He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods Doth walk a king; for him the pent-up cell Widens beyond the circles of the stars, And all the sceptered spirits of the past Come thronging in to greet him as their peer; While, like an heir new-crowned, his heart o'erleaps The blazing steps of his ancestral throne.--_Ibid._ Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America.--_Ibid._ THE PATIENCE OF COLUMBUS. From "Columbus," a poem by the same author. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Chances have laws as fixed as planets have; And disappointment's dry and bitter root, Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool Of the world's scorn are the right mother-milk To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind, And break a pathway to those unknown realms That in the earth's broad shadow lie enthralled; Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts; These are their stay, and when the leaden world Sets its hard face against their fateful thought, And brute strength, like a scornful conqueror, Clangs his huge mace down in the other scale, The inspired soul but flings his patience in, And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe-- One faith against a whole world's unbelief, One soul against the flesh of all mankind. * * * * * I know not when this hope enthralled me first, But from my boyhood up I loved to hear The tall pine forests of the Apennine Murmur their hoary legends of the sea; Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld The sudden dark of tropic night shut down O'er the huge whisper of great watery wastes. * * * * * I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjoerne's keel Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore. Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams, O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night My heart flies on before me as I sail; Far on I see my life-long enterprise! * * * * * LYTTON (Lord). See _post_, "Schiller." * * * * * VESPUCCI AN ADVENTURER. THOMAS BABINGTON, Baron MACAULAY, one of England's most celebrated historians. Born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800; died, December 28, 1859. Vespucci, an adventurer who accidentally landed in a rich and unknown island, and who, though he only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquired possession of its treasures and gave his name to a continent which should have derived its appellation from Columbus. COLUMBUS NEITHER A VISIONARY NOR AN IMBECILE. CHARLES P. MACKIE, an American author. From his "With the Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Published by Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.