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908MAIL.December 1, 1879.The Exploration of the World. By Jules Vcrnc.Translated from the French. London: SampsonLowe, Marston, Searlc, and Rivington.The compilation of this hook is the heaviest task which M. Jules Verne has taken upon himself toaccomplish. Unlike the hulk of his other productions, it is entirely free from the aid of fiction, and deals directly with actual facts which have been placed on record. These have heen collected with a prodigious amount of labour, the sources of information being multifarious and not unfrequontly contradictory. The author has no doubt had able assistants, but the most irksome of the work must have fallen on himself, the mere duties of direction and control heing arduous and harassing. He begins his work with a narrative of what was done 500 years before Christ, when Hanno the Carthaginian started on an expedition to found a colony on the west coast of Africa From this time the history of exploration is pretty uniform, although it was not until nearly two thousand years afterwards that the voyagers and travellers became a multitude. The volume before us, which is a bulky one of 432 pages, illustrated with 109 full-page woodcuts, not incorporated with the text, brings down the history of exploration to the close of the seventeenth century. Although, however, the volume deals with a vast period of time, it is certain that not more than half of the subject has been gone over ; and although the author hopes to compress all that follows into a second volume, he would certainly find no difficulty in filling two or three more. The illustrations are in about equal proportions the work of modem artists, and reproductions of the cuts and maps which adorned the early editions of the books issued by the voyagers and travellers themselves. The work of compilation appears to have been very conscientiously performed, and although from its very nature errors must have been made and omissions must have occurred, it is evident that very great care has been taken to keep their number down to a minimum, and we may be sure that no unworthy influence has interfered with the full development of reliable facts unbiassed by national preferences. To test this our estimate of the reliability that may bo placed on M. Verne’s work, wo shall transcribe what he says about the early voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot, who discovered the main land of America, within about two years of the discovery by Columbus of the island of San Salvador, and five years before the discovery of tho continent of South America. The account runs thus:—•“ All that concerns John and Sebastian Cabot has been until recently shrouded by a mist which is not even now completely dissipated, notwithstanding the conscientious labours of Biddle the American in 1831, and of our compatriot M. d’Avezac; as also those of Mr. Nicholls the Englishman, who taking advantage of the discoveries made among the English, Spanish, and Venetian archives, has built up an mposing monument, of which some parts, however, are open to discussion. It is from the two last-named works that we shall draw the materials for this rapid sketch, but principally from Mr. Nicholls’ book, which has this advantage over the smaller volume of M. d’Avezac, that it relates the whole life of Sebastian Cabot.“ It has been found impossible to determine with certainty either the name or the nationality of John Cabot, and still less to settle the period of his birth. John Cabota, Caboto or Cabot must have been born, if not in Genoa itself, as M. d’Avezac asserts, at least in the neighbourhood of that town, possibly at Castiglione, about .the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Some historians have considered that he was an Englishman, and perhaps Mr. Nicholls from national considerations is inclined to adopt this opinion; at least this seems to be the meaning of the expressions used by him. What we do know without room for doubt, is that John Cabot came to London to occupy himself with commerce, and that he sooiujgettled at Bristol, then the second town in tho kingdom, in one of tho suburbs which had received the name of Cathay, probably from the numberof Venetians who rcsidod there, and the trade carried on by them with the countries of the extreme East.It was at Bristol that Cabot’s two youngest children were horn, Sebastian and Sancho, if wo may rolyupon the following account given by the old chroniclerEden. ‘ Scbaslian Cabot told mo that ho was horn at Bristol, and that at four years of age ho went with his father to Venice, returning with him to England some years later; this made people imagine that he was born at Venice.’ In 1476 John Cahot was at Venice, and there on the 29th of March, he received letters of naturalization, which prove that he was Mot a native of this city, and that ho must have merited the honour by some service rendered to the Republic. M. d’Avezac is inclined to think that he devoted himself to the study of cosmography and navigation, perhaps even in company with the celebrated Florentine, Paul Toscanelli, with whoso theories upon the distribution of land and sea on the surface of the' globe, he would certainly bo acquainted at this time. Ho may also have heard mention made of the islands situated in tho Atlantic, and known by tho names of Antilia, the Land of tho Seven Cities, or Brazil. What seems more certain is, that his business affairs took him to the Levant, and, it is said, to Mecca, and that while there he would learn from what country came the spices, which then constituted the most important branch of Venetian commerce.“ Whatever value we may attach to these speculative theories, it is at least certain that John Cabot founded an important mercantile house at Bristol. His son Sebastian, who in these first voyages had acquired an inclination for the sea. studied navigation, as far as it was then known, and made some excursions on the sea, to render himself as familiar with the practice of this art, as he already was with its theory. ‘ For seven years past,’ says the Spanish Ambassador in a despatch of tho 25th of July, 149S, speaking of an expedition commanded by Cahot,‘ the people of Bristol have fitted out two, three, or four caravels every year, to go in search of the Island of Brazil, and of the Seven Cities, accordingto the deas of the Genoese.’ At this time the whole■*of Europe resounded with the fame of the discoveries of Columbus. ‘ It awoke in me,’ says Sebastian Cabot, in a narrative preserved by Ramusio, ‘ a great desire and a kind of ardour in my heart to do myself also something famous, and knowing by examining the globe, that if I sailed by the west wind I should reach India more rapidly, I at once made my project known to His Majesty, who was much satified with it.’ Tho king to whom Cabot addressed himself was the same Henry VII. who some years before had refused all support to Christopher Columbus. It is evident that he received with favour the project which John and Sebastian Cabot had just submitted to him; and though Sebastian, in the fragment which we have just quoted, attributes to himself alone all the honour of the project, it is not less true that his father was the promoter of the enterprise, as the 'following charter shows, which we translate in an abridged form.‘ ‘ ‘ We Henry .... permit our well-beloved Jehan Cabot, citizen of Venice, and Louis, Sebastian, and Sancho, his sond, under our flag and with five vessels of the tonnage and crew which they shall judge suitable, to discover at their own expense and charge .... we grant to them as well as to their heirs and assigns, licence to occupy, possess .... at the charge of, by them, upon the profits, benefits, and advantages, accruing from this navigation, to pay us in merchandise or in money the fifth part of the profit thus obtained, for each of their voyages, every [time that they shall return to the port of Bristol (at which port they shall be compelled to land) .... We promise and guarantee to them, their heirs and assigns, that they shall be exempt from all custom-house duties on' the merchandise which they shall bring from the countries thus discovered .... We command and direct all our subjects, as well on land as on the sea, to render assistance to the said Jehan, and to his sons.....Givenat ... . the 5th day of March, 1495.’“ Such was the charter that was granted to John Cabot and his sons upon their return from the American continent, and not as certain authors have pretended, anterior to this voyage. From the time that the news of the discovery made by Columbus had roached England, that is to say, probably in 1493, John and Sebastian Cabot prepared the expedition at their own expense, and set out at tho beginning of the year 1494, with the idea of reaching Cathay, and finally tho Indies. There can be no doubt upon this pomt, for in the Bibliotheque Na-tionale in Paris is preserved an unique copy of tho map engraved in 1544, that is to say, in the lifetime of Sebastian Cabot, which mentions this voyage, and tho precise and exact date of the discovery of Capo Breton.“ It is probable that we must attribute to the intrigues of the Spanish Ambassador tho delay which occurred in Cabot’s expedition, for the whole of tho year 1496 passed without tho voyage being accomplished.“ The following year he set out at the beginning of summer. After having again sighted the Terra Bona-vista, ho followed the coast, and was not long in pcrcoiving to his great disappointment that it trended towards the north. ‘ Then sailing along it to make sure if I could not find some passage, I could not perceive any, and having advanced as far as 56°, and seeing that at this point the land turned towards the east, I despaired of finding any passage, and I put about to examine the coast in this direction towards tho equinoctial lino, always with the same object of finding a passage to tho Indies, and in the end I reached tho country now called Florida, Avhere as provisions were beginning to run short, I resolved to return to England.’ This narrative, of which we have given the commencement above, was related by Cabot to Fracastor, forty or fifty years after the event. Also, is it not astonishing that Cahot mixes up in it two perfectly distinct voyages,that of 1494 and that of 1497 ? Let us add some reflections on this narrative. Tho first land seen was, without doubt, tho North Cape, the northern extremity of the island of Capo Breton, and the island which is opposite to it is that of Prince Edward, long known by the name of St. John’s Island. Cabot probably penetrated into the estuary of the St. Lawrence, which he took for an arm of the sea, near to the place where Quebec now stands, and coasted along the northern shore of the gulf, so that he did not see the coast of Labrador stretching away in the oast. He took Newfoundland for an archipelago, and con tinned his course to the south, not, doubtless, as far as Florida a3 he states himself, the time occupied by the voyage making it impossible that ho can have descended so low, but as far as Chesapeake Bay. These were the countries which the Spaniards afterwards called ‘ Terra de Estevam Gomez.’ ”The History of France from the Earliest Times to the Outbreak of the Revolution. Abridged from Mr. Robert Black’s Translation of M. Guizot’s larger History. By Gustave Masson, B.A. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.M. Guizot has been universally regarded as the most trustworthy of tho historians of France. But for English readers his larger history is too voluminous, and as it is filled to a considerable extent with reprints of documents and extracts from contemporary authorities, it is possible to reduce its bulk without injury to the portion which is from his own pen. As tho history is brought down to the outbreak of tho Revolution only, there is an utter absence of the partisan bias which subsequent writers have been unable altogether to avoid. The volume contains a very carefully compiled chronological table ; and there is appended a list of references to all the documents which are quoted in tho larger work but excluded from the abridgement. There are also tables of tho feudal dismemberment of France in the ninth and tenth centuries, genealogical tables of the various dynasties, and a list of the principal parliaments. The work is judiciously illustrated.Counterpoint, a Practical Course of Study. By G. A. Macfarren, Mus. Doc., M.A., Professor of Music in the University of Cambridge, and Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. Cambridge : at tho University Press.Tiieue are wide differences of opinion as to the necessity for the possession of a thorough knowledge of counterpoint by a composer of music. By some it is held that without counterpoint a musical education is worthless, and by others that an acquaintance with it is a positive drawback. The argument is something like that which is kept up regarding the acqi rement of the dead languages, or as to whether a knowledge of geometry can be acquired without Euclid. The fact is, however, that all knowledge is valuable not only for its own sake, but as a beneficial mental exercise and stimulus. All knowledge, moreover, is useful, and if those who possess it do not find it so, the fault lies with themselves.The objection against the artificiality of counterpointwould hold good against a great many other thingsthat are indispensable. ProfessQr Macfarren wisely
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