of fig. A 1, 2, 3, 4, of the painting, when considered as involving a pun upon lacca, lacque, lac or gum lac; under which view the inference is most obvious, by which the young woman is to be referred to India (the prototype of the sign Virgo) by the channel of which country the lac comes to Europe. A still further confirmation of this will arise by referring back to fig. 189, in which, within that object in front of the Lama, which has been above conjectured to represent the bark, may be seen the likeness of a gibbet, intended probably to suggest the recollection of a laqueus, or halter. The winged moon behind the back of the Lama, may involve an allusion to alum, or alumine (à lumine).

But, after all, there are and will be readers, who, though you multiply the instances of such puns or plays upon words, ad infinitum, yet will not admit their application, or believe it to be possible that those who embalmed the mummies or composed the classics could have been acquainted with the Spanish, French, or English languages; who find it easier, in short, to believe

that such nations did not exist in those times, than to give credit to that which they themselves must admit they do not understand. To such readers it is in vain to urge that Virgil in his XIIth Æneid has treated a subject of the nature of those above discussed, exactly in a similar manner by introducing the characters of Sucron (505) and Murranus (529); they will not believe that the first of those names has any relation to a country that yields sugar, or that the derivation of the second can be from a murrain. However much therefore it may startle readers of such a description, yet, as it makes for my conclusions, I must use the freedom of mentioning that in all that they have read about Cicero and Cecrops (for example) they have been under a delusion; for that as to the first, whose original name in the Greek is Kıɛgwv, great as we consider him as a statesman and an orator, we ought primarily to understand him as representing a cannon or kick-iron (and I know no statesman more powerful, no orator more eloquent than the cannon; however coarse or vulgar this derivation of its representative's name may be

thought). Among the names of ancient pieces of ordnance enumerated in the fifth volume (p. 248)

it may be recollected that la sirenne, or the syren, was one; and from hence arises a confirmation of what has just now been said; for I apprehend that the title of honour of serene highness applied to a certain class of princes has a reference to this piece of ordnance as a symbol and evidence of power. The second character above-mentioned Cecrops, was the founder of Athens; and it has been shewn in the fifth volume that the Athenians represented probably the maritime powers of Europe and principally therefore England: his name of Kengo, Kεxpoños, by a method no less coarse and vulgar, but at the same time not less intelligible, is to be derived from kick-ropes, or navigation. From these specimens it may be learned how the præclara nomina of antiquity, are, with any good or useful effect, to be understood.

But as the primary object of this volume was to shew that the ancients were well acquainted with America, the critical difficulty which I am about to state, may have more weight, to such an end, with

readers of the kind just now supposed, than every thing else before advanced. On examining the famous romance of Don Quixote, it will be found, that most of its principal characters have their prototypes in America or the West Indies. The knight himself, justly stiled knight of the woeful countenance, otherwise Don Jaws (Quixote being derived from a Spanish word for the jaws) has his prototype in the outlines of a mask-like face, which, with jaws sufficiently distinguishable, is exhibited by the north east coast of South America, the eye at Lake Parime, the nose at Cayenne, the mouth at the embouchure of the Amazon, and the chin at Fernambouc. His horse Rozinante (of whom, and of himself may be said precisely what Hudibras says of a character and his horse under like circumstances,

He and his horse are of a piece,)

has his prototype in the whole continent of America, which, if viewed with its east side uppermost, will exhibit the likeness of a raw-boned horse, the head formed by South America; the neck out

stretched, by the Isthmus of Darien, below, and the West India islands, above; the forepart of the body by North America, and one of the forelegs by the promontory of California. The head is precisely the caput acris equi (the head of a hot horse, with the neck outstretched), the image of likeness of which, was dug up, where Dido was to found her empire (1 En. 444), and the distinctive mark of the country, that it was

-facilem victu per sæcula gentem,

is most manifestly applicable to America (and its southern parts in particular), the fertility of which, is almost proverbial. As to the name of Rozinante, (Rosse in the French, meaning a jade, or worn out horse,) I take the whole to mean the jade of a horse, in the Andes (mountains). The knight's mistress, Dulcinea del Toboso, if I may be pardoned for being a little coarse and vulgar again, I should derive from fresh water of the tub, alluding on the one hand to the vast collections or seas of fresh water in South America, and on the other to Dulcinea (or her mother) having