In 1493 a little [11]four-leaved translation into Latin of a Columbus letter announcing the discovery of islands in the west--De insulis nuper inventis--ran over Europe, startling the age by a simple relation which proved a marvellous tale as taken up by Vespuccius, Cortes, and a host of successors.{1} For a century the darkness of a new found continent slowly lifted and the record was collected in Ramusio, in De Bry, in Hulsius, and in Hakluyt, never felling treasuries of the wonderful, veritable schools for the adventurous. Another century had shown that, so fer from decreasing in greatness and in opportunities, the field of discovery had not begun to be tested, and in the summer of 1668 a new island--the Isle of Pines--was flashed before the London crowd, and proved that the flame of quest with danger was still burning. A new island! The interest was international, for nations had already long fought over the old discovered lands. 1 The intelligent industry of Mr. Wilberforce Eames has identified eleven issues of the letter of Columbus, printed in 1493, in Barcelona, Rome, Basle, Paris, and Antwerp; and twelve issues of the Novus Mundus of Vespucci us, printed in 1504, in Augsburg, Paris, Nuremberg, Cologne, Antwerp, and Venice. An earlier and even more extraordinary distribution of a letter of news is that of the letter purporting to be addressed by Prester John to the Emperor Manuel, which circulated through Europe about 1165. "How great was the popularity and diffusion of this letter," writes Sir Henry Yule, "may be judged in some degree from the fad that Zarncke in his treatise on Prester John gives a list of close on 100 mss. of it Of these there are eight in the British Museum, ten at Vienna, thirteen in the great Paris Library, and fifteen at Munich. There are also several renderings in old German verse." The cause of this popularity was the hope offered by the reported exploits of Prester John of a counterpoise to the Mohammedan power. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., xxii. 305.