orbed by the pursuits
to which he had, perhaps fortuitously, devoted his maturer years. If
we contrast him with Columbus, in respect to the higher qualities of
his character, we cannot but be impressed by the difference between
these two, for, while the latter was weak, impressionable, if not
passionate, the former was strong, flawless in his morals, devoted
ever to the star-eyed goddess in whose service he had enlisted for
life.

He was humane, generous, unselfish, while Columbus, though of more
heroic proportions than his rival, was at times selfish, ungenerous,
cruel--as witness his treatment of the Pinzons, his claiming the
reward for the discovery of land, which rightly belonged to Rodrigo de
Triana, his massacres of Indians in Hispaniola and enslavement of the
survivors. Against Amerigo Vespucci no such charges of immorality,
cruelty, and bigotry can be brought as against Columbus, and the sole
accusation against him, of falsifying the date of his "first" voyage,
has not been sustained by the evidence.

His eulogist, Canovai, says of him, in somewhat extravagant terms:
"Behold the transport of that lively emulation which springs from the
indisputable consciousness of talents, and is nourished by the pure
and delicate essence of virtue, which shines uncontaminated in every
footstep of the hero. It seems enmity, but is laudable strife; it
seems envy, but is a generous ambition. If Columbus had found rivals
and enemies resembling Amerigo, I should not see, as now, the
magnificent scene of his triumph so suddenly changed into mourning and
horror, the gloomy night of ignominy and mockery succeed the brief
light of ephemeral happiness, and that invincible leader, who
redoubled the power and dominions of ungrateful Castile, groaning
under the weight of infamous chains, while he asks for nothing but
liberty to carry her arms to the most distant shores of the West.

"Go now, and turning your eyes from the atrocious metamorphosis,
exclaim it is chance--it is fate; arbitrary sounds and sterile
syllables, with which no distinct idea can ever be associated. Alas!
are there not imperceptible threads by which a regulating hand guides
us through a crooked labyrinth from causes to effects, and prepares in
silence the events of the universe? Prostrated by implacable
vengeance, and despoiled of the exclusive right to discoveries and
honors, Columbus pines in inaction; but no new columns of Hercules,
beyond which the pilot dares