Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • Beaumont, John, -1731.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    173/226 (page 159)
    they call the four Parts of the World, conformably to the four Parts of the Heavens, Eafl, Weft, North, and South. The Town of Cufco was the Point or Center of the faid Empire, and it fignifies, in the particular Language of the Tncas, the Navel of the Earth ; a Name not improperly given it, nor without a great Refemblance : for all Peru is long and narrow, as the Body of Man is, the Town of Cufco makes ah moft the middle of it. if any Man will Hill be uneafy, till he finds feme Satisfaction concerning the Navel, or Middle of the Earth, he may read the beginning of Plutarch's Trad concerning The Cejfation of the Oracles, where he writes thus: Epimenides having heard the Story of the Flight of two Eagles, or Swans 1 and being defirous to know whether this Story were true, confulted the Oracle of Apollo, where the Middle, or Navel of the Earth was ; who gave him an ambiguous and uncertain Anfwer, fo that he could find no fixJd Senfe: where¬ fore he compofed thefe Verfes, There is no Navel in the Seas Nor in the Earth ; and if there he% Prefume not this to Man is known, But to the Mind of God alone. Thus Apollo aptly chaftifed this curious Enquirer, who was for bringing an old Fable to the critical Teft of Truth. So far Plutarch. As for the Queftion, Whether evil Spirits were concerned in the Oracles delivered to the Gentiles, we know Dr. Van Dale, and Mr. Fontenelle maintain- the Negative. But if they had read and duly con- fidered Vcfftus, de Idololatrid, Vol. I. L. 1. C. 6. pofo fibly it might have favM them the labour of com po¬ ling their Books of Oracles. I (hall here give you an Abfiraft of what Voffius delivers in his fore- mentioned Book and Chapter. That