diverfity of the god's titles, who was there worshipped. It was called Tor-Caph-El; which was changed to rexspaños: and Cerberus was from hence fuppofed to have had three heads. Mr. Bryant cannot help thinking, that Otus and Ephialtes, thofe gigantic youths, fo celebrated by the poets, were two lofty towers.

The differtation on Tit and Tith, which were the names given to towers when they were fituated upon eminences fashioned very round, abounds with illuftrations of the ancient mythology. From these we can only felect a few circumftances. Tithonus was nothing more than a Pharos, facred to the Sun.The Cyclopian turrets upon the Sicilian fhore fronted due Eaft and their lights muft neceffarily have been extinguished by the rays of the rifing fun. This may be imagined to be the meaning of Apollo's laying the Cyclopes with his arrows.. Tethys, the ancient goddess of the fea, was nothing else but an old tower upon a mount. Thetis feems to have been a transposition of the same name.—The hiftories of Tityus, Prometheus, and many other poetical perfonages, was certainly taken from bieroglyphics mifunderstood, and badly explained.-All the poetical accounts of heroes engaging with dragons have arisen from a mifconception about the towers and temples, which thofe perfons either founded, or else took in war: or if they were deities, of whom the story is told, thefe buildings were erected to their honour.-We often read of virgins, who were expofed to dragons and fea-monfters; and of dragons, which laid waste whole provinces, till they were at length by fome person of prowess encountered and flain. These hiftories relate to women, who were immured in towers by the fea-fide; and to banditti, who got poffeffion of thefe places, from whence they infefted the adjacent country.-There is fo much proof of perfonages having been formed out of places, that our learned Writer declares, that he cannot help fufpecting much more of ancient hiftory, than he dares venture to acknowledge. He imagines, that Chiron, fo celebrated for his knowledge, was a mere perfonage formed from a tower, or temple of that name. He entertains the fame opinion with regard to Charon, and Caftor, the fuppofed difciple of Chiron.-Trophonius was likewife a facred tower; being compounded of Tor Oph-On, Solis Pythonis Turris. By the fame analogy we may trace the true hiftory of Terambus, the deity of Egypt, who was called the Shepherd Terambus. The name is a compound of Tor-Ambus, or Tor-Ambi, the oracular tower of Ham.

There was another name current among the Amonians, by which they called their Aopo,, or high places. This was Taph; which at times was rendered Tuph, Toph, and Taphos.The Amonians, when they fettled in Greece, raised many

2

Tupha,

Tupha, or Tapha, in different parts. Thefe, befide their ori-, ginal name, were ftill farther denominated from fome title of the deity, to whofe honour they were erected. But, as it was ufual in ancient times to bury perfons of diftinction under heaps of earth formed in this fafhion, thefe Tapha came to fignify tombs and almoft all the facred mounds, built for religious purposes, were looked upon as monuments of deceased heroes. Hence Taph-Ofiris was rendered Tapos, of the burying-place of the god Ofiris: and as there were many fuch places in Egypt and Arabia, facred to Ofiris and Dionufus; they were all by the Greeks efteemed places of fepulture. Through this mistake many different nations had the honour attributed to them of thefe deities being interred in their country.-The Greeks fpeak of numberless fepulchral monuments, which they have thus mifinterpreted. They pretended to fhew the tomb of Dionufus at Delphi; alfo of Deucalion, Pyrrha, Orion, in other places. They imagined that Jupiter was buried in Crete. This error of the Grecians is ftrongly and vigoroufly attacked by our Author. He declares, that there never was any thing of fuch detriment to ancient hiftory, as the fuppofing that the gods of the Gentile world had been natives of the countries where they were worshipped. Upon this fubject he has not fcrupled to oppofe Cumberland, Ufher, Pearson, Petavius, Scaliger, with numberless other learned men; among the foremost of whom is the great Newton. Nay, he has not fcrupled to run counter to the opinions of all antiquity. All the Fathers, who treated on the matter, and many perfons of learning befides, fuppofed the gods of the Heathen to be deified mortals, who were worshipped in the countries where they died. It was the opinion of Clemens, Eufebius, Cyril, Tertullian, Athenagoras, Epiphanius, Lactantius, Arnobius, Julius Firmicus, and many others. What is more to the purpose, it was the opinion of the Heathen themfelves; the very people by whom thefe gods were honoured: yet ftill, fays our courageous Writer, it is a mistake. With fuch a formidable phalanx against him, nothing less than the extraordinary abilities and literature of Mr. Bryant could give us the expectation of his finally obtaining the victory.

