ut Noah," says he, "had neither _rest_ nor _quiet_ during
the deluge.

"MOSES--_mos-es_, that is, the 'mud of the waters;' being, when an
infant, exposed and raised out of the mud and slime of the river
Nile. The Chaldeans interpret his name 'raised,' simply according to
the mere circumstance of his being taken up; but the Celtic (_i. e._
the Dutch) signification denotes the whole fact.

"DAVID--_D'af-heid_, that is to say, 'lowness,' 'humility.' For David
was not only of a low stature, but, above all, low and humble in his
mind, as appears from 1 Kings," &c. &c.

After Teutonising the Hebrew in this manner, he next proceeds to the
Egyptian.

"AEGYPTOS--_haeg-up-t'hos_, that is 'sylvae supra altitudines,' 'the
woody heights above.' (How this is exactly applicable he does not
inform us.)

"NILUS--_N'hil-ho_, that is, the 'high descent,' to wit, of waters;
for the Nile descends from the Mountains of the Moon, which are very
high.

"SEBENUTICUM--(a town of the Delta,) _Seben-vuyticum_, that is, 'the
_seven_-fold _outcome_;' for the Nile is seven-fold, and hath seven
mouths or outlets.

"PHAROS--_Phaer-ho_, signifying _adnavigatio alti_, or the navigation
towards the high places; for Pharos is an island with a lofty tower,"
&c. &c.

Then he takes his course into Greece and Latium, but it would be idle to
follow him through a hundredth part of these vagaries. In not a single
instance does he pay the least attention to what the Greeks and Romans
themselves thought or taught on these subjects, except, indeed, in the
solitary case of the Peloponnesus, which he admits _may_ possibly have had
its name from Pelops, though he thinks it more likely that it expresses
the more appropriate Scythic phrase _Pfel-op-on-es_--"Campus superior ad
aquas," or the _fell_ or plain _up_, _on_, or _above_ the water.

Coming in the course of his peregrinations to Etruria, and being equally
successful in making all the ancient names of men and places there
significant in Dutch, he boldly attempts the interpretation of the
Eugubian tablets. These singular remains of the extinct language of
Etruria, had already exercised the skill of some of the best scholars of
the 16th century, but none of them had succeeded in bending this new bow
of Ulysses. To the insane all things are easy. Scrieck made no more of the
task than did Ulysses--