His works are marked by humor, just sentiment, and elegance and correctness of expression.  They were popular both at home and abroad from the first, and their sale brought him a handsome fortune.  The “Life of Washington,” his last work, was completed in the same year in which he died. ###

[Transcriber’s Note:  See “The Life of Columbus” by Sir Arthur Helps,]

Columbus was a man of great and inventive genius.  The operations of his mind were energetic, but irregular; bursting forth, at times, with that irresistible force which characterizes intellect of such an order.  His ambition was lofty and noble, inspiring him with high thoughts and an anxiety to distinguish himself by great achievements.  He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same elevated spirit with which he sought renown; they were to rise from the territories he should discover, and be commensurate in importance.

His conduct was characterized by the grandeur of his views and the magnanimity of his spirit.  Instead of ravaging the newly-found countries, like many of his cotemporary discoverers, who were intent only on immediate gain, he regarded them with the eyes of a legislator; he sought to colonize and cultivate them, to civilize the natives, to build cities, introduce the useful arts, subject everything to the control of law, order, and religion, and thus to found regular and prosperous empires.  That he failed in this was the fault of the dissolute rabble which it was his misfortune to command, with whom all law was tyranny and all order oppression.

He was naturally irascible and impetuous, and keenly sensible to injury and injustice; yet the quickness of his temper was counteracted by the generosity and benevolence of his heart.  The magnanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career.  Though continually outraged in his dignity, braved in his authority, foiled in his plans, and endangered in his person by the seditions of turbulent and worthless men, and that, too, at times when suffering under anguish of body and anxiety of mind enough to exasperate the most patient, yet he restrained his valiant and indignant spirit, and brought himself to forbear, and reason, and even to supplicate.  Nor can the reader of the story of his eventful life fail to notice how free he was from all feeling of revenge, how ready to forgive and forget on the least sign of repentance and atonement.  He has been exalted for his skill in controlling others, but far greater praise is due to him for the firmness he displayed in governing himself.

His piety was genuine and fervent.  Religion mingled with the whole course of his thoughts and actions, and shone forth in his most private and unstudied writings.  Whenever he made any great discovery he devoutly returned thanks to God.  The voice of prayer and the melody of praise rose from his ships on discovering the new world, and his first action on landing was to prostrate himself upon the earth