found any more at large upon the earth, the "dignus vindice nodus" would infallibly be the hangman's noose. A sort of pass, or letter of license, was therefore virtually carried by all who traversed different countries. There was a boundless toleration, save when some of the priestesses had drank the libation instead of strewing it on the shrine. It was carried so far, that at Rome there was the noblest of all her temples thus consecrated to the whole company of the supernals. The Pantheon still exists, and is a monumental voucher of the necessary good-will, or perhaps good understanding, between different tutelaries and priesthoods. There was a compulsory arrest upon all competition! This was a little relaxed when a religion was transported from one country to another, which in after time occurred. But, though this was not much relished in the first instance by the predominant order, the principle of intercommunity left no alternative. The state speedily adopted all. Athens was hospitable in a most munificent degree, entertained gods known and unknown, always kept a niche vacant for the next new-comer, until it grew into a proverb that it was easier to find a god than a man. But while this was a very fast step towards a system of consolidation, there were incongruities in history to be reconciled, and incredibilities in popular belief to be explained. When the Theogony of the poet, and even of the grave annalist, was adduced, there seemed a necessity for an illiteral meaning. The nuptials of the celestials did not well consist with the celibacy and vestalism they imposed on their most favoured servants below. It was not a small embarrassment that the Cretans persisted to show their Ida on whose sides Jupiter was trained, and more disagreeably took money of the virtuosi who came to visit his tomb. Birth, marriage, and death, are very natural to us; but scarcely agree with independence, spiritualism, and immortality. All this was therefore to be mystically accounted for. The birth of a god was his first acknowledgment in any country. The marriage was the superaddition of one worship to another. The death was the withdrawment of a particular idol or rite, their disuse or extinction.

Something was, however, needed to satisfy the more philosophic enquirer. And the expedient was early embraced to establish a system of substitutes, or double images. I have found, in my enquiries, nothing more probable than the origination of idolatry in the more marked appearances and bodies of nature. The worship of the sun, and moon, and constellation, was probably its nascent form. But this was too large and too indefinite for the multitude. There was wanted something of a more personal figure, which a temple might shelter, and to which a multitude might bend. The anthropomorphite idolatry was too likely to lead away the mind from the celestial phenomena, and thereupon animals were used instead. The Bull represented the sun, because the strong curls of its forehead were supposed to resemble the out-beamings of that orb. The Cat was the remembrance of the moon, because the contraction and dilatation of the pupilla of its eye were deemed analogous to the increase and wane of that satellite. The Dog was devoted to Syrius because, at its particular appearance in the heavens, that creature was peculiarly affected; and we still speak of the dog-days as insupportable from their heat. The consequence was what might be expected if the few retained the purer ideas, the crowd looked no further than the gross representations.

In addition to these intentional emblems, astronomy had left some mighty relics. This could only be the science of the few, and the heirs seldom equalled the renowned ancestors. Much of the Newtonian rules was known to the Egyptians, and is a restoration of their learning. Science, like higher truth itself, had degenerated in later times. The pyramids are most true to the meridian. The most rational solution of the sphinx is that it denoted the zodiacal signs of Leo and Virgo when the sun was apparently passing from the one to the other. Many of the symbols, in the ordinary tables and pillars, seem to refer to the computed times of Nile's inundation and recession. The most amusing fictions contain astronomic truth. There is a wellknown tale of the cruel ban that was laid on Rhea: three hundred and sixty days were closed against her. But Mercury, the Egyptian Thoth, obviated this difficulty by playing at dice

with the Moon, and winning from her the seventy-second part of each day. He then made up of these stakes five days, which he added to the three hundred and sixty,-constituting the proper solar year. As the Scarabæus pushes its nidus backward with its feet, while it still looks directly forward, it was deemed a type of the sun in its real progress from west to east, though its apparent motion is from east to west. And it may be observed that there was a strong tendency in all mythology to convert public benefactors into stars. Saturn became one. The planets still keep their course with all their polytheistic names and adjuncts. The comet which appeared at the time of the games instituted by Augustus in celebration of Cæsar is called by Virgil* "Dionæi Cæsaris astrum :" and by Horace, "Julium Sidus.”

The choice which was left to the inquisitive and educated, lay between two systems. The first was Pantheism. This assumed that the Deity was universally diffused, not only an anima mundi, but that every thing, every element of things, was divine. It is evident that we should not only, if this were true, do as Juvenal describes his sceptics, "intrepidi quæcunque altaria tangunt," or as Malebranche speculates, see all in God: we should inhale, eat, drink, and digest divinity. The second, therefore, obtained far more favour. It was that which attributed to Nature certain energies, permanently regenerative principles.

