exchange it for a sunnier dwelling-place, and thus, instead of becoming
a merchant, he became the founder of Norman dynasties in Italy, France,
and England. We are tempted to linger over the story of these primaeval
mariners, for nothing equals it in romance. In our day Science has gone
before the most adventurous barque, limiting the possibilities of
discovery, disenchanting the enchanted Seas, and depriving us for ever
of Sinbad and Ulysses. But the Phoenician and the Northman put forth
into a really unknown world. The Northman, moreover, was so far as we
know the first ocean sailor. If the story of the circumnavigation of
Africa by the Phoenicians is true, it was an astonishing enterprise, and
almost dwarfs modern voyages of discovery. Still it would be a coasting
voyage, and the Phoenician seems generally to have hugged the land. But
the Northman put freely out into the wild Atlantic, and even crossed it
before Columbus, if we may believe a legend made specially dear to the
Americans by the craving of a new country for antiquities. It has been
truly said, that the feeling of the Greek, mariner as he was, towards
the sea, remained rather one of fear and aversion, intensified perhaps
by the treacherous character of the squally AEgean; but the Northman
evidently felt perfectly at home on the ocean, and rode joyously, like a
seabird, on the vast Atlantic waves.

Not only is a race which comes by sea likely to be peculiarly vigorous,
self-reliant, and inclined, when settled, to political liberty, but the
very process of maritime migration can scarcely fail to intensify the
spirit of freedom and independence. Timon or Genghis Khan, sweeping on
from land to land with the vast human herd under his sway, becomes more
despotic as the herd grows larger by accretion, and the area of its
conquests is increased. But a maritime migration is a number of little
joint stock enterprises implying limited leadership, common counsels,
and a good deal of equality among the adventurers. We see in fact that