Escaping thence into France, he staid at Lyons aboutTM a year; when, not finding himself safe, he sought an asylum in England, where it is likely he concluded his " eventful history." Salgado was evidently a man of ability and learning. He speaks of his knowledge of Latin, French, and Italian, in addition to his native tongue, and appears to have procured a subsistence in this country by teaching those languages.

Birmingham, August 10, 1807.

ART. XVIII.

WM. HAMPER.

On the fanciful additions to the new Edition of Wells's Geography of the Old Testament,

SIR,

[CONTINUED FROM VOL, V. P. 414.]

TO THE EDITOR OF CENSURA LITERARIA.

It is not merely a great variety of animals which this new science, taught in the additions to Wells's Geography, proves to be on medals symbols of the origin of mankind in the neighbourhood of Mount Taurus, such as bulls, lions, eagles, goats, and serpents, but also all the imaginary animals of all nations, sphinxes, griffins, unicorns, and chimæras dire,' together with horned men, goddesses, and all other monsters of the human brain. Let us observe how ingeniously he demonstrates the truth of his assertions. In pl. 3, his No. 1, exhibits a lion with a goat on its back, and the tail of the lion wreathed round like a serpent; its end being formed like a serpent's head. This represents the chimara, which, according to the ancients, was compounded of a lion, serpent, and goat. Underneath

are

are the letters ZE, which he conceives to mean Seriphion, as he calls that island in the Egean sea, just as Pyla he before named Pylion, because the Greek legend had ruwv, and certainly there is no material. difference between a nominative and genitive case; so that his orthography is as excellent as his accuracy in quotation both here and before: for here he refers for Seriphio to the fourth c. of the Annals of Tacitus, yet it is difficult to find any such word there to countenance his own. However, whether right or not, in referring this medal to Seriphos, let us attend to his conclusions concerning it. He says "the mountain Caucasus is described as having three noticeable heads or peaks. These are symbolized in this medal, No. 1, which shews a lion, goat, and serpent conjoined, forming the chimera: it is a medal of Seriphion. Virgil calls Seriphion serpentiferam: it was a mere rock. Medalists acknowledge their ignorance of the reason why the chimæra has been inserted on its medals, and what can it have possibly to do with Seriphion? The reference is perfectly unnatural, and even monstrous; there is no conformity between the symbols and the place symbolized. Taking this as certain, I suggest that it was colonized from Seripha, a city and a mountainous district inCaucasus, placed in our map annexed, and well known and acknowledged: these colonists, to perpetuate the remembrance of their original station, adopted on their coins the insignia of that original station; thus all becomes easy. The lion, the goat, and the serpent, are the three most considerable heads of Caucasus-I have been particular on the type of this medal, because I think the conclusion clear, and shall not therefore so particularly examine every medal: here

the

the very name Seriphion has likewise been preserved from the parent Seripha." p. 18. Thus we have a new explication of the chimæra, which the ancients erroneously supposed to have represented the clearance of Mount Cragus, in Cilicia, from lions, serpents, and wild goats (named xaparin Greek) by the exertions of Bellerophon mounted on the winged horse Pegasus. I have read over the explications of ancient fables, by the well known Hudibrastic Alexander Ross, but never found there any thing so curious and learned, at least so novel. I do not dispute the certainty of this account of the origin of those islanders in the Egean sea from Mount Caucasus, but shall only observe, that I cannot find that well-known city the Seripha, of Caucasus, to be even mentioned by any one ancient whatever; and unfortunately the author himself also has forgot to insert it in his annexed map: possibly he could not find the right place for it; and, I verily believe, that Wells also has been so careless as to omit this great city, unless it be the same as Sephar or Sepharvaim; but these were certainly too far to the east for Caucasus: perhaps, it was the same as the mountain Riphah, for by adding se to it we may get Seriphah, and this addition is just as easy as when we before took away O from O-siris. Moreover, I never before met with the history of the three peaks of Caucasus, called lion head, goat head, and serpent head. But it seems unjust both in the author and other medalists to say that Seriphos had no concern with the chimæra; not indeed immediately; yet it had a distant connexion through the actions of its own hero, Perseus: for when he slew Medusa, her drops of blood produced not only serpents, some of which

travelled

travelled into both Mount Cragus and Seriphos itself, but also the winged horse Pegasus sprung from those drops;, who, flying over into Greece, was luckily caught by Bellerophon, as he was drinking at a fountain near Corinth; who directly mounted him and flew into Cilicia, where he destroyed the chimæra. So that I doubt it will be difficult to assert that Seriphos had not as near a connection with the chimæra, as with Mount Caucasus: and, possibly, the reason of its adopting for its symbol the tail of the tale instead of the head of it, Perseus himself; was, because a Perseus riding on the winged horse had been adopted by the Corinthians as their symbol, unless it be rather Bellerophon; but most certainly the serpent in the tail of the lion was well suited to the case of Seriphos, which abounded so much in serpents, as well as frogs, as required another such conquest as that over the chimæra itself, to clear the island.

The author, moreover, supports the above explication and his chief principle of such symbols, expressing the colonies derived from Noah's ark, and dispersed throughout the world, by means of another medal of Tarsus in Cilicia, at No. 2, pl. 3, exhibiting again the chimæra under the form of a lion with the horns of the goat, &c. and a human figure with bows and arrows standing erect upon the lion's back, whom he calls a Scythian; and as Scythians resided near Mount Cau-. casus, hence he concludes, that "the reference of these emblems to Caucasus is clear, on the principles already explained." p. 19. Thus this pretended Scythian forms the only connexion between the chimæra and Caucasus: but why may not that human figure represent Bellerophon himself as well as a Scythian? He nevertheless

nevertheless concludes it "to be clearly again the head, principal, or ruler, of Mount Lion and Taurus.” i. e. the commander of a Scythian tribe on that

mountain.

These inquiries are as amusing, and almost as true, as the tales which children read in Esop's fables, where mankind are instructed by birds and beasts; and which are thus, by the author, happily extended to historic as well as moral instruction: however, he does not originate all mankind from Mount Taurus, but allows some part of the human race to have come from that storehouse of all knowledge, human and divine, India. For he had read in Genesis xi. 2, that mankind journeyed from the east to Shinar; from whence then could they come except from India? And agreeably to this he found some mention made in Greek authors, "that colonies from Ethiopia, which, he says, means India, settled in Egypt and in Syria." p. 24. Now he finds memorials even of these colonies preserved likewise by the symbols on medals; for he presents us with the types of coins, struck in several cities of Syria, having a female figure, seated on a rock, and a river flowing at her feet, with a man swimming in it. Having also observed that some of these had a temple on the brink of the river, he at first conceived that the men seen swimming were the priests of the goddess on the rock, who was worshipped in those temples, and that her priests were performing their sacred ablutions in the adjacent rivers. "I acknowledge that I was long in doubt whether the swimmer denoted one of the religious persons who bathe in the river." p. 16. But as second thoughts are often best, "he afterwards, in a medal of Tarsus, found the same

goddess