In the circumstances immediately preceding the discoveries, whether of Columbus or of Cabot, not a single authentic fact, not an ambiguous phrase, not even a crude idea, has been revealed from which to find an indication that either Columbus or Cabot went in search of anything other than their ideal; in an endeavour to find Cathay and Cipango and "the lands of the Grand Khan," so brilliantly presented to their imagination by the book of Marco Polo, they came to "a new heaven and a new earth." But neither Columbus nor Cabot comprehended the importance of their discoveries, and they both died, as far as we can find, without realising that they had met with an unknown continent.

Having regard to this, and at the same time bearing in mind the previous attempts of the men of Bristol to find ideal islands of the West, we may fairly put the question-To whom is due the credit of the great discovery? The real truth is that in this matter, as in others, no single person is entitled to the whole credit of the discovery. We should render to Columbus the just, the unqualified praise that is his due. It is impossible to minimise his great work, accomplished as it was amidst so many discouragements, and in spite of the difficulties thrown in his way by the common enemies of all new theories. The story which relates his sufferings and persecutions will never perish. Columbus had to pay the usual penalties for being ahead of his period. He had to encounter the ignorance and indifference of the masses, the machinations of the priestcraft,1 and the duplicity of the king's advisers;

1 They contended that there could be no possibility of the return of the ships if Columbus should sail for any long distance in a direct

his funds became exhausted, his creditors seized his belongings, including his maps and charts, and his liberty was threatened. At the same time, neither our admiration for his indomitable courage nor our sympathy for his misfortunes should make us forget the services which were rendered to Columbus by Toscanelli.1 Washington Irving, the great historian of Columbus's voyages, remarks: "Columbus derived great support from a letter which he received, in 1474, from Toscanelli, a learned Florentine, who was considered one of the ablest cosmographers of the day. This letter was made up from the narrative of Marco Polo. . . . The work of Marco Polo is deserving of.. particular mention, from being a key to many of the ideas and speculations of Columbus."

The following extract from Toscanelli's letter speaks for itself: "Paul," the physicist, to Christopher Columbus, greeting. I perceived your great line towards the West. They contended that, on account of the roundness of the earth, they would go downward, and that it would not be possible to return. They quoted from the teachings of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who says: "But as to the fable that there are antipodes that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us-men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground creditable; is too absurd to say that some men might have taken ships and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants at that distant region are descended from the first man."

it

1 Paolo Toscanelli was so greatly distinguished as an astronomer that Behaim's teacher, Regiomontanus, dedicated to him, in 1463, his work, De Quadratura Circuli, directed against the Cardinal Nicolaus de Cusa. He constructed the great gnomon in the church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, and died in 1482, at the age of eighty-five, without having lived long enough to enjoy the pleasure of learning the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz, and of the tropical part of the new continent by Columbus.-Humboldt, Cosmos, Otte's trans., vol. ii. p. 644.

2 Paolo [Toscanelli].

and noble desire to go to the place where the spices grow; wherefore in reply to a letter of yours, I send you a copy of another letter, which I wrote a few days ago to a friend of mine, a gentleman of the household of the most gracious King of Portugal before the wars of Castile, in reply to another, which by command of his Highness he wrote me concerning that matter and I send you another sailing-chart, similar to the one I sent him, by which your demands will be satisfied. The copy of that letter of mine is as follows:-'Paul, the physicist, to Fernando Martinez, canon, at Lisbon, greetings. I was glad to hear of your intimacy and favour with your most noble and illustrious King. I have formerly spoken with you about a shorter route to the places of spices by ocean navigation than that which you are pursuing by Guinea. The most gracious King now desires from me some statement, or rather an exhibition to the eye, so that even slightly educated persons can grasp and comprehend that route. Although I am well aware that this can be proved from the spherical shape of the earth, nevertheless, in order to make the point clearer and to facilitate the enterprise, I have decided to exhibit that route by means of a sailing-chart. I therefore send to his Majesty a chart made by my own hands, upon which are laid down your coasts, and the islands from which you must begin to shape your course steadily westward, and the places at which you are bound to arrive, and how far from the pole or from the equator you ought to keep away, and through how much space or through how many miles you are to arrive at places most fertile in all sorts of spices and gems, and do not wonder at my