ANTIQUITIES.—BOOK II. 
193 
celestial spark kindled in those happy dimes, would be carried 
to less favored regions. But the human race has every where 
experienced terrible revolutions. Pestilence, war, and the con¬ 
vulsions of the globe, have annihilated the proudest works, and 
rendered vain the noblest efforts. Ask not the sage, by whom, 
and when, were erected those lingering ruins, the “ frail me¬ 
morials” of ages which have long since been swallowed up in 
the ocean of time; ask not the wild Arab, where may be found 
the owner of the superb palace, within whose broken walls he 
casts his tent; ask not the poor fisherman, as he spreads his nets, 
or the ploughman, who whistles over the ground, where is Car¬ 
thage, where is Troy, of whose splendor, historians and poets 
have so much boasted 1 Alas! “ they have vanished from the tilings 
that be,” and have left but the melancholy lesson, of the insta¬ 
bility of the most stupendous labors, and the vanity of immor¬ 
tality on earth 1 
In the wanderings of fancy, I have sometimes conceived this 
hemisphere, like the other, to have experienced the genial ray 
of civilization, and to have been inhabited by a numerous, polite, 
and enlightened people.* Why may noi great revolutions have 
been experienced in America 1 Is it certain, that Mexico, Peru, 
* Even this idea, strange and novel as it may Seem, might, by an in¬ 
genious theorist, have an air of importance given to it, by bringingin- 
to view, some vague passages of ancient authors. Plato, in one of his 
dialogues, speaks of a people, who had come from the Atlantic in great 
numbers, and overran the greater part of Europe and Asia. Many cir¬ 
cumstances related of the island of the Atlantic, Correspond with Ame¬ 
rica. 'This occurrence, to which Plato alludes, was considered of great 
antiquity, and preserved by obscure tradition. The island was said to 
have been sunk by an earthquake The fact is certain, that amongst 
the Greeks, there prevailed a belief of the existence Of another conti¬ 
nent, in the Atlantic ocean, and inhabited by a powerful people, who, 
in remote antiquity, had invaded the old world Amongst the Romans, 
Who borrowed the greater part of their learning from the Greeks, the 
same belief prevailed. Seneca has this remarkable passage : “ In ages to 
come, the seas will be traversed, and in spite of the wind and waves, ava¬ 
rice and pride will discover a New World, and Thu e shall be no longer 
considered ihe extreme part of the globe.” Mons. Peyroux has in a 
very ingenious essay, rendered it even probable, that the ancients had 
