Tl,. A ti,« » um -a »eokly print, oC »l.icl. very likol, the v.ntlnr nnver bntoro h.ntd-.dmitted
•ictures on a suppressed copy of tliis work, (the only copy then extant, and even that it belied,)
trick althoiidi furnished by mv publisher with the genuine one: a .....m..-a.d..e.. ..t.h..r..i.c..e.. ..c..o. ntemptible. b-y tlic
universal plaudits of the critical press, which immediately followed the appearance of the volume.
The corsair of the high seas of literature is. now, formidable to those only who carry freight not wovtl.
the defence of a gun: his is no brave buccaneer mind but cowardly Greek, and his small shot serves but
to prove wliat is or is not sound timber. So, by this despised means am I acquainted with pevliaps the
only typographical error to be found in ray letter-press, which 1 gladly correct, page 31, line 6. rcmZ,
'■ Vowles of Street found ii in Mog’s quarry there.”
Lastly, the genius of our language—crowded with unmusical dipthongs—is averse to compound
words without which a lexicon of the sciences were a world of folios, another Chinese vocabulary ol
infinite characters that would hold memory in defiance: hence the necessity for the Greek and Latin.
Even these have limits to their use. and some cases exist in which they are really cumbersome-for
instance, a nomenclature for the mmiy-branchcd Ichthyoi and Plesion-saurian genera, which should well
erpress their most penaanent osteological features. But “ unmoutliablc" as are the names chosen for this
end the principle of their construction is so true tliat I see no more reason against them now then wlicn at
the advice of my most classical fricnds-I adopted them. Let any person but propose a more convenient
dictionary of terms, it shall appear, as I have before said, in my third edition. But the Januarian temple
of the learned world has never been closed, nor, as regards words and tlicir inferences, slia I its rusLy-
hinsred gates ever be, until we recover the tongue indigenous to our race. Oh, where is the language o
the G a rd en -“ l i v '- t i s , surely, amongst the jargons that come of Babel: the Syrian! the Syrian
may teach it, and Asia become again, as in former time, the mistress of the miUennian earth, ol wlucn
she is the veritable garden, wine-prcss and granary. .
Asia was the birth-place of the aboriginal “ DIN,” Adam, the theatre of the gorgeous antediluvian
drama and the Golgotha of those giants of might and wickedness, the old Adamites. Let the cynical
but degenerate and vain modern prate as lie lists, still, Asian is the primitive root of mankind, Asian the
inspired revelation of their momentous destinies, and Asian shall be the final scene of our sub unary
This, in reference to the past, is the age of heresy. Men, despising experience and sacrificing the
helps and appliances formerly held sacred, launch into the ocean of doubt with reason for a compass and
passion a pole: there, tossed to-and-fro of their own tempestuous selves, the scant ballast found in
their frao-ile bark is thrown overboard, and tliey drive about at the mercy of wind and wave. In vain
the good and wise lift up the voice of instruction; in vain oppose they folly and vice :-destruction
threatens the few scattered sanctuaries which ancient tiraes-less reckless and impious tlian ouvs-spare<l,
refuges for the pining virtues that yet linger on the earth. Even the Palladium of the great wor d -
Holy-Writ—the hope, the last hope of every living soul, the presumptuous spirit of the day lays
sacriligeous liand upon.—Arm, arm to the teeth ye trusty men ; arm, arm for its defence. ^
Yea forsooth, the time and the raan.iDr of the Mosaic cosmogony is objected to by this Athenian
generation, wliicli will not learn how that ihc .lews possessed no precise chronological systern until the
Septuagint adopted a heathenish one. totally inapplicable to the divine “ Book of Books, and that the
Hebrew “DV,’'yoim. of the “ 13D" or book of Genesis, signifies any other period as well as
d a y '- th a t the light of the sun is but one of many kinds-kinds so adverse that they have been called
male and female :- a n d that the flora of the pre-solar-light-planet is unlike that of the prescnt-the
sun-lit and rejoicing one. For answer to the infamous but specious objection to the fourteenth vei
of
the first chapter of Genesis, read i t - “ let tliere be lights-niNO, vieoroth.'-ooi let there be sun and
moon. In proof of tlie several creative epochs, examine we the crust of tlie earth : first—in descending
order—we find bones of terrestrial creatures, in the various gravels and clays of tlie Tertiary Rocks ; the
relics these of the races created on the sixth “ day.” In the Secondary Beds are found-a t Stonesfield.
