Admitting this, you reply, how could they, in that early age, make their way to Ireland? which, from its extreme position, must have been the very last place they would have thought of!
If the question refers to the route pursued, I decline its solution, as not necessary for my design. “A piece of sugar, or a morsel of pepper, in a neglected corner of a village inn, would be a certain proof,” says Heeren, “of the trade with either Indies, even if we possessed no other evidences of the commerce of the Dutch and English with those countries.” And when I have already made the coincidences between the two Irans and their inhabitants, their forms of worship, their language and mode of life, to be historical axioms, I surely cannot be expected to waste labour upon such a trifle, which sinks into nothing against evidences of the actual fact.[277]
But if the length of the voyage be the obstacle insinuated, then would I find some difficulty to—do what?—keep my muscles grave: as if, forsooth, the adventurous sons of man could only, slowly and imperceptibly, and like so many ants pushing a load before them, introduce themselves, inch by inch, and in measured succession, into the diversified terraqueous globe spread abroad for their enjoyment!—when we have direct demonstration that such was far from having been the case in the instance of a colony which, starting from Tyre, and leaving behind on all sides the most inviting and delicious countries, planted itself down, perhaps from the mere spirit of romance, in the circumscribed little island of Cadiz, long before Carthage or Utica had existence even in name!
No, sir; we must not be so fond of derogating from the ancients all participation in those embellishments which promote society. Asia was the cradle of the whole human race; and thence, as its population overflowed, migratory herds in different states of civilisation, and with different forms of religious culture, poured in their successive colonies with multitudinous inundation into the other continental lands; but with more zeal, and with stronger preference, into those compact little nests which have been significantly denominated the “Isles of the Gentiles.”
Vessels rode over the briny surges with as proud a canvas as now receives the gale.[278] The model of the ark would be lesson sufficient to instruct an enterprising generation in the science of naval architecture: and we may well suppose that, of all pursuits cultivated by human art, this would have occupied the very foremost regard by a people just rescued, through its salutary instrumentality, from the desolating scourge of an all-swallowing abyss.
“Well, then, at all events,”—I fancy I hear you exclaim,—“you admit the story of the deluge?”
Certainly; and that of Noah, and the ark, and the dove, and the raven. But did I not, also, concede the story of the giants, and of the serpent? of the sons of God, and of the tree of knowledge? Nay, have I not put the truth of those particulars beyond the possibility of scepticism, much more of denial? But, believe me, that the liquid which composed this “deluge” was more of the colour of claret than it was of water;—that there was no more of wood or timber in the construction of this “ark” than there was in that of the “tree of knowledge”—that those two latter were congenial and correspondent to each other,—in their configuration and intention,—and that flesh and blood were the elements of which they were both composed.
“For all that meets the bodily sense, I deem
Symbolical, one mighty alphabet
For infant minds———”
Could the coincidence of measure[279] between the great Egyptian pyramid at its base, and that of the Noachic ark, in ancient cubits,[280] have been accidental, do you imagine? And if not, what community of purpose, do you think, had been subserved by such numerical analogy?
The triangle, in the old world, was a sacred form. It represented the properties—capacity and dilatation—of the female symbol. Lucian, in his Auction, states the following dialogue as having occurred between Pythagoras and a purchaser, viz.:—