now.

I'm afraid the distemper is beginning in his vitals, let us get up and light a candle. You don't begin to feel any fore on your tongue or your mouth, do you, my dear little chicken? It feems to me Molly did not eat her breakfaft with fo good aftomach this morning as she used to do. I'm in diftress for fear The has got the diftemper coming on.

1. The house was one day a perfect Bedlam; for having heard that rue and rum was an excellent guard in their prefent danger, the good lady difpenfed the catholicon fo liberally mong her children one morning that not a foul of them could eat all day; Tom vomited heartily ; Sue looked as red as fire, and Molly as pale as death.

12. O! what terrors and heart aching, till the force of the medicine was over! To be fhort, the child that had the dif temper died; and no other child was heard in thofe parts to have it; fo that tranquility and fecurity was restored to Mr. Tremble's family, and their children regarded as formerly, proof againft mortality.

13. Mrs. Forefight keeps her mind in a continual ftate of dif trefs and uneafinefs, from a profpect of awful disasters that the is forewarned of by dreams, figns and omens. This, by the way, is affronting behaviour to common fenfe, and implies a greater reflection upon fome of the divine perfections, than fome well meaning people are aware of.

14. The good woman looked exceedingly melancholy at breakfast, one day laft week, and appeared to have loft her ap petite. After fome enquiry into the cause of fo mournful a vif age, we were given to understand that fhe forefaw the death of fome one in the family; having had warning in the night by a certain noise that she never knew fail; and then fhe went on to tell how juft fuch a thing happened, before the death of her fa ther, mother, and fifter, &c.

15. I endeavored to argue her out of this whimfical, gloomy ftate of mind, but in vain; fhe infifted upon it, that though the noife lafted scarce a minute, it began like the dying fhriek of an infant, and went on like the tumbling clods upon a coffin, and ended in the ringing of the bell.

16. The poor woman wept bitterly for the lofs of the child' that was to die; however, the found, afterwards occafion for uneafinefs on another account. The cat unluckily fhut up in the buttery, and diffatisfied with fo long confinement, gave forth that dying fhrick, which firft produced the good

AMERICAN SELECTION.

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woman's confternation; and then by fome fudden effect to get out a grate at the upper part of the room, overfet a large wooden bowl full of milk; and both together in their way knocked down a white ftone dish of falmon, which came with them into a great brafs kettle that ftood upon the floor.

17. The noile of the cat, might eafily be taken for that of a child, and the found of a ilmon upon a board, for that of a clod; and any mortal may be excufed for thinking that a pewter platter, and a great earthen dith, broken in fifty pieces, both tumbling into a brass kettle, found like a bell.

EV

Hiftory of Columbus.

VERY circumftance relating to the difcovery and fettlement of America, is an interefting object of enquiry. Yet it is prefumed from the prefent ftate of literature in this country, that many perfons are but flightly acquainted with the character of that man whofe extraordinary genius led him to the discovery of the continent, and whofe fingular fufferings ought to excite the indignation of the world.

2. The Spanish hiftorians, who treat of the difcovery and fettlement of South America are very little known in the U nited States; and Dr. Robertfon's hiftory of that country, which, as is ufual in works of that judicious writer, contains all that is valuable on the fubject, is not yet reprinted in Amer ica, and therefore cannot be fuppofed to be in the hands of A. merican readers in general; and perhaps no other writer in the English language has given a fufficient account of the life of Columbus, to enable them to gain a competent knowledge of the hiftory of the discovery of America.

3. Chriftopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Ge moa, about the year 1447; at a time when the navigation of Europe was fcarcely extended beyond the limits of the Med. iterranean.

4. The mariner's compass had been invented, and in common ufe, for more than a century; yet, with the help of this fure guide, prompted by the most ardent fpirit of difcovery, encouraged by the patronage of princes, the mariners of those days rarely ventured from the fight of land.

5. They acquired great applaufe by failing along the coaft of Africa and difcovering fome of the neighboring iflands; and after pushing their refearches with the greatest industry and perfeverance for more than half a century, the Portu

guefe, who were the molt fortunate and enterprifing, extended their difcoveries fouthward no farther than the equator.

6. The rich commodities of the eaft had for feveral ages been brought into Europe by the way of the Red fea and the Mediterranean; and it had now become the object of the Pors tuguese, to find a paffage to India by failing round the southern extremity of Africa, and then taking an eattern course.

7. This great object engaged the general attention of man kind, and drew into the Portuguese fervice adventurers from every maritime nation of Europe. Every year added to their experience in navigation and feemed to promife a reward to their induftry.

8. The profpect however of arriving in the Indies was exa tremely diftant; fifty years perfeverance in the fame track, had brought them only to the equator, and it was probable that as many more would elapfe before they could accomplish their pur pofe. But Columbus by an uncommon exertion of genius, formed a defign no less aftonishing to the age in which he lived than beneficial to pofterity.

