etters of Columbus_, p. vi.) Mr. Major knows very well that no
such "news" was possible for many a year after 1493; his remark
is, of course, a mere slip of the pen, but if we are ever going
to straighten out the tangle of misconceptions with which this
subject is commonly surrounded, we must be careful in our
choice of words.--As a fair specimen, of the chap-book style of
Dati's stanzas, we may cite the fourteenth:--

Hor vo tornar almio primo tractato
dellisole trovate incognite a te
in [~q]sto anno presente [~q]sto e stato
nel millequatrocento nov[=a]tatre,
uno che x[~p]ofan col[=o]bo chiamato,
che e stato in corte der prefecto Re
ha molte volte questa stimolato,
el Re ch'cerchi acrescere il suo stato.

M. Harrisse gives the following version:--

Back to my theme, O Listener, turn with me
And hear of islands all unknown to thee!
Islands whereof the grand discovery
Chanced in this year of fourteen ninety-three.
One Christopher Colombo, whose resort
Was ever in the King Fernando's court,
Bent himself still to rouse and stimulate
The King to swell the borders of his State.
_Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 29.

The entire poem of sixty-eight stanzas is given in Major, _op.
cit._ pp. lxxiii.-xc. It was published at Florence, Oct. 26,
1493, and was called "the story of the discovery [not of a new
world, but] of the new Indian islands of Canary!" (_Storia
della inventione delle nuove isole dicanaria indiane._)]

[Footnote 536: _Raccolta di Navigazioni_, etc., Venice, 1550,
tom. i. fol. 414.]

[Footnote 537: See below, vol. ii. pp. 2-15.]

[Sidenote: Earliest references to the discovery.]

[Sidenote: Earliest reference in English.]

The references to the discovery are very scanty, however, until after
the year 1500, and extremely vague withal. For example, Bernardino de
Carvajal, the Spanish ambassador at the papal court, delivered an
oration in Rome on June 19, 1493, in which he said: "And Christ placed
under their [Ferdinand and Isabella's] rule the Fortunate [Canary]
islands, the fertility of which has been ascertained to be wonderful.
And he has lately di