DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 43°) his genius, honesty, and perseverance, were not proof against the meanness, envy, and malice of his associates. We have seen that Gutenberg died a pauper; a worse fate was in store for Columbus. Shamefully calumniated after his third voyage, he was loaded with chains by the very persons whose fortunes he had made, ignominiously sent back to Spain, and there thrown into prison. A fourth time, however, he aecomplished the voyage across the Atlantic. Though he enriched the Crown of Spain with the untold wealth and resources of the new continent, he had to retire in disgrace, and died in 1506, at the age of seventy, a heart- broken and impecunious man. Posterity has erected statues to Gutenberg and Columbus. In their lifetime these pioneers of civilisation met with a small recognition, and a sorry acknowledgment of their labours. Perhaps this may not be an incentive to those who would emulate their example. Yet who would not gladly incur the same risks, and meet with the same difficulties and disappointments, for the conscious- ness of achieving such results, and the glory which has since hallowed their names? I do not believe, or expect, that I am addressing the hero of a new invention, or the discoverer of a new continent. Nor am I anxious, were it even in my power, to