of the true Deity. "A remark,"
says the knowing old Padre d'Acosta, "made by all good authors who have
spoken of the religion of nations newly discovered, and founded, besides,
on the authority of the fathers of the church."

Some writers again, among whom it is with much regret I am compelled to
mention Lopez de Gomara and Juan de Leri, insinuate that the Canaanites,
being driven from the land of promise by the Jews, were seized with such a
panic that they fled without looking behind them, until stopping to take
breath, they found themselves safe in America. As they brought neither
their national language, manners, nor features with them it is supposed
they left them behind in the hurry of their flight. I cannot give my
faith to this opinion.

I pass over the supposition of the learned Grotius, who being both an
ambassador and a Dutchman to boot, is entitled to great respect, that
North America was peopled by a strolling company of Norwegians, and that
Peru was founded by a colony from China--Manco or Mungo Capac, the first
Incas, being himself a Chinese. Nor shall I more than barely mention that
Father Kircher ascribes the settlement of America to the Egyptians,
Budbeck to the Scandinavians, Charron to the Gauls, Juffredus Petri to a
skating party from Friesland, Milius to the Celtae, Marinocus the Sicilian
to the Romans, Le Comte to the Phoenicians, Postel to the Moors, Martin
d'Angleria to the Abyssinians, together with the sage surmise of De Laet,
that England, Ireland, and the Orcades may contend for that honor.

Nor will I bestow any more attention or credit to the idea that America is
the fairy region of Zipangri, described by that dreaming traveler Marco
Polo the Venetian; or that it comprises the visionary island of Atlantis,
described by Plato. Neither will I stop to investigate the heathenish
assertion of Paracelsus, that each hemisphere of the globe was originally
furnished with an Adam and Eve. Or the more flattering opinion of Dr.
Romayne, supported by many nameless authorities, that Adam was of the
Indian race; or the startling conjecture of Buffon, Helvetius, and Darwin,
so highly honorable to mankind, that the whole human species is
accidentally descended foam a remarkable family of monkeys!

This last conjecture, I must own, came upon me very suddenly and very
ungraciously. I have often beheld the clown in a pantomime, while gazing
in stupid wonder at the extravagant gambols of a harlequin, all at