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32 collections, perhaps seize the indices of some general law of the globe, and describe the ensemble of its cosmic physiognomy.

The illustrious Humboldt would have wished he were Columbus, had he not been Humboldt. He sometimes appears to find in him a posthumous rival, who has preceded him in the equinoctial countries, and whose penetration has divined many of the grand principles of nature. He has more than once envied his sublime views, and secretly compared himself to him in many an occurrence. He occupied himself seriously with his actions, his particular habits, his writings. Notwithstanding this half sympathy, Humboldt, not being able to comprehend the immortal principle of such a faith, the sublimity of such a view, has misapprehended the principal phases of the life of Columbus. He has not been able, at any one time, to see him in all his entireness. When he yields to some admiration for his genius or his tenderness of heart, one would say he fears to be dominated by the noble character before him, and therefore seeks to abase it. Without espousing the animosity of Navarrete, he welcomes, without having verified them, the peevish assertions of the latter in regard to the harshness, the avidity, the dissimulation of Columbus, for the simple reason that he first admitted the charge against his chastity.

Upon this point Humboldt goes even beyond Navarrete. He laughs with a deplorable laugh at the pretended fall of that great man. This weakness appeared to him to be a curious fact, which "Navarrete has disclosed with much sagacity by the comparison of dates." He says that it was less the persuasion of his friends, and his predilection for Spain, "that prevented Christopher Columbus from returning to Lisbon, and accepting of the new offers of the King of Portugal contained in his letter of the twentieth of March, 1488, than the amours and the pregnancy of a beautiful lady of Cordova, Doña Beatrix Enriquez, the mother of Don Fernando Columbus, natural son of the Admiral,