The next fubject of inquiry is Ob, Oub, Pytho, five Ophiolatria; which the Author begins with obferving, that it may feem extraordinary, that the worship of the Serpent should ever have been introduced into the world, and especially that it fhould almost univerfally have prevailed. As mankind are faid to have been ruined through the influence of this being, we could little expect that it would, of all other objects, have been adopted as the moft facred and falutary fymbol, and rendered the chief object of adoration yet fo we find it to have been. Ff3

Of

Of this, ample proof is produced in the courfe of the differta tion; and it is fhewn, that as the worship of the Serpent was of old fo prevalent, many places, as well as people, from thence received their names. It would be a noble undertaking, fays Mr. Bryant, and very edifying in its confequences, if fome perfon of true learning, and a deep infight into antiquity, would go through with the hiftory of the Serpent." We can think only of two men to whom we would recommend fuch an hiftory; and these are Mr. Bryant himself, and Mr. Farmer of Walthamstow. Were both these Gentlemen to undertake the fubject, new and very different obfervations might probably be the refult of their inquiries.

The laft article we fhall mention at present, is the Cuclopes or Cyclopes. The Author takes notice, that he may appear prefumptuous in pretending to determine a history so remote and obfcure; and which was a fecret to Thucydides two thoufand years ago. Yet this is his purpose. The gigantic Cyclopes, he informs us, were originally Ophite, who worshipped the fymbolical Serpent.-But we muft not look for the Cyclopians only in the island of Sicily, to which they have been by the poets confined. Memorials of them are to be found in many parts of Greece, where they were recorded as far fuperior to the natives in fcience and ingenuity.-The Grecians, however, have fo confounded the Cyclopian deity with his votaries, that it is difficult to speak precifely of either.-The Cyclopian deity was Ouranus, and the Cyclopians were his priests and votaries: fome of whom had divine honours paid to them, and were esteemed as gods.-The Cyclopians were particularly eminent for their skill in building. They founded feveral cities in Greece, and conftructed many temples to the gods, which were of old in high repute.-They were an Amonian colony, and every circumftance recorded concerning them witnesses the country from whence they came.They were of the fame family as the Cadmians, and Phænices; and as the Hivites, or Ophites who came from Egypt, and fettled near Libanus and Baal-Hermon, upon the confines of Canaan.-There was a place in Thrace called Cuclops, where fome of Cyclopian race had fettled. Hence Thrace feems at one time to have been the feat of fcience. The notion of the Cyclopes framing the thunder and lightning for Jupiter, arofe chiefly from the Cyclopians engraving hieroglyphics of this fort upon the temples of the deity. As they were great artists, they probably were famous for works in brafs and iron and that circumftance in their history may have been founded in truth, [To be continued.]

ART. III. Conclufion of the Hiftory of Jamaica: or, general Survey of the Ancient and Modern State of that Ifland, with Reflections on its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws, and Government.

N a former Review of this Hiftory of Jamaica, we observed among other things, how feelingly the Author had defcribed those political diftempers, which owe their existence to various extrinfecal caufes; and from his faithful and patient manner of representing thofe exotic evils, he appears to us, to be tacitly foliciting a catholicon to abate their malignity.-Upon looking further into this performance, we find in fefe redit, our Author refumes his character, and proceeds like a man of ingenuity and fentiment, to prefent us with the beauties and deformities of his country and countrymen; to the end, that by proper attention and legal difcipline, the one may be improved and preferved; the other corrected and reclaimed.

Our Author throws out various lures to court the industrious into those beautiful patches, with which nature has adorned the face of the Weftern Ocean. He first removes the terror of climate, by moderating the exceffive heats. Let him speak his own feelings, and let us attend to his philofophical reafoning on local and relative heat and cold, which are fo fenfibly dif tinguished in the different parts of the island; from whence we shall be convinced, that a man has no occafion for a garment of the afbeftos to prevent his being confumed by the scorching rays of a tropical fun.

