Note 535 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Footnote 535: Or, as Mr. Major carelessly puts it, "the astounding news of the discovery of a new world." (Select Letters of Columbus, p. vi.) Mr. Major knows very well that no such "news" was possible for many a year after 1493; his remark is, of course, a mere slip of the pen, but if we are ever going to straighten out the tangle of misconceptions with which this subject is commonly surrounded, we must be careful in our choice of words.—As a fair specimen, of the chap-book style of Dati's stanzas, we may cite the fourteenth:—