Page:The black man.djvu/229

Rh Columbus's first visit to the island is full of solemn grandeur:—

"The waves dash brightly on thy shore,

Fair island of the southern seas,

As bright in joy as when, of yore,

They gladly hailed the Genoese—

That daring soul who gave to Spain

A world-last trophy of her reign."

Our limited space will not permit our giving more of this, or other poems of Mr. Vashon. The following extract from his admirable essay in the Anglo-African Magazine, entitled, "The Successive Advances of Astronomy," is characteristic of his prose:—

"The next important step recorded in the annals of astronomy was the effort to reform the calendar by means of the bissextile year. This effort was made at the time when Julius Cæsar was chief pontiff at Rome. It is noteworthy, as being the only valuable contribution made to astronomical science by the Romans; and, even in this matter, Caesar acted under the guidance of the Grecian astronomer Sosigenes. We are not to suppose, however, that the Romans were totally indifferent to the subject of astronomy. We are informed by Cicero, in his elegant treatise concerning 'Old Age,' that Caius Gallus was accustomed to spend whole days and nights in making observations upon the heavenly bodies, and that he took pleasure in predicting to his friends the eclipses of the sun and moon a long time before they occurred. Besides, in the 'Scipio's Dream' of the same author, we find, in the course of an admirable dissertation upon the immortality of the soul, an account of a terrestrial system, according to which our