^{page 290 note [a]} A sermon preached before his Excellency Jonathan Trumbull, Esq. L. L. D. governor and commander in chief, and the honourable general assembly of Connecticut, convened at Hertford at the anniversary election, May 8, 1783, by Ezra Stiles, D. D. president of Yale College, Newhaven, printed by Thomas and Samuel Green, 1783, 8vo. pp. 200. Perhaps it may not be amiss to mention how this inscription came to be noticed in a sermon preached before the governor and state of Connecticut.

The ingenious preacher, fired with the idea of a new and extensive empire rising in America, supposes that the celebrated prophecy of Noah concerning his sons, and the future fate of their descendants, being at present in part only fulfilled, is to meet with its full and final completion in America.

The prophecy runs thus, Genesis ix. 25, 6, 7.

“Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.— “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.—God “shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan “shall be his servant.”

These three sons of Noah are supposed to have peopled the three parts of the world, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Some of the descendants of Ham and of Canaan settled in Africa have been long servants to the descendants of Shem and of Japheth settled in Asia and Europe; but the prophecy of the territories of Japhet being enlarged, Dr. Stiles supposes is to take place by the descendants of Japheth spreading over America, as they have done over Europe, and wholly extirpating the native Indians.

These Indians he supposes to be the descendants of Canaan, who being expelled be Joshua and the Israelites from the land of Canaan, did some of them wander to and settle in America. As a foundation, in part, for this hypothesis, he introduces these Naraganset rocks with inscriptions on them, which, being, as he imagines, in the old Punic or Phœnician character and language, he thinks were the work of the original settlers of that nation. After discussing this matter at large, he says, “The European population so far surpasses them (the Indians) already. “that of whatever origin they came, they will eventually be, as the most of “them have already become, servants unto Japheth. We are increasing with “great rapidity, and the Indians as well as the million Africans in America “are decreasing as rapidly: both left to themselves in this way diminishing “may gradually vanish, and thus an unrighteous slavery, may in God's good “providence be abolished and cease in this land of liberty.”

One more prediction I will take the liberty of recording here, “The rough “sonorous diction of the English language may here take its Athenian polish, “and receive its Attic urbanity, as it will probably become the vernacular “tongue of more numerous millions than ever yet spoke a language on earth.”

“God in his providence has ordered, that at the Reformation the English “translation of the Bible should be made with greater accuracy than any other “translation. It may have been designed by Providence for the future perusal “of more millions than ever were able to read any one book, and for their “use to the millenian ages.”

^{page 292 note [b]} M. Court de Gebelin, son of a pastor at Lausanne, and born there in 1727, came to Paris in 1763, where some years after he put out proposals for a large work to be published by subscription, entituled, Le Monde Primitif analysé et comparé avec le Monde moderne, ou Recherches sur l'Antiquité du Monde.

This work meeting with great encouragement was extended to nine volumes in 4to, when his health being much impaired by too severe an application to his studies, he was forced for a time to intermit them, and applied to the celebrated magnetic doctor M. Mesmer for relief, by whose operations he flattered himself he had received so much that he addressed a memoir to his subscribers in 1783, reckoned one of the ablest defences of M. Mesmer and his operations; but he relapsed, and being removed to Mr. Mesmer's house died there in 1784, which occasioned the following lines:

Cy git ce pauvro Gebelin,

Qui parloit Grec, Hebreu, Latin.

Admirez tous son heroisme,

It sut martyr de magnetisme.

^{page 295 note [c]} A short abstract only appears in the minutes, but I was favoured with a sight of the Whole paper by Timothy Hollis, Esq. of Great Ormond Street.

^{page 297 note [d]} See in the sixth volume of the Archæologia, p. 159, “Observations on “the Indian Method of Picture Writing, by William Bray, Esq.”

^{page 297 note [e]} Plate XIX. fig. 1.

^{page 298 note [f]} “Il semble arriver du nouveau monde tout exprés pour confirmer nos “vues sur l'ancienne communication de l'ancien et du nouveau monde. Nous “l'avons fait graver avec la plus grande exactitude; on y verra de la maniere la “plus vraisemblable, nous dirions presqu' evidente, que c'est un monument “Phénicien, et sans doute Carthaginois, divisé en trois scènes, une passée, “une presente, une future.

“La presente, sur le devant du tableau, designe une alliance entre les peuples “Américains et la nation etrangere. La scène passée represente ces etrangers “comme venant d'un pays riche et industrieux et comme ayant été amenés avec “le plus grand succés par un vent du nord.

“Les symboles et les caracteres alphabétiques de ce monument se réunissent “pour prouver que ces sont des Carthaginois; et puis en reflechissant un peu, “on n'est pas plus etonné de voir ce peuple dans ces contrees, que d'y trouver “des Islandois et des Gallois aux x^e et xi^e Siecles, et Colomb a xv^e.” Discours Preliminaire, p. 13. vol. VIII.

^{page 299 note [g]} P. 57, and 561. M. Gebelin's engraved copy of the inscription agrees pretty exactly with No. 1. pl. XIX. It would scarce be supposed he could be serious in the explanation he has given of it, by any one that did not consider how far a man may be carried by attachment to a system.

^{page 299 note [h]} See pl. XIX. fig. 2.