The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-04-28
PROPHETIC VOICES.
SENATOR SUMMERS BOOK.

Three columns OF the Springfield Repubi-
can are devoted to review OF, and extracts
from, the forthcoming work of Senator Sum-
ner entitled, prophetic Voices Concerning
America" part of which is here given:
Considering the discovery and colonization
of America as the greatest events of secular
history, Mr.. Sumner has here collected
many passages from ancient and compara-
lively recent writers, foretelling, more or
less distinctly, the greatness TO which this
continent would attain. He begins with
the passages in Seneca's Tragedy of Medea,
ending
Ultima Thule;
and comes down bywayof Strabo, Pulci Chap
man, Drayton, Daniel, Milton: Cowley, ETC., to
Turgot, the French statesman, Horace Wal
pole, the English wit, our own John Adams,
the later writer's; the whole work showing
an enthusiasm for his native land, ana an
extent OF rare reading, which is very
agreeable in public character like Sumner.
Seneca's verses, be says, "are vague and
lofty rather than specifc;" but Bacon, after
setting them forth, says ofthem: "a prophecy
Of the discovery of America;" and we have
them here in the translation OF Archbishop
Whately. "There shall come time in later
ages, when ocean shall relax his chains and
vast continent appear, and pilot shall find
new WORLDS and Thule shall be no more
earth's bound" Fox wrote to Gilbert Wake
field: "That prophecy in Seneca's 'Medea' is
very curious, indeed;" and Irving saws of 1t:
wonderfully opposite, 'and shows, at least,
how nearly the warm imagination of poet
may approach to prophecy. The predictions
of the ancient oracle were rarely so unequi-
vocal" The verses were adopted by Irving
as a motto on the title-page of his Life OF
Columbus" Columbus himself had read
this passage in Seneca, as Mr.. Sumner shows,
and on q later page he turns aside while
ol1 I.,dcro Cauyallfa ur0pha0v in 1907
to cite passage from Nicholas Fuller
in regard to the right of Column
bus to give his name to Amer
lea, a land which Fuller says was first peo-
Piled "by the posterity of our great-grand-
father Japheth, though he will not be very
strict with us as to the particular branch of
that wide family" He adds, (which every
where they call America; truly and deserv-
eddy they should say rather Columbins,
from the magnanimous hero.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
the Genoese, first explorer, and plainly di-
vinely appointed discoverer of these lands"
Fancy the United States of Columbins!
Judge Sewsll himself, the ancestor of
Miss Alcott and many other excellent
people, had high expectations of Bos-
ton and its environs-thaG Is, the rest
of New England; fancying it was to be. not
the Athens of America, but the New Jeru-
II II,
was perhaps moved by Herbert when he
said: :" am confident that America, though
the Youngest sister of the four, is now grown
marriagable, and daily hopes to get Christ
TO her husband by the preaching of the gos-
pel.p In a different vein a contempt
poet, the favorite of Charles l., Thomas Ca
rev, in a mask performed by the monarch
and his courtiers at Whitehall, February Is,
1888, made sport of New England, saying
that it had "purged more virulent humors
from the body polite than gaiacum and the
bodies of this kingdom" But these words,
uttered at the English court, were praised.
Then came answering voices from the colo
MES. Reverend William Morrill,, of the
established church, a settler OF 1923, said Of
New England, in Latin poem translated
by himself:
Well limbed, well nerved. fair, sweet yet for
lorn."
Mr. Sumner also quotes John Adams in
regard 10 a couplet as good as Herbert's,
but having the air of antithesis which Dry
den and Pope delighted in; so that it doubt
less belongs 10 the eighteenth century,
though the old statesmen give it more an
Client and fabulous history, reminding one
of the rebellion to tyrauts is obedience to
Godr epigram, which Jefferson insisted was
inscribed on a cannon at Jamaica, in honor
of Bradshaw the regicide. 1t was
Bishop Berkeley, however, who threw
this belief about the rising glory of the west
into its most proverbisl form of expression;
and, before quoting it, Mr.. Sumner digresses
into charming account of Berkeley, which
closes in these words: 1t was while occupied
with his plan of a college, especially as a
nursery tor the colonial churches, shortly
before sailing for America, that the great
future was revealed to him, and he wrote the
famous poem, the only one found among
his works, entitled oversees on the Prospect
Of rte and
The date may be fixed at 1726. Such a poem
was an historic event. 1 give the first and
last stanZas:-
/" The Muse, disguised at an age and cline
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.
Westward the course of enc pire takes its way:
Tie first four acts already past.
A nth shall close the drama with the day;
Times noblest offspring is the last"
1t is difficult to exaggerate
THE VALUE OF THESE VERSES,
which have been so often quoted as to be- |
come a commonplace of literature and pol |
itics. There is nothing from any oracle, |
there is very little from any prophecy, |
which can compare with them. Not |
less remarkable, however, because more in |
detail, is the prediction Of D'Argenson, the /
French idealist, in l745: Another great |
event to arrive upon the round earth is |
this: The English have in Northern Amer
lea domains great, strong, rich, well regu-
lated. There are in New England parlia-
ment, governors. troops, white inhabitants |
in abundance, riches AID mariners, which is |
worse. / say that, some bright morning,
these Nominations can separate from Eng
land, rise and erect themselves into an in
dependent republic. Mr.. Sumner also |
quotes at some length from Turgot, the
great French statesman of our revolution
airy period, whom he describes and praises
for his wisdom and behevolence. A
more entertaining writer than Turgot was
Horace Walpole, who is not generally es-
teemed as prophetic, but who had a world
wise divinarion about political affairs. Con-
corning him Mr.. Sumner says: Most I'M
like Turgot in character, but with something
OF the same spirit OF prophecy, and associa-
ted in time, was Horace Walpole, youngest 4
of Enufand'S ark able T1rin1a Tfoin;atar /