I agree probably made for an educated man, but a lettered man of business rather than a natural scientist. The engraving is clearly allegorical: the German Lion and British Bulldog fight over the downed carcass of the Spanish empire. Meanwhile the clever American Fox waits for the two to fight and become distracted, allowing him his rightful ascendancy to the Mercantilist future. Dollars to doughnuts it letters to a blue-blooded American aristocratic family - Astor or Carnegie, maybe duPont.