and different
significations: but, at this rate, we may form a similitude between terms
the most dissimilar. For, take a word in any language, which admits of many
inflexions and variations, and, after we have made it undergo all its
evolutions, it will be hard if it does not in some degree approximate. But,
to say the truth, he many times does not seem to arrive even at this: for,
after he has analysed the premises with great labour, we often find the
supposed resemblance too vague and remote to be admitted; and the whole is
effected with a great strain and force upon history before he brings
matters to a seeming coincidence. The Cyclops are by the best writers
placed in Sicily, near Mount [479]AEtna, in the country of the Leontini,
called of old Xuthia; but Bochart removes them to the south-west point of
the island. This he supposes to have been called Lelub, [Greek: Lilubaion],
from being opposite to Libya; and, as the promontory was so named, it is,
he thinks, probable that the sea below was styled Chec Lelub, or Sinus
Lebub: and, as the Cyclops lived hereabouts, they were from hence
denominated Chec-lelub, and Chec-lub, out of which the Greeks formed
[480][Greek: Kuklopes]. He derives the Siculi first from [481]seclul,
perfection; and afterwards from [Hebrew: ASHKWL], Escol, pronounced,
according to the Syriac, Sigol, a bunch of grapes. He deduces the Sicani
from [Hebrew: SHKN], Sacan[482], near, because they were near their next
neighbours; in other words, on account of their being next to the Poeni.
Sicani, qui Siculorum Poenis proximi. But, according to the best accounts,
the Sicani were the most antient people of any in these parts. They settled
in Sicily before the foundation of Carthage; and could not have been named
from any such vicinity. In short, Bochart, in most of his derivations,
refers to circumstances too general; which might be adapted to one place as
well as to another. He looks upon the names of places, and of people,
rather as by-names, and chance appellations, than original marks of
distinction; and supposes them to have been founded upon some subsequent
history. Whereas they were, most of them, original terms of high antiquity,
imported and assumed by the people themselves, and not imposed by others.

How very casual and indeterminate the references were by which this learned
man was induced to form his etymologies, let the reader judge from the
samples below. These were taken, for the most part