We cannot fail to contrast the correct sentiments on morals entertained by these persons with the very crude notions they possessed of a First Cause. Beautiful were their figments of the fair and becoming, the ro xaλov, and то πgeяOV. The distinction they made proved a refinement of moral sensibility. This may be simplified by selecting three Greek words expressive of obligation, Xgn, A, О. The first implies the utility, the second the binding necessity, the third the equitable due, of the moral act. But the divine nature is not a subject within human compass; and, therefore, we find that the most sagacious minds failed to acquire the satisfactory information. Now this Eclog: lib. ix. 47.

Power of Nature was very early adumbrated in the mythologies to which Greece was so great a debtor. The primitive deities were Ouranus and Vesta,-signifying a conjunction and combustion of the elemental fire in the more rarefied region of the air. Thence resulted Saturn and Ops. Ops is the earth, beyond all doubt: perhaps as the source of wealth probably there was an adjective of this form, and we have still the privative one, inops. Vesta is the goddess of flame: and hence her fireworship. But we learn from Ovid's sixth book of Fastorum,' "Tellus Vestaque numen idem est." The earth is represented by other names, Rhea, Berecynthia. Cybele and Isis are additional appellations. These do not denote the mere map of the world, but a property it possesses of reproducing in all its kinds and species. This is the vis vivifica. Ceres is but one more specimen. Occasionally the moon is intended, but as a part of the mundane system, governed by the sun. To prevent confusion, I shall for the future call this power, Isis. She is named the mother of gods and men. Hence her common name is Anung. When Athens, therefore, in her frantic admiration of Demetrius changed the feast of Bacchus, called Dionysia, into Demetria, there was a reserve in the flattery, at least in sound, and Isis might be as much honoured as Bacchus was wronged. She is designated Legifera, because all law is founded on admissions of property. In reference to the variety of the ways in which she is known she is styled Multiformis, and Multinominis; from her sustaining bounty, Multimammia. The general account of her is that she was espoused to Osiris,—that Osiris was slain by Typhon and hewn into twelve parts,—that she found eleven but could never possess herself of the twelfth, -that her daughter Proserpina was stolen from her by Pluto,— that she, a goddess, yoked her dragons to her car, and rushing to heaven implored the redress of Jupiter or the Supreme,—that her application being evaded, she never would again take her place in the divine rank and council,—that she went shrieking through the world,-that she carried lighted torches to assist her search, that she sat down on a stone denominated, from the

Lin: 460.

grief she suffered, Ayeλasov, near the fountain Callichorus,that she found refuge in the house of Celeus, king of Eleusis,— that she purified his son Demaphon in the fire, showing her identity with Vesta,—that she sent another son, Triptolemus, to teach the nations useful inventions,-and that her Proserpine was compelled to pay her mother long visits every year, some say of four months, others of six. All this, however, carries us back to Egypt. Ceres was not a name known in that country, and yet was the favourite name during the most classic period in Greece. We have to think therefore of Isis in her days of earthly royalty, the bride of Osiris, or of Serapis, which seems to have been his later name. Tacitus, in his History, the fourth book, gives an account of Serapis, as if from the Egyptian priests themselves, which is by no means probable or consistent. Though there is much to disprove the idea that Anubis was originally considered the same with Osiris, yet in the farther periods of the Isiac worship, he was the god of her temples. He was termed Canicula Cynocephalus, because the heliacal rising of Sirius began the year and coincided with the highest swell of the Nile. Osiris might represent the sun, and Anubis the dog-star, or Sothis, both, therefore, were emblems of heat,—and might be easily converted with one another. To help us in this remote speculation we must fix the literal, and then seek the figurative, narration.

Osiris and Isis were king and queen of Egypt. Typhon was his brother: Thoth or Mercury his minister. He seems to have possessed a mind as benevolent as it was capacious. He often visited other countries to teach them to sow corn, to cultivate their vines, and to ascend the gradual steps of civilization. He goes under many names, one of which certainly identifies him with Iacchus or Bacchus. The Egyptians called the ivy sacred to Bacchus, xevosigis. During one of these excursions or progresses, Typhon rebelled. It does not very clearly appear what part this vizier, afterwards called Trismegistus, took in the insurrection, but the name would warrant us to conclude that he three times took office, so when he could serve Osiris no more, patriotism impelled him to kiss hands under Typhon.