THE ECLECTIC MUSEUM OF FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. JULY, 1 8 4 3. LAND DISCOVERED. Engraved by Mr. Sartain, from a Painting by J. M. W. Turner, R. A. * "WERE there no graves, none in our land?" they cry, -Yet in His name, whom only we should fear, Twice in the zenith blazed the orb of light; Chosen of men! 'twas thine at noon of night First from the prow to hail the glimmering light; (Emblem of Truth divine, whose secret ray Enters the soul, and makes the darkness day!) Pedro! Rodrigo! there, methought, it shone! There-in the west! And now, alas, 'tis gone!'Twas all a dream! We gaze, and gaze in vain! -But mark, and speak not. There it comes again! It moves! What form unseen, what being there With torch-like lustre fires the murky air? His instincts, passions-say, how like our own? Oh! when will day reveal a world unknown ?" Long on the deep the mists of morning lay, Then rose, revealing, as they rolled away, Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods. * * * Slowly, bareheaded, through the surf we bore "As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin on the high poop of his vessel. However he might carry a cheerful and confident countenance during the day, it was to him a time of the most painful anxiety; and now, when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon, in search of the most vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten o'clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a distance. Fearing that his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentle. man of the king's bed-chamber, and inquired whether he saw a light in that direction; the latter replied in the affirmative. Columbus, yet doubtful whether it might not be some delusion of the fancy, called Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, and made the same inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the roundhouse, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams; as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the waves: or in the hands of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited. "They continued their course until two in the morning, when a gun from the Pinta gave the joyful signal of land, now clearly seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took in sail, and laid to, waiting impatiently for the dawn. "The thoughts and feelings of Columbus in this little space of time must have been tumultuous and intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed; his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly established; he had secured to himself a glory which must be as durable as the world itself." IRVING. MEMOIRS OF THE COURTS OF ENGLAND. | which to do most-laugh at or respect From the Edinburgh Review. 1. Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts, including the Protectorate. By JOHN HENEAGE JESSE. 4 vols. 8vo. London: 1840. 2. Memoirs of the Court of England, from the Revolution in 1688 to the Death of George the Second. By JOHN HENEAGE JESSE. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1843. her. He is told eternally, and is still willing to be told, of the ungainliness of James I., of the gravity of Charles, of the levities and grim looks of his successor, and the naughtiness of the "beauties," and the squabbles of Anne with the vixen Marlborough; nay, of the suit of snuffcolor in which George I. was beheld with awe by the staring infant_eyes of Horace Walpole. And why? How is it that readers can turn and return to these everSEVEN volumes in toto, in addition to re-lasting histories of people generally no cent works of a similar kind, and to fresh better than themselves, and sometimes editions of older ones! Truly there is no worse? It is because a prince is one of end to the pleasure of reading about themselves, in a state of splendor and imCourts. In vain the utilitarian asks the portance. It is because, inasmuch as the use of it, and the moralist questions the readers merge themselves into his being, the good, and the republican sneers at what he readers are himself; gazed upon by the secretly admires. In vain an occasional same multitudes, glittering and mighty with Madame d'Arblay escapes from under a the same power and rank. It is because, load of duties, to inform the world that it though they are not immodest enough to is possible for Courts to be tiresome and equal their merits with those of the greatunhappy; nay, that it may even be difficult est princes, they feel a superiority to the to get a cup of tea there when you want it. worst, and a right of participation with In vain a reader may know the whole real the most prosperous. Thus the very vices state of the case, agreeable and otherwise, as well as merits they read of, flatter their or all that ever was written upon the sub- self-love; and this, for example, is one of ject from the time of Henry VIII. down to the reasons why all of us, more or less, that of the estimable Court now flourish are so indulgent to the character of ing. Every body waives his particular Charles II., positively base as he was in knowledge in favor of the general im- some respects, and admirable in none. pression. It is true, the imaginations of Gayety on his part, and superiority on the youngest modern readers cannot be ours, make a combination that is irresistiquite of the opinion of the little boys in ble. the country a hundred years ago, that a Mr. Jesse, therefore, having industriously King and Queen were a couple of super-produced seven volumes on these all popuhuman people, sitting all day on thrones, lar subjects, and being modest enough with crowns on their heads and sceptres in withal to claim no higher merit than that their hands; eating, at the very least, of a compiler, we feel bound to say, upon (when they did eat,) bread and honey; the whole, that his industry is creditable to and counting out gold as the smallest of him and amusing to the reader. He is as their diversions. But nevertheless, to the impartial as can well be expected of a gengreat bulk of readers, there is always tleman with a special liking to such topics; something splendid, and gay, and full-dress- and his feelings are quick and generous, ed and holiday-like, in the idea of a and for the most part correct. The