LIFE OF COLON, BY HIS SON. *7

foi*e, the better to difcover his miftake, I will, in the firft place, fet down what Ariftotle,as related by one F. Theophilus de Ferrariis fays as to this point •, which F. Theophilusamong Ariftotle’s problems collected by him, brings in a book called De admirandis innatura auditis , a chapter with thefe following words : “ Beyond Hercules’s pillars itis reported there was formerly found an ifland in the Atlantic fea by certain Cartha-ginian merchants, which had never before been inhabited by any but brute beafts. Itwas all wooded and covered with trees, had a great many navigable rivers, andabounded in all things nature ufually produces, though removed not many days failfrom the continent. It happened that fome Carthaginian merchants coming to it, andfinding it a good country, as well for the richnefs of the foil as temperature of the air,they began to people it ; but the fenate of Carthage being offended at it, foon made apublic decree, that for the future no perfon upon pain of death ihould go to that ifland,and they that went firft were put to death •, to the end that other nations fhould nothear of it, and fome more powerful people take poffeflion of it, by which means itmight become an enemy to their liberty.” Now I have faithfully quoted this autho-rity, I will give the reafons that induce me to fay, that Oviedo has no juft caufe to affirmthat this ifland was Hifpaniola or Cuba , as he afferts. In the firft place, becaufe Gon-zalo de Oviedo not underftanding Latin , he of neceffity took fuch interpretation of thisplace as fomebody made him ; who, by what we fee, did not well know how to tranflateout of one language into another, fince he altered and changed the Latin text in feveralparticulars, which perhaps deceived Oviedo, and inclined him to believe that this quo-tation fpoke of fome ifland in the Indies; becaufe we do not read in the Latin text thatthefe people went out of the Streights of Gibraltar , as Oviedo writes ; nor much lefs thatthe ifland was large, nor its trees great, but that it was an ifland much wooded. Noris it found there, that the rivers were wonderful; nor does it fpeak of its fatnefs, or fayit was more remote from Africk than Europe , but in plain terms fays it was remotefrom the continent •, nor does it fay any towns were built there, for traders who hap-pened upon it could build but little ; nor is it faid to be famous, but that they wereafraid its fame would fpread abroad into other nations. So that the expofitor whointerpreted this place to him being fo ignorant, it caufed Oviedo to imagine it to beanother thing than really it was; and if he Ihould fay that it is otherwife m Arutotle stext, and that what the friar writes is as it were a compendium of what Ariftotle wiit; 1mull atk him who gave him authority to beftow fo many kingdoms on whom he pleaies,and to rob one of his honour who has gained it fo fairly, and tell him he ought not tohave been fatisfied with reading that authority as it lies in the friar’s pamphlet, butIhould have feen it in the original, that is, in Ariftotle’s works. Befides that he wasmifinformed in this cafe, for though Theophilus in all his other books following ri-totle, delivered the fubftance and fum of what he fays; yet he did not fo m isbook De admirandis ., he himfelf owning in the beginning, that he does not m t at isbook abridge Ariftotle, as he has done in the others, but that he there inferts a 11 ®text word for word; and therefore it cannot be faid there was either more or e sin Ariftotle than what he fet down. Add to this, that Anthony Beccaria o erona,who tranflated this book out of Greek into Latin , of which tranflation 1 heop iusmade ufe, did not render it fo faithfully, but that he inferted feveral matters ditteringfrom the Greek original, as will appear to any man that fhall obferve it. .

In the fecond place I fay, that though Ariftotle had writ fo as Theophilus delivers i ,yet Ariftotle himfelf quotes no author, but as fpeaking of a thing for which theie is nogood authority, fays, Fertur, which implies that what he delivers concerning this i a ,he writes as doubtful and ill grounded. Befides he writes of a thing not then n< ^»

VOL. XII. o