the historical fact,--and Swans form the material:--but, they have been dying in music for centuries yet unregarded;--they have been as a symbolical record buried in a people's Sepulchre,--and which the opening of a Nation's tomb has alone brought to light. The classic reader will remember, that Jupiter assumed the form of the Bird of Canaan, when he sought and won the love of Leda! We will now endeavour to translate the Hieroglyphics, and Sculpture, upon, and around, the Chief Altar of Copan. We commence with the proposition that the hieroglyphics merely explain the Sculpture, and that if the Sculpture can be explained, the sense of the hieroglyphics, as a consequence, will be translated. If we shall read the Sculpture aright, we believe that it will be found to record a National Act of Friendship,--whereby the Tyrians had the power of reaching America. We will not anticipate our History by now stating the detail of that act of amity,--it will be sufficient for the present purpose to mention, that the act occurred between the Sidonians and the Tyrians,--it was an act of friendship in front of death itself,--and death in its most terrific form, both of torture and of infamy. Mr. Stephens, in writing of the thirty-six compartments, or squares,--of hieroglyphics on the top of the Altar, says-- "They without doubt record some _event in the history_ of the mysterious people who once inhabited the City" (_i. e._ Copan). We believe it,--and that the _basso_-Sculpture on the four sides, as already stated, illustrates the hieroglyphics on the surface. The _details_ of the Sculpture must be first reviewed, in order to establish even analogy in the _accessories_ of the Altar. 1st. _The "two Serpents"_--(and the same are around the walls of Uxmal).