weakCourt; something processional and gor-est things are what he says about Cromgeous, graceful and powerful-always in well and Charles II., and the "undeviating selectest condition, waited upon by the rectitude" of Lord Strafford. What we noble, and living in an atmosphere of ro- chiefly miss is novelty of remark; though, mance. Pains, and tediums, and defects as he professes himself to be only a comof whatever sort, appear to be only excep- piler, we have no right perhaps to expect tions to the general delightful fact. Henry it. He is at all events not a man of "scisVIII. himself does not make the peruser sors and paste." He has honestly rewrit throw away the book in disgust, nor ten his work; searched the originals themCharles II. with a sense of degradation, nor James II. with his very dulness, nor William III. with his dryness. He reads, for the hundredth time, of glorious Queen Bess with her juvenile airs at sixty, and her bright eyes and skinny lips, and knows not selves, without taking the copies for granted; and even added an occasional document found out by himself, though of little importance. A great failure of the work is in arrangement and some determinate plan. The first volume, we observe, is entitled on the fly-leaf, "Reign of the Stuarts." as big as Hudibras's. Round his neck is The title "Courts" was perhaps an after- a ruff. His hat is stuck on his head, with thought, in consequence of the biograph- a feather in it; and he himself is, in a ical or personal nature of the chief part of manner, stuck into the saddle, upon a the matter, in distinction from public and beautiful horse trained not to stumble. political. And in fact, the compilation, Some lords are about him, chiefly of his properly speaking, is neither a history of own country; and, among the closest of Courts, nor of Reigns, nor of any one thing his attendants, is a page with a basketful more than another, except as far as regards of wines and liqueurs. He takes a cupful a predominance of the courtly and biograph- of one of these, to keep the cold out of his ical. Sometimes, for want of a Court, stomach; the huntsman winds his horn; there is a Reign, as in the instance of Wil- the hounds are in full cry; and away goes liam III.; and sometimes, accounts of peo- King James to his victory over the stag. ple are given who had little or nothing to His want of courage being a balk to his do either with Courts or Reigns-as Beau will, he is very fierce when the stag is Fielding and Beau Wilson. On the other taken; and bustles down from his horse, hand, he has left out the Court Poets in with a vindictive and hysterical delight, to the time of James and Charles, the mem- cut him up; though, should a strange face bers of the Cabal in those of Charles II., happen to look on, his Majesty starts, and Prior and Gay afterwards, Hanbury Wil- sidles back, and does not at all understand liams, and many others. What Mr. Jesse how his attendants could have allowed the ought to have done, in accordance with the approach of so trying a phenomenon. title of his work, and in addition to the On the other hand, if the weather is bad, histories of the individuals composing or King James is as surely in-doors-studyconnected with the Courts, was to give us, ing, say his friends; drinking and playing not merely a heap of materials out of the fool, say his enemies. His Majesty, which to gather the particulars here and doubtless, has his books about him, includthere for ourselves, (and he does not, as ing his Basilicon Doron, and his treatise we see, completely do this,) but distinct in proof of Witchcraft; but he has also his and characteristic pictures of each Court wines and liqueurs, with plenty of other in its aggregate or popular sense, after the good things; and if he is not reading manner of what the painters call a con- some new folio, or disputing with some versation-piece. We should thus have had Bishop, or hearing some not very delicate a set of paintings or Tableaux before us, story from Sir Edward Zouch, or writing giving us impressions of the general differ- some not very delicate letter to a favorite; ences of the Courts one from another; or, lastly, if he is not giving Buckingham and these would have advantageously in- some lesson in morals or politics, accomtroduced, or concluded, the histories or panied with a new jewel, why then most enlarged characters of the chief persons probably Sir John Finett, and Sir George composing them. It will not be expected Goring, and the Court-Fool, Archie Armof us to supply Mr. Jesse's deficiencies; strong, are of the party, and all four are playand we undertake no such task. It would ing antics and practical jokes to amuse him. be attempting to crowd a picture-gallery Lady Compton (Buckingham's mother) has into a closet. Still, we shall make such lately been installed as a kind of houseremarks as we can, after the fashion we keeper at Whitehall, and is almost the only think best; beginning with the Court of female visible in that place; his Majesty James, and regretting that Mr. Jesse has having long lived apart from the Queennot preceded it with that of Elizabeth. not out of ill-will, but from a love of elbowTo commence with James, is like enter-room, and a wish that each should live at ing London by the Isle of Dogs and Shore- their ease. All day long therefore his Maditch, instead of Windsor and Piccadilly. jesty is either hunting, or reading, or givIf the morning is fine, his Majesty King James is, to a certainty, going out hunting; and a singular spectacle he is. Who would take him to be the son of the elegant Mary, Queen of Scots? He is a red-faced man, corpulent, and ill-set on his limbs, with a thin beard, large wandering eyes, and a tongue too big for his mouth: and he is trussed up in a huge bundle of clothes, the doublet stiletto-proof, and the pockets ing lectures, or reading and drinking, and laughing at some new jest or masquerade, got up by these facetious gentlemen of his chamber, generally in ridicule of some actual occurrence; and the more forbidden the joke the keener is the royal relish. But besides feastings and masques of a nobler sort, which we shall notice presently, and to which he invites his friends in general, the King is sometimes entertained in |