9. This defign was to fail to India by taking a western direction. By the accounts of travellers who had visited India, that country seemed almost without limits on the eaft; and by attending to the fpherical figure of the earth, Columbus drew this conclufion that the Atlantic ocean must be bounded on the weft either by India itself, or by fome great continent not far diftant from it..

10. This extraordinary man, who was now about twenty-fev en years of age, appears to have united in his character every trait, and to have poffeffed every talen: requifite to form and execute the greatest enterprises.

11. He was early educated in all the ufeful fciences that were taught in that day. He had made great proficiency in geography, aftronomy and drawing, as they were necessary to his favorite purfuit of navigation. He had now been a number of years in the fervice of the Portuguese, and had acquired all the experience that their voyages and difcoveries could afford.

12. His courage and perfeverance had been put to the fever. eft teft, and the exercise of every amiable and heroic virtue, rendered him univerfally known and refpected. He had married a Portuguefe lady, by whom he had two fons, Diego and Ferdinand; the younger of whom is the hiftorian of his life.

13. Such was the fituation of Columbus, when he formed and thoroughly digefted a plan, which in its operation and

confequences, unfolded to the view of mankind, one half of the globe, diffufed wealth and dignity over the other, and extended commerce and civilization through the whole.

14. To corroborate the theory which he had formed of the exiftence of a western continent, his difcerning mind, which always knew the application of every circumftance that fell in his way, had obferved feveral facts, which by others would have paffed unnoticed. In his voyages to the African islands he had found, floating afhore after a long western ftorm, pieces of wood carved in a curious manner, canes of a fize unknown in that quarter of the world, and human bodies with very fingu Har features.

15. Fully confirmed in the opinion that a confiderable por tion of the earth was ftill undiscovered, his genius was too vig orous and perfevering to fuffer an idea of this importance to reft merely in fpeculation, as it had done in the minds of Plato and Seneca, who appear to have had conjectures of a fimilar nature,

16. He determined, therefore, to bring his favorite theory to the teft of actual experiment. But an object of that magnitude required the patronage of a prince; and a defign fo extraordina ry met with all the obftructions, delay and difappointments, which an age of fuperftition could invent, and which perfonal jealoufy and malice could magnify and encourage,

17. Happily for mankind, in this inftance, a genius capable. of devising the greatest undertakings affociated in itself a degree of patience and enterprize, modefty and confidence, which rendered him fuperior, not only to thefe misfortunes, but to all the future calamities of his life.

18. Prompted by the moft ardent enthufiafm to be the dif coverer of new continents; and fully fenfible of the advantages that would refult to mankind from such discoveries, he had the mortification to waste away eighteen years of his life, after his fyftem was well established in his own mind, before he could ob tain the means of executing his defigns.

19. The greateft part of this period was fpent in fucceffive and fruitlefs folicitations, at Genoa, Portugal and Spain, As a duty to his native country, he made his first propofal to the Senate of Genoa ; where it was soon rejected.

20. Conscious of the truth of his theory and of his own ability to execute his defign, he retired without dejection from a body of men who were incapable of forming any juft

ideas upon the fubject; and applied with fresh confidence to John the fecond, King of Portugal, who had diftinguished himfelf as a great patron of navigation, and in whose service Columbus had acquired a reputation which entitled him and his project to general confidence and approbation.

21. But here he suffered an infult much greater than a direct refusal. After referring the examination of his scheme to the council who had the directing of naval affairs; and draw. ing from him his general ideas of the length of the voyage and the course he meant to take, that great monarch had the meannefs to confpire with the council to rob Columbus of the glory and advantage he expected to derive from his undertaking.

22. While Columbus was amufed with this negociation, in hopes of having his fcheme adopted and patronized, a veffel was fecretly difpatched, by order of the King, to make the intended difcovery. Want of fkill and perfeverance in the pilot rendered the plot unfuccefsful; and Columbus, on difcovering the treachery, retired with an ingenuous indignation from a court capable of fuch duplicity.

23. Having now performed what was due to the country that gave him birth, and to the one that adopted him as a fubject, he was at liberty to court the patronage of any prince who fhould have the wifdom and juftice to accept his propofals:

24. He had communicated his ideas to his brother Bartholomew, whom he fent to England to negociate with Henry the feventh; at the fame time that he went himself into Spain to apply in perfon to Ferdinand and Isabella, who governed the united kingdoms of Arragon and Caftile,

25. The circumftanee of his brother's application in England, which appears to have been unfuccefsful, it is not to my purpose to relate; and the limits preferibed to this sketch, will prevent the detail of all the particulars relating to his own negociation in Spain.

26. In this negociation Columbus spent eigh years in the various agitations of fafpenfe, expectation and difappointment; till at length his fcheme was adopted by Ifabella, who under took, as Queen of Caftile, to defray the expences of the expe dition; and declared herself, ever after, the friend and patron of the hero who projected it.

27. Columbus, who during all his ill fuccefs in the negociation, never abated any thing of the honors and emoluments