iam Godwin (4 volumes, London, 1804); Tyrwhitt's edition of
Canterbury Tales; Speglet's edition of Chaucer; Warton's History of
English Poetry; St. Palaye's History of Chivalry; Chaucer's England, by
Matthew Browne (London, 1869); Sir Harris Nicholas's Life of Chaucer;
The Riches of Chaucer, by Charles Cowden Clarke; Morley's Life of
Chaucer. The latest work is a Life and Criticism of Chaucer, by Adolphus
William Ward. There is also a Guide to Chaucer, by H.G. Fleary. See also
Skeat's collected edition of Chaucer's Works, brought out under the
auspices of the Early English Text Society.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

* * * * *

A. D. 1446-1506.

MARITIME DISCOVERIES.

About thirteen hundred years ago, when Attila the Hun, called "the
scourge of God," was overrunning the falling empire of the Romans, some
of the noblest citizens of the small cities of the Adriatic fled, with
their families and effects, to the inaccessible marshes and islands at
the extremity of that sea, and formed a permanent settlement. They
became fishermen and small traders. In process of time they united their
islands together by bridges, and laid the foundation of a mercantile
state. Thither resorted the merchants of Mediaeval Europe to make
exchanges. Thus Venice became rich and powerful, and in the twelfth
century it was one of the prosperous states of Europe, ruled by an
oligarchy of the leading merchants.

Contemporaneous with Dante, one of the most distinguished citizens of
this mercantile mart, Marco Polo, impelled by the curiosity which
reviving commerce excited and the restless adventure of a crusading
age, visited the court of the Great Khan of Tartary, whose empire was
the largest in the world. After a residence of seventeen years, during
which he was loaded with honors, he returned to his native country, not
by the ordinary route, but by coasting the eastern shores of Asia,
through the Indian Ocean, up the Persian Gulf, and thence through Bagdad
and Constantinople, bringing with him immense wealth in precious stones
and other Eastern commodities. The report of his wonderful adventures
interested all Europe, for he was supposed to have found the Tarshish of
the Scriptures, that land of gold and spices which had enriched the
Tyrian merchants in the time of Solomon,--men supposed by some to have
sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in their three years' voyages. Among
the wonderful things which Polo had see