation of thunder gusts and the northern lights on electrical principles; and, in the summer of 1752, going out into the fields, with no instrument but a kite, no companion but his

son, established his theory, by obtaining a line of connection with a thunder cloud ... Nor did he cease till he had made the lightning a household pastime, taught his family to catch the subtle fluid in its inconceivably rapid leaps between the earth and the sky, and compelled it to give warning of its passage by the harmless ringing of bells.

Loving truth, without prejudice and without bias, he discerned intuitively the identity of the laws of nature with those of which humanity is conscious; so that his mind was like a mirror, in which the universe, as it reflected itself, revealed her laws. He was free from mysticism, even to a fault. His morality, repudiating ascetic severities, and the system which enjoins them, was indulgent to appetites of which he abhorred the sway But his affections were of a calm intensity in all his career, the love of man gained the mastery over personal interest. He had not the imagination which inspires the bard or kindles the orator, but he was distinguished by an exquisite propriety; parsimonious of ornament, he gave ease of expression and graceful simplicity, even to his most careless writings.

...

In life, also, his tastes were delicate. Indifferent to the pleasures of the table, he relished the delights of music and harmony, of which he enlarged the instruments... His blandness of temper, his modesty, the benignity of his manners, made him the favorite of intelligent society; and with healthy cheerfulness, he derived pleasure from books, from philosophy, from conversation, now calmly administering consolation to the sorrower, now indulging in the expression of light-hearted gaiety... In his intercourse, the universality of his perceptions bore, perhaps, the character of humor; but while he clearly discerned the contrast between the grandeur of the universe, and the feebleness of man, a serene benevolence saved him from contempt of his race or from disgust at toils.

To superficial observers, he might have seemed as an alien from speculative truth, limiting himself to the world of the senses; and yet, in study, and among men, his mind always sought, with unaffected simplicity, to discover and apply the general principles by which nature and affairs are controlled; now deducing from the theory of caloric improvement in fire-places and lanterns, and now advancing human freedom by firm inductions from the inalienable rights of man.

Never professing enthusiasm, never making a parade of sentiment, his practical wisdom was sometimes mistaken for the offspring of selfish prudence; yet his hope was steadfast, like that hope which rests on the Rock of Ages, and his conduct