Maestrich, Street, Lyme, &c.—bird-like animals and great lizards, the “ eiat,” ouph, and “ DJ’jnn,
hataninim. of the fifth period. Tlie Coal Measures are the repository of the vegetables that flourished m
the third era. Thus find w e -in the ascending orde r-in exact coincidence with the heaven-bestowed
Record, vegetables, then bird-like animals and lizards, and lastly terrestrials. I cliallengc the lie ,-th e
order is never inverted, for nature-more faitliful to her Maker than m an -h a s guarded H.s archives
both from the stealthy thief and impudent interpolator. Oli the spider meshes by which the simple arc
ensnared! But the fortunes of man are allied to those of God. and though perilled they be, yet. the
“ Covenant of eternity,” ensures them a happy consummation.
Correlative too with the Mosaic or divine is every profane cosmogony held by the ancients,
whose numerical computations are less satisfactory than tliose—previous to the Alcxandi-ine—even
of the Children of Israel. The Phcenician history, preserved by the Coesaviaii Euselnus, and that
of the Egyptians, recorded by Diodorus Siculus, seem to claim no demi-urgus, but tlie a principle to
which they attribute so much action, is the synonym of the Hebrew “ n n .” ruah, as tliu late researches
ofChampollion and his coadjutors and the Herniaic fragments triumphantly show.
The Ciialdcan Berosus writes of a time when darkness and water were the Universe, and of monsters
of mixed kinds, most frightful, pictures of which were preserved in the temple of Bel, wliose dismal ruin
yet shadows the Euphratian waters. That Bel dividing Thalilutho—one of the chief elements of Llie
Assyrian philosophy—tlie monsters—the ouph and hataninim perished.
The Platonical and Gnostical fables, shamefully fathered upon the Bactrian Zoroaster, are part and
parcel of the ambitious and cunning Greek conspiracies that distinguish the second, third and foui lh
centuries of the Christian Era, and unworlliy of particular notice ; but even these have some concurrency
with the great Hebrew authority and miglu, if well analysed, yield us much move valuable information
tlian ive at present dream of.
Of the gcotio tenets of the Chinese and of the extinct Druids wc shall know nothing until the
literature of the former people is better understood, and the viijl question concerning tlie far-famed round
towers of Ireland and of other lands is solved. Or, let Continental India be decreed another Jones within
a centenary of years—before her histoiied fanes and idols fall like the Philistine Dagoii at the presence
of the True God—he may find them a lamp which shall procure him unexpectedly—like that of Aladdin—
the countless treasures deep buried in the transcendental Vcdam, Shaster, and Puran.
Tlic chronology of this mundane orb is inscribed on mountain and valley in character superhuman
and sublime. Wc gaze thereon in amazement, but who interprcteth the marks of the finger of GOD,
and what mortal comprehendeth HIS ways ?
Ye relics of old. continents! ye forsaken channel-beds of restless ocean! teach us the number of your
days and tlie pages of your mutable fate. Ah I—wrecks of an often wrecked world I ye reckon cycles of
years inconceivably vast—years that shrink the brick calendars of Babylon into a span, into a moreel of
space! But the Enochian pyramid may yet be threaded, and may be the pillars of Seth remain the
secret of your days may yet transpire—to an end ye sliall surely come. Man, here too fallen and
impotent and of too short a duration to decipher ye, has yet one life of term more indefinite than youi-s I
Heir to both dread hemispheres the p.ast and to comb, he shall yet number and survive your age,
solaced for ever and for ever in the bosom of his E ternal Sire.
Dccmbcr, 1S3‘*.