In advancing from the fea coaft towards the mountains, fays our Author, every mile produces a fenfible change towards a cooler temperature; and, after arriving among the mountains, there is feldom any caufe to complain of too much heat. In Auguft, and in the evening of a day that was thought exceffively fultry in the lowlands, I have found a fire very comfortable in Pedro's Cockpits, in St. Ann's. On the fummit of Guy's Hill, Monte Diablo, Carpenter's Mountains, and others, I never experienced a troublesome heat even at noon, under a vertical fun. The fea-coaft is likewife marked with this irregularity; and is more or less hot, according as it is more or lefs open to the free perflation of the fea-breeze. The greatest degree of heat on the higher mountains rarely, I believe, exceeds feventy-five on Fahrenheit's fcale; but the general station of the thermometer there is from fixty to fixty nine or feventy. The north fide of the island is in general cool, pleafant, and very healthy, except on the flat low parts, bordering upon the coaft. The difference of atmosphere here from the fouth fide is evident from the lefs power of the fun in forwarding maturity. The canes on the fouth fide are ripe and fit to cut in the beginning of January; but the north fide crops do not commence till the latter end of March, or fometimes later. The greater frequency of rain, and cloudiness of the atmosphere, with other correfponding caufes, obstruct the folar

See Review for Auguft.

Ff4

influence,

influence, retard vegetation, and prevent the canes from coming ear lier to maturity. It is likewife to be confidered, that, when the fun is moving in the fouthern tropic, the mountains caft a fhade over a very large tract of this fide of the country, till he has attained to fome height above the horizon; and this is repeated before he fets: fo that these parts have not near fo much of his genial warmth as their oppofites in the fouthern diftrict. So the altitude of the Blue Mountains causes, every morning during the hotter months, a very agreeable fhade to a large part of Liguanea, ftretching weftward from their foot. At fuch times of the year, the fun's disk continues, unperceived by the inhabitants, on that part for a confiderable time; the view of it being intercepted by that immenfe wall of high land. From this variety of climate it must appear, that heat and cold are here entirely local and relative; depending on fituation, whether low and level ground, or elevated and mountainous; on the propinquity or distance of hills, open to a free current of air, or barricadoed round; deep vales encircled by hills, being liable to collect the heat as it were into a focus, and in fome degree fcreened from a fteddy wind; on the nature of the foil, whether clay, fand, marshy, chalk, or marle, rocky, or other mixtures. This fhews the abfurdity of conveying an idea of the climate of any country in general, by a defcription which is only applicable to certain parts of it. The breadth of the island, and great elevation of the mountainous ridges towards its center, give it advantages that none of the smaller ifles poffefs. The atmosphere, being much heated and rarefied near the fea-coaft during the day-time, is, according to the obvious laws of nature, fucceeded by the denfer air of the mountains, which rushes in conftant streams from fun fet till an hour or two after fun-rise ; whence it happens, that every part of the coaft is ventilated by this land-wind, as it is called, flowing towards all the points of the com pafs; and that, in the middle of the mountainous region, there is often no fenfible motion of the air, though at the very fame time a fresh land breeze, proceeding from that quarter, is felt by the inhabitants on the low-lands, near the coaft, and on both sides the jЛland.'

The early and latter rains, fo often mentioned in facred hiftory, pay the fame grateful tribute to the weftern, as they do to the eastern regions; thefe feafons, as they are termed, are expected with much anxiety; they being as effentially neceffary to fertilize the plantations of Jamaica, as the interluency of the Nile is, to thofe immeafurable tracts, extending from Abyffinia to Grand Cairo; they determine the wealth of the ifland, and the planter is a prince or a beggar, from the prefence or abfence of thefe benignant fhowers. The Author presents us with an entertaining picture in defcribing the approaches of these equinoctial vifitors.

The heavy rains, which (if the feafons are regular) should fall in May and C&tober, feem to owe their origin entirely to the fhifting of the wind from N. E to S. or S. E. in the former month, and from S. E. to N. or N, E. in the latter, During this contention for the maftery, the light airs, which then gently agitate, are variable and unsteady; by which means the vapours are exhaled in abundance

from