Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/666

 655 Reviews 0/ Books Age historians and geographers, together with the really important statements in Ivar Bardsen's Dcscriptio, and in Icelandic and ecclesias- tical annals. And in the same way, would it have been difficult to annex to the Cabot documents here printed the Petition and First Letters Patent of March 5, 1496 (the fundamental document relating to John Cabot's earliest "American" voyage), together with the despatch of March 28, 1496, from Ferdinand and Isabella to Ruy Gonqales de Puebla, their senior ambassador in England, Henry VII. 's grant of August 10, 1497, " to him that found the new isle ", John Cabot's pension order of De- cember 13, 1497, and second letters patent of February 3, 1498? The insertion of these (or at least of their material passages) would not have required very much space, and would certainly have been welcome to many of those for whom this admirable series is especially intended." C. Raymond Beazley. Christopher Columbus and the Neiu World of his Discovery. A Narrative by Filson Young, with a Note on the Navigation of Columbus's First Voyage by the Earl of Dunraven, K.P. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company; London: E. Grant Richards. 1906. Two vols., pp. xxi, 323; ix, 399.) This new life of the discoverer of America, although based to some extent on a study of the documents, is distinctly a popular work which offers nothing which need detain the scholar except the valuable and interesting " Note on the Navigation of Columbus's First Voyage by the Earl of Dunraven, K. P." This little treatise of some thirty pages throws light on many a passage in the Columbus narratives which the editors have left in obscurity. For example, Columbus frequently re- fers to the position of the " Guards ", Beta and Gamma in the con- stellation of Ursa Minor. There is in particular the passage in the Journal of September 30, which has been mistranslated or, if correctly translated, left without explanation by every editor of that narrative. The Earl of Dunraven gives a lucid interpretation of the passage in question and explains the use made by sailors of the position " of the Guards " in determining the time in the night. The most distinct merit in the body of the work is the rather full quotation from Columbus's own writings to illustrate his character or purposes. The translations in almost all cases are those given by Mr. John Boyd Thacher in his Columbus, who authorized Mr. Young to draw freely from them. Mr. Young's narrative is lively but too much interspersed with " purple passages ". His model as a historian has only too plainly been Carlyle, whose pale ghost meets one at every turn. In criticism he adopts Mr. Vignaud's radical and destructive conclusions ' Some of these omissions might be defended on the ground that the series is intended to be a collection of narratives and not of documents, and that it does not aim at completeness, but is made up by selection. Ed.