Columbus in Chains. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, the discoverer of the new world, whose real name was Columbo, was born in the Geonese territory in 1441, but whether at Genoa, Savona, Nervi, or Congoreo, was long a matter in dispute. That it was at Genoa is no longer a matter of doubt. It has been asserted that his origin was humble This is of the least possible consequence, or it would not be difficult to produce evidence that he was well descended. He studied a while at Pavia, but quitted the university at an early period to follow a maritime life. Between thirty and forty years were spent by him in voyages to various parts of the world, during which geometry, astronomy, and cosmography, occupied much of his attention. At length he settled at Lisbon, where he married the orphan daughter of Palestrello, an Italian navigator. His geographical investigations, supported by the evidence of peices of carved wood, trunks of trees, and canes, drifted across the Atlantic, induced him to believe that, by stretching across the ocean in a westerly direction, the shores of Eastern Asia might be reached, and he resolved to obtain from some sovereign the means of making the attempt. Years of solicitation were spent in vain ; his proposals were not listened to at Genoa, Lisbon, or London. At length they were tardily accepted by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. On the 2nd of August, 1492, Columbus with three small vessels sailed on his daring adventure from the port of Palos. He stopped at the Canaries whence he departed on the 6th of september, and continued his onward course for thirty-five days, seeing nothing around him but the billows and the sky. Already daunted by the terrors of unknown seas, the variation of the compass, which was now first observed, overpowered the courage of the sailors, and they were more than once on the point The Character of Washington. Ir is indeed remarkable, and I believe unique in the history of men, that WASHINGTON made the same impression upon all minds, at all places, and at once. When his fame first broke upon the world, it spread at once over the whole world. By the consent of mankind-by the universal sentiment-he was placed at the head of the human species; above all envy, because above all emulation: for no one then pretended or has pretended to beat least who has been allowed to be-the corrival of WASHINGTON in fame. When the great Frederick of Prussia sent his portrait to WASHINGTON, with this inscription upon it, "From the oldest General in Europe to the greatest General in the world," he did but echo the sentiment of all the chivalry of Europe. Nor was the sentiment confined to Europe, nor to the bounds of civilization; for the Arab of the Desert talked of WASHINGTON in his tent; his name wandered with the wandering Scythian, and was cherished by him as a household word in all his migrations. No country was so barbarous as to be a stranger to the name; but every where, and by all men, that name was placed at the same point of elevation, and above compeer. As it was in the beginning, so it is now; of the future we cannot speak with certainty. Some future age, in the endless revolutions of time, may pro |