EVIDENCES FROM VIRGIL AND HOMER. I Now proceed to observe, as concisely as possible, such other notices as I have met with in ancient authors, of remedies for the fevers upon which so much has already been said, it being recollected that the principal of those remedies are alum, the contrayerva root, the Peruvian bark, camphor, and thegum lac. In the first place as it has been stated before, that Sichæus, the husband of Dido, represents the pestilential fever of America; so it is very remarkable, that when in the fourth Eneid the story of Dido and Æneas is resumed, there is a special mention nominatim of the third of those substances under the character of Barce, (the bark) as the nurse, or doctor, or curer of Sichæus, 6 Æn. 632. Tum breviter Barcem nutricem adfata Sichæi Namque suam patrià antiquâ cinis ater habebat ; and though from the second of those lines there is reason to think that Dido's own particular complaint, as needing the black powder of calomel, was a fever of another sort, still more peculiarly a native of America, yet the line that comes next but one Dic corpus properet fluviali spargere lymphâ points very plainly to the bark, as the proper cure for the first fever mentioned, by a reference to the well-known story, of which the tradition is not yet extinct, namely, that the virtues of the barktree were first discovered, from the good effects produced to a person affected with the fever, from accidentally bathing in a river in which some of those trees had been blown by the wind; a story of which other ancient notices will be adduced hereafter. I am further inclined to think that in the 631st line of this fourth Æneid Invisam quærens quamprimum abrumpere lucem, and in the 692d, Quæsivit cœlo lucem, there is an allusion to alum or alumine, by a play upon the word lumen; and by ore legam (685) and rursus deficit (689) an allusion likewise to the gum lac or lack; and by finem and flammæ (640) to camphor, or camphire (as it is often spelt) the best of which comes from Borneo (a borne, or finis.) In the like manner, and under a like supposition, that the notice of the remedies in question is concealed under the veil of enigma, the following lines from the third Eneid may be set in a more interesting point of view. -sparsasque per æquor Cycladas, et crebris legimus freta consita terris. The Cycladas I take to be the West India islands, as lying between the tropical and equatorial circles, nunλos: the surgens a puppi ventus alludes obviously to the trade-wind, so favourable, on arriving at a certain latitude, to those who Nauticus exoritur vario certamine clamor. Hortantur socii, Cretam proavosque petamus. Prosequitur surgens a puppi ventus euntes: 130 make a voyage to the West Indies. Curetum I refer to the great island of St. Domingo there (quasi statio Dominicorum, or des Curés) of which island indeed we have one of the principal capes, the Mole, noticed under the word molior (132) as jamque (135) may contain, in like manner, an oblique allusion to the island of Jamaica; it being observable, that where this same country was in question in the first Æneid, there is under the word molior (421) and in jamque ascendebant collem (419), allusions to the Mole and to Jamaica, of an exactly similar kind. The 128th line (here) seems to point to the various languages spoken by the different colonists of those countries from Europe. The vast extent of the sands bordering the West India islands all around, seems to be referred to by the words ferè sicco littore, and their relation to the continent of America, by the word" amare." Et tandem antiquis Curetum allabimur oris. 135 Jura domosque dabam; subitò cum tabida mem bris Corrupto cœli tractu, miserandaque venit Arboribusque satisque lues et lethifer annus. Linquebant dulces animas, aut ægra trahebant 140 Corpora: tum steriles exurere Sirius agros. Arebant herbæ, et victum seges ægra negabat. (137) The tabida lues, affecting both animate and inanimate nature, is one of those horrible West Indian or American fevers, of which so much has already been said, and which are described by the poet in a very forcible manner. It will be seen hereafter, that the constellation Sirius has for its prototype the Isle of Cuba, and the mention of that constellation, in the 141st line, is therefore most aptly introduced here. |