Maritime power, now no longer pent up within the land, was successively competed for and attained by Holland and by England: it conferred upon the one independence at home--upon the other, dominion in the remotest regions of the earth. Here are connected the first enterprizes of man and his last struggles. Hence was the path sought to Britain. Here now floats Britain’s standard. The ruins of the Temple of Hercules saw Trafalgar’s fight. Here the hero of the Phœnix, prince, navigator, trader, conqueror of monsters, fertilizer of lands, found again the tides of his early home in the Indian ocean,[7] and set up his Pillars. His mighty shade has its resting place on the spot which is honoured with his name. The next stage of discovery brings us to Columbus and Gama: this was the goal of the enterprise of the Phœnician--it was the starting-post of the Ligurian. In the unexplored waste a second Thule succeeded, and a new Peru supplied the exhausted one of old. “The stone of Hercules” and the “cup of Apollo”[8] showed the way to the regions towards which the one had travelled and where the other set. But the modern adventurers had the problem solved for them, not in the reasonings only, but in the poetry of the ancients.[9] They had divided the earth, by degrees--fixed their number and measure--they knew the length of the day--they knew how many hours the sun spent over the regions they were acquainted with. Fifteen twenty-fourths of his time they could account for. Nine hours remained unexplored to complete the circle.[10] But whilst Don Henry was daily gazing over the unmeasured expanse to the west, the use of the globes and the rationale of geography were being taught in Italy in verse. The sun must be expected, Pulci sings, there whither he hastens; where he sets, it cannot be night: space is not useless because to us unknown, nor that ocean without shores beyond which washes ours. Then there are continents bordering the deep, and islands studding its bosom; nor are these barren of herbs, nor are herbs and fruits given in vain: there, too, there must be men, who have gods like us, the work of their hands, and sorrows the fruit of their will. Read his vaticination. “Passato il fiume Bagrade ch’io dico, Presso a lo stretto son di Gibilterra, Dove pose i suoi segni il Greco antico Abila e Calpe, a dimostrar ch’egli erra Non per iscogli o per vento nimico, Ma perchè il globo _cala de la terra_ Chi va più oltre, e non trova poi fondo, Tanto che cade giu nel basso mondo. “Rinaldo allor riconosciuto il loco, Perche altra volta I’aveva veduto, Dicea con Astarotte: dimmi un poco. A quel che questo segno ha proveduto? Disse Astarotte: un error lungo e fioco Per molti secol non ben conosciuto, Fa che si dice d’Ercol le colonne, E che più là molti periti sonne.