CHAP. II.

How that famous navigator, Noah, was shamefully nick-named; and how he committed an unpurdonable oversight in not having four sons. With the great trouble of philosophers caused thereby, and the discovery of America.

NOAH, who is the firft fea-faring man we read of, begat three fons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Authors it is true are not wanting, who affirm that the patriarch had a number of other children. Thus Berofus makes him father of the gigantic Titans, Methodius gives him a fon called Jonithus, or Jonicus, (who was the first inventor of Johnny cakes,) and others have mentioned a fon, named Thuiscon, from whom defcended the Teutons or Teutonic, or in other words, the Dutch nation.

I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan will not permit me to gratify the laudable curiofity of my readers, by inveftigating minutely the hiftory of the great Noah. Indeed fuch an undertaking would be attended with more trouble than many people would imagine; for the good old Patriarch seems to have been a great traveller in his day, and to have paffed under a different name in every country that he vifited. The Chaldeans for inftance give us his story, merely altering his name into Xifuthrus-a

trivial alteration, which, to an historian skilled in etymologies, will appear wholly unimportant. It appears likewife, that he had exchanged his tarpawlin and quadrant among the Chaldeans, for the gorgeous infignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals. The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Ofiris; the Indians as Menu; the Greek and Roman writers confound him with Ogyges, and the Theban with Deucalion and Saturn. But the Chinese, who defervedly rank among the most extenfive and authentic hiftorians, inafmuch as they have known the world much longer than any one elfe, declare that Noah was no other than Fohi; and what gives this affertion fome air of credibility is, that it is a fact, admitted by the most enlightened literati, that Noah travelled into China, at the time of the building of the tower of Babel (probably to improve himself in the study of languages) and the learned Dr. Shackford gives us the additional information,that the ark rested on a mountain on the frontiers of China.

From this mafs of rational conjectures and fage hypothefes, many fatisfactory deductions might be drawn; but 1 fhall content myself with the fimple fact stated in the Bible, viz. that Noah begat three fons, Shem, Ham and Japhet. It is aftonifhing on what remote and obfcure contingencies the great affairs of this world depends, and how events the moft distant and to the common obferver unconnected, are inevitably confequent the one to the other. It remains

to the philofopher to discover these mysterious affinities, and it is the proudest triumph of his skill, to detect and drag forth fome latent chain of causation, which at first fight appears a paradox to the inexperienced observer. Thus many of my readers will doubtlefs wonder, what connection the family of Noah can poffibly have with this history—and many will stare when informed, that the whole hiftory of this quarter of the world has taken its character and course, from the fimple circumftance of the patriarch's having but three fons-but to explain.

Noah, we are told by fundry very credible historians, becoming fole furviving heir and proprietor of the earth, in fee fimple, after the deluge, like a good father portioned out his eftate among his children. To Shem

he

gave Afia, to Ham, Africa, and to Japhet, Europe. Now it is a thousand times to be lamented that he had but three fons, for had there been a fourth, he would doubtlefs have inherited America; which of course would have been dragged forth from its obfcurity on the occafion; and thus many a hard working historian and philosopher, would have been spared a prodigious mass of weary conjecture, refpecting the first discovery and population of this country. Noah, however, having provided for his three fons, looked in all probability, upon our country as mere wild unfettled land, and faid nothing about it, and to this unpardonable taciturnity of the Patriarch may we afcribe

the misfortune, that America did not come into th world, as early as the other quarters of the globe.

It is true, fome writers have vindicated him fror this misconduct towards pofterity, and afferted tha he really did discover America. Thus it was th opinion of Mark Lefcarbot, a French writer, poffeffe of that ponderofity of thought, and profoundness o reflection, so peculiar to his nation, that the imme diate defcendants of Noah peopled this quarter of th globe, and that the old patriarch himfelf, who ftil retained a passion for the fea-faring life, fuperintend ed the tranfmigration. The pious and enlightened father Charlevoix, a French Jefuit, remarkable for his averfion to the marvellous, common to all great travellers, is conclufively of the fame opinion; nay, he goes ftill further, and decides upon the manner in which the discovery was effected, which was by fea, and under the immediate direction of the great Noah. "I have already obferved," exclaims the good father in a tone of becoming indignation, "that it is an arbitrary fuppofition that the grand children of Noah were not able to penetrate into the new world, or that they never thought of it. In effect, I can fee no reason that can justify such a notion. Who can seriously believe, that Noah and his immediate defcendants knew lefs than we do, and that the builder and pilot of the greatest fhip that ever was, a fhip which was formed to traverse an unbounded ocean, and had so many shoals and quick

fands to guard against, should be ignorant of, or fhould not have communicated to his descendants the art of failing on the ocean?" Therefore they did fail on the ocean-therefore they failed to America-therefore America was difcovered by Noah!

Now all this exquifite chain of reafoning, which is fo ftrikingly characteristic of the good father, being addreffed to the faith, rather than the underftanding, is flatly oppofed by Hans de Laet, who declares it a real and moft ridiculous paradox, to suppose that Noah ever entertained the thought of discovering America; and as Hans is a Dutch writer, I am inclined to believe he must have been much better acquainted with the worthy crew of the ark than his competitors, and of course poffeffed of more accurate fources of information. It is aftonishing how intimate hiftorians do daily become with the patriarchs and other great men of antiquity. As intimacy improves with time, and as the learned are particularly inquifitive and familiar in their acquaintance with the an cients, I should not be surprised, if some future writers should gravely give us a picture of men and manners as they existed before the flood, far more copious and accurate than the Bible; and that, in the course of another century, the log book of the good Noah should be as current among hiftorians, as the voyages of Captain Cook, or the renowned hiftory of Robinson Crusoe.

I fhall not occupy my time by difcuffing the huge mass of additional suppositions, conjectures and pro