to the fevers of which I shall have to say so much presently; Pygmalion (pig and malum, or malum porci), to the particular disease mainly in ques tion; and amorum, amantem, and dux fœmina facti, to the mode of contact by which alone the disease is contracted, while auri cæcus and Pygmalionis opes contain a general confirmation that America is the country in view, from the precious metals which are found there in such abundance.

The introduction of the European arts into America, the building of cities and founding of laws there, are all detailed in the lines that follow the 418th, and the beautiful simile that compares the sugars produced there, to the products of the labours of bees cannot be unobserved; but the point which alone here I would wish to bring into question is, what is to be considered as the original cause of the loathsome disease above noticed; and whether Virgil would appear to have intended to assign that cause? On this point I strongly incline to think that he really did intend to impute it to the eating of the Peccary, or Mexican hog; and the following circumstances

are not slight in confirmation of it, as derivable first from the fable whereby those who are affected with the disease are supposed to be turned into swine; next, from the Peccary being of the Porcus species, which gives the disease its name; and again, by reason that peecadillo, peccare and the like, are words adopted into many languages, as implying blameable imprudence or minor guilt. The Peccary is a most singular animal in its kind, extremely abundant in Peru (which may be deemed the focus of this disease, for it exists there at all times among the great mass of the people) and the rest of South America, and in Mexico also. It is thus described by Buffon: "L'espèce du Pecari, (or Peccary, as we write it,) est une des plus nombreuses et des plus remarquables parmi les animaux du Nouveau Monde. Le Pecari ressemble au premier coup d'œil à notre sanglier, ou plutôt au cochon de Siam.-Il différe cependant du cochon par plusieurs caractères essentiels, tant à l'extérieur qu'à l'intérieur; il est de moindre corpulence et plus bas sur ses jambes ;-ses soies sont beaucoup plus rudes que celles du sanglier; et enfin il a sur le dos, près de la croupe, une

fente de deux ou trois lignes de largeur, qui pénétre à plus d' un pouce de profondeur, par laquelle suinte une humeur ichoreuse fort abondante et d'une odeur très-desagréable: c'est de tous les animaux le seul qui ait une ouverture dans cette région du corps.-Sa chair, quoique plus sèche et moins chargée de lard que celle du cochon, n'est pas mauvaise à manger: elle deviendrait meillure par la castration: lorsqu'on veut manger de cette viande, il faut avoir grand soin d'enlever au mâle non-seulement les parties de la génération, comme l'on fait au sanglier, mais encore toutes les glandes qui aboutissent à l'ouverture du dos dans le mâle et dans la femelle ; il faut même faire ces opérations au moment qu' on met à mort l'animal, car si l'on attend seulement une demiheure, sa chair prend une odeur si forte qu'elle n'est plus mangeable."

In a question of this sort I cannot but think that the memorial that exists in the very remarkable abstinence of a whole religious sect, the Jews, from pig meat altogether, counts for a good deal; especially when coupled with their practice

of circumcision: the two customs taken together would seem to have in view the measures of precaution necessary for avoiding the same sort of infection; but, to confine myself at present to Virgil, it seems to me that the 634th line,

magnorum horrentia centum

Terga suum

points with sufficient clearness to the abominable filth of that loathsome animal's back, as involving taint and unwholesomeness; and the 723rd line,

Postquam prima quies epulis mensæque remotæ

is perhaps not without its bearing upon the same subject.*

* Whether the reasons above offered are sufficient to support the conjecture I have thrown out, as to the notion the ancients had of the origin of this disease is for the reader to determine. Perhaps he may incline rather to go a little beyond the opinion of Mr. de Pauw, who, though he does not impute the disease itself, yet certainly does impute the increase of its virulence to the eating of the Guana lizard. His words are these, vol. i. p. 15. "Les Lézards Iguans ou les Coqs de Joute, dont tant

But, in addition to the fable of Circe as above

d' Americains se nourrissoient, y renforçoient, sans qu' on le sçût, le principe vérolique dont tous les hommes et beaucuop d'animaux étoient atteints depuis le Detroit de Magellan jusqu'à la terre de Labrador."-" L' Iguan est un vrai Lézard de quatre à cinque pieds de long et de vingt pouces de circonférence: tont son corps est couvert de cailles rigides, &c."-" Tel est cet animal si funeste à ceux qui en mangent, lorsqu' ils sont infectés du mal vénérien : non seulement cet aliment irrite incroyablement cette indisposition, mais la ranime et la réveille lorsqu' elle paroit assoupié." There is some reason, however, to doubt whether even that limited opinion of Mr. de Pauw, as to the disease being increased in violence by the species of food in question, is correctly founded; since he himself adds in the next page, that the eating of the same animal in other countries produces no such effect. "Il faut observer que la même espèce de Lézards Iguans est fort nombreuse dans l'Asie Meridionale où l'on en a mangé la chair de tout temps, sans que jamais cet aliment y ait produit le moindre symptôme du Mal d'Amérique; ainsi il développe et aigrit ce virus par tout où il le rencontre ; sans le faire germer dans le sang de ceux qui en sont exempts."