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LIFE A N D VOYAGES OF
[BOOK I X .
CHAPTER II. DECLINE OP THE POPULARITY OF COLUMBUS IN SPAIN.—HIS RECEPTION BY THE SOVEREIGNS AT BURGOS.—HE PRO POSES A THIRD VOYAGE.
ENVY and malice had been but too successful in undermining the popularity of Columbus. It is impossible to keep up a state of excitement for any length of time, even by miracles. The world, at first, is prompt and lavish in its admiration, but soon grows cool, distrusts its late enthusiasm, and fancies it has been de frauded of what it bestowed with such prodigality. It is then that the caviler who had been silenced by the general applause, puts in his insidious suggestion, detracts from the merit of the declining favorite, and succeeds in rendering him an object of doubt and censure, if not of absolute aversion. In three short years, the public had become familiar with the stupendous wonder of a newly-discovered world, and was now open to every insinua tion derogatory to the fame of the discoverer and the importance of his enterprises. The circumstances which attended the present arrival of Co lumbus were little calculated to diminish the growing prejudices of the populace. When the motley crowd of mariners and adven turers who had embarked with such sanguine expectations lande 1 from the vessels in the port of Cadiz, instead of a joyous crew,