Don G. We shall see we shall see. Look you, sir, a plain matter-of-fact man, such as I, is not to be taken in by any such preposterous story. This vaunted discovery will turn out nc discovery at all. Sec. The king and queen have given orders for preparations on the most magnificent scale for the reception of Columbus. Don G. What delusion! Her Majesty is so credulous! A practical, common-sense man, like myself, can find no points of sympathy in her nature. Sec. The Indians on board the returned vessels are said to be unlike any known race of men. Don G. Very unreliable all that! I take the common-sense view of the thing. I am a matter-of-fact man; and do you remember what I say,- it will all turn out a trick! The crews may have been deceived. Columbus may have steered a southerly course, instead of a westerly. Anything is probable rather than that a coast to the westward of us has been discovered. Sec. I saw the courier, who told me he had conversed with all the sailors; and they laughed at the suspicion that there could be any mistake about the discovery, or that any other than a westerly course had been steered. Don G. Still I say a trick! An unknown coast reached by steering west?-Impossible! The earth a globe, and men standing with their heads down in space? - Folly! An ignorant sailor from Gen'oä in the right, and all our learned doctors and philosophers in the wrong? — Nonsense! I'm a matter-of-fact man, sir. I will believe what I can see, and handle, and understand. But as for believing in the antip'o-des- or that the earth is roundor that Columbus has discovered land to the west - Ring the bell, sir― call my carriage - I will go to the palace and undeceive the king. Madame Vinet. 1. FERDINAND and Isabella, having been informed of the return and discoveries of their admiral, by the messenger whom he had despatched from Lisbon, awaited him at Barcelona1 with honor and munificence worthy the greatness of his services. The Spanish nobility came from all the provinces to meet him. He made a triumphal entry as a prince of future kingdoms. 2. The Indians, brought over by the squadron as a living proof of the existence of new races of men in these newly-discovered lands, marched at the head of the procession, their bodies painted with divers colors, and adorned with gold necklaces and pearls. The animals and birds, the unknown plants, and the precious stones collected on those shores, were exhibited in golden basins, carried on the heads of Moorish or Negro slaves. 3. The eager crowd pressed close upon them, and wondrous tales were circulated around the officers and companions of Columbus. The admiral himself, mounted on a richly-caparisoned" charger, presented by the king, next appeared, accompanied by a numerous cavalcade of courtiers and gentlemen. All eyes were directed toward the man inspired of Heaven, who first had dared to lift the veil of Ocean. People sought in his face for a visible sign of his mission, and thought they could discern one. 4. The beauty of his features, the thoughtful majesty of his countenance, the vigor of youth joined to the dignity of riper age, the combination of thought with action, of strength with experience, a thorough appreciation of his worth, combined with piety toward God, and with gratitude toward his sovereigns, who awarded him the honor which he brought them as a conqueror, made Columbus then appear (as those relate who saw him enter Barcelona) like a prophet, or a hero of Holy Writ or Grecian story. 5. "None could compare with him," they say; “all felt him to be the greatest or the most fortunate of men." Ferdinand and Isabella received him on their throne, shaded from the sun by a golden canopy. They rose up before him, as though he had been an inspired messenger. They made him sit on a level with themselves, and listened to the solemn and circumstantial account of his voyages. 6. At the end of his recital, which habitual eloquence had colored with his exuberant imagination, and impregnated with fervid enthusiasm, the king and queen, moved even to tears, feli on their knees and repeated the "Te Deum," a hymn of thanksgiving, for the greatest conquest that the Almighty had ever yet Vouchsafed to sovereigns. 7. Couriers were instantly despatched to carry the wondrous news and fame of Columbus to all the courts of Europe. The obscurity with which he had until then been surrounded changed to a brilliant renown, filling the earth with his name. His discovery became the subject of conversation for the world. This was in the year 1493. Lamartine. XLIV. THE PRIEST AND THE MULBERRY-TREE. 1. DID you hear of the curate who mounted his mare, And merrily trotted along to the fair? Of creature more tractable none ever heard; In the height of her speed she would stop at a word, 2. As near to the gates of a city he rode, While the sun of September all brilliantly glowed, 3. The curate was hungry, and thirsty to boot: He shrunk from the thorns, though he longed for the fruit; Then stood up erect on the back of his steed; On the saddle he stood, while the creature kept still, 4. " Sure, never," he said, "was a creature so rare! Yet how had it been, if some fellow this way Had, dreaming no mischief, but chanced to say Hey!" 5. He stood with his head in the mulberry-tree, And he spoke out aloud in the height of his glee; Anon. XLV. ALL THE DAY IDLE." 1. WHEREFORE idle-when the harvest, beckoning, Ere the long shadows and the night draw nigh. 3. Wherefore idle?— Labor, not inaction, Is the soul's birthright and its truest rest. EI 4. Wherefore idle? Not a leaf's light rustle XLVI. THE PIONEERS OF KENTUCKY. 1. In his peaceful habitation on the banks of the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. Daniel Boone, the illustrious hunter, had heard Finley, a trader, so memorable as the pioneer," describe a tract of land west of Virginia, as the richest in North America or in the world. In May, 1769, leaving his wife and offspring, having Finley as his pilot, and four others as companions, the young man of about three-and-twenty wandered forth through the wilderness of America, "in quest of the country of Kentucky," known to the savages as the "dark and bloody ground," the "middle ground" between the subjects of the Five Nations and the Cherokees. 2. After a long and fatiguing journey through mountain ranges, the party found themselves in June on the Red river, a tributary of the Kentucky, and from the top of an eminence surveyed with delight the beautiful plain that stretched to the north-west. Here they built their shelter, and began to reconnoitre the country and to hunt. 3. All the kinds of wild beasts that were natural to America – the stately elk, the timid deer, the antlered stag, the wild-cat, the bear, the panther and the wolf — crouched among the canes, or roamed over the rich grasses, which, even beneath the thickest shades, sprang luxuriantly out of the generous soil. 4. The buffaloes cropped fearlessly the herbage,72 or browsed on the leaves of the reed, and were more frequent than cattle in the settlements of Carolina herdsmen. Sometimes there were hundreds in a drove, and round the salt-licks their numbers were amazing. 5. The summer in which, for the first time, a party of white men enjoyed the brilliancy of nature near, and in the valley of the Elkhorn, passed away in the occupations of exploring parties and the chase. But, one by one, Boone's companions dropped off, till he was left alone with John Stewart. They jointly found unceasing delight in the wonders of the forest, till, one evening, near Kentucky river, they were taken prisoners by a band of Indians, wanderers like themselves. 6. They escaped, and were joined by Boone's brother; so that when Stewart was soon after killed by savages, the first victim among the hecatombs of white men slain by them in their des perate battling for the lovely hunting-ground, Boone still had his brother to share with him the dangers and tre attractions of |