nest or seat, and having let down another chain*, which he carried with him, and drawn up by the means of it food and necessaries, he remained upon the phallus seven days. Seated aloft, he prayed for all Syria; but whilst he prayed, he rang a bell: κροτέει ποίεμα χάλκεον, τὸ ἀείδει μέγα, καὶ τρηχὺ, κινεόμενον. Some conceived that thus being nearer to the gods he was heard to more advantage, whilst others referred the custom to the deluge, when all men betook themselves to the high places for safety. The phallus, with sticks projecting from it to assist the man in ascending†, and the bell, seem to be imitated upon the Thespian coin. The Persian Mithra, who was supposed to intercede with Oromasdes, the deity, is represented floating in air upon the mystical Tau; the man, therefore, on the phallus, who interceded by prayer for all Syria, might have been designed to personate Mithra; but, the Pseudo-Lucian, some refer this ceremony to the deluge; and by the lucubrations of the learned M. De Sacy we are informed that similar phalli in Egypt actually did refer to the overflowings of the Nile, which seem to have served as a national record of that greater flood, which was equally commemorated on the banks of the Euphrates.

says

From an unedited work of a Syriac writer, from whose tour in Egypt an extract has been given by M. De Sacy +, it appears that similar phalli were erected before the temple at Heliopolis in Egypt. At the top of these obeliscal columns were bonnets of copper of many quintals' weight, and when the river, with which they communicated, rose, the water issued from the

* I venture to read où μaxpr'v τaúτny, which words, I suspect, formerly crept into the text, although the first of the three is now omitted.

+ Or perhaps to mark the different heights to which the water rose.

In the Magazin Encyclopédique for 1801, t. vi.

า

bonnet, serving as a signal to the natives of the annual inundation. *

We read in Bishop Pococke's account of the East † of a pillar standing at Balbec, in the capital of which was a basin for water, from which a semicircular channel descended along the shaft; and of another pillar, of curious formation, nearer to Lebanon. Bishop Pococke doubted respecting the probable use of these, whether they had been designed for conduits, or for any superstitious ceremonies of the heathens.

Applying these observations to my immediate purpose, I discover from them the precise meaning of this painting, which the late Mr. Cardon, senior, who furnished both the drawings and plates for the work of D'Hancarville, re-engraved for me. It exhibits a solstitial fountain. The bowl-shaped capital, and the thin tube in the shaft of the pillar, must be supposed to have connection with the terminus near it. When the water contained in the pillar was increased by the commencement of solstitial floods, seeking its level, it would discharge itself through the perforated breast of the Bacchus. It is here that the illumined paintings in the back ground become intelligible: for as previous to the arrival of the sun at the solstice vegetation had slackened, so, upon his passing it, vegetation was restored by these inundations. The contrasted figures of the terminus and the dancing satyr imply the vicissitude of inertness and activity; and the cherishing effect of this phenomenon upon nature is expressed by the water issuing from the breast of Bacchus.

It may be difficult to conceive the precise application of the obeliscal pole upon the Thespian or Theban coin. If it really represented what I have suspected, it is not impossible that, placed in some low situation, such a contrivance might have been used to mark the rising and falling of the lake Copais, of which, and of its singular catabathra, a most interesting account is given by that very accurate traveller, Dodwell. Travels in Greece, vol. i. p. 238.

+ Vol. ii. p. 107.

These were preserved in the Townley library.

3

CHAP. XV.

Of the Window and the Ladder, and the Banqueting Chamber of the Blessed. - Singular Customs of the Oriental Buddhists explained.

Or a few points yet remaining for discussion, the window and ladder may be noticed as interesting symbols. Passeri explains the square windows on vases to be receptacles in the walls for images of the domestic Lares, which were only opened on festive days, but were otherwise closed with bolts, as may be seen in the engravings of his work. But this opinion I must be permitted to class with the errors into which this learned antiquary was unavoidably betrayed, by placing the objects of his researches amongst a people, who neither invented the vessels nor the allegories he described. From the engravings of his valuable work, however, I flatter myself the meaning of these symbols may be elucidated; for which purpose a plate * in his first volume may be properly adduced, where a dove looks from one of these square receptacles, and a genius flying downward reaches out the vivifying scarf to a naked male figure. From this painting we discover, what powers were supposed to issue from these apertures, and what was the object of their descent.

* Vol. i. plate LXXXVI.

66

EV

If the reader be not fatigued with this continued jargon, which is actually necessary for the exposition of my subject, and which I have endeavoured to submit in as intelligible a manner as the nature of it will allow, I will proceed to investigate the meaning of another symbol, which I hope will better repay his attention than what I have lately discussed. I allude to the ladder: but here I am again obliged to dissent from Passeri, who for want of a better explanation was content to consider it an emblem of fortune. "Quis fortunæ manentis imaginem, apud "Etruscos inveniri reputasset? et quidem nacti sumus.”— Vol. i. p. 7. But notwithstanding the authority of Elian, which is ingeniously attached to this declaration of discovery, I venture to affirm that the antiquary was deceived in his conjecture. "Sustulit tamen hæsitationem (he continues) Ælianus de Var. “ Hist. ii. 29. hæc scribens, Πιττακὸς ἐν Μιτυλήνῃ κατεσκεύασε τοῖς ἱεροῖς κλίμακα, εἰς οὐδεμίαν μὲν χρῆσιν ἐπιτήδειοι, αὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτο ἀνάθημα εἶναι. αἰνιττόμενος τὴν ἐκ τῆς τύχης, ἄνω, καὶ κάτω μετάπτοσιν. Τρόπον τινὰ σε τῶν μὲν εὐτυχούντων ἀνιόντων, κατιόντων δὲ τῶν δυστυχούντων.” “ Pittacus "of Mitylene introduced a ladder into the temples of his country, "not designing it for any particular use, but simply as a vote or offering, implying thereby the rise and fall in the vicissitudes of "fortune, according to which the prosperous might be said to “climb upwards, the unfortunate to descend." All this All this may be very true of Pittacus, but as I speak of allegories which were not devised by the celebrated Lesbian sage, I must decline accepting this emblem in the sense assigned to it by Passeri. Nor will that country, to which I have occasionally betaken myself for the origin of symbols and a solution of such difficulties as impeded my way, avail me in the present case; the meritorious historiographer of Hindustan directs me to Chaldæa for the genuine sense of this allegory," to that grand theological school, in which "the metempsychosis was first divulged; in which the sidereal

66

66

"ladder and gates were first erected."*

Mr. Maurice has left me no doubt as to the signification of the ladder, I therefore advance with confidence, that this symbol refers to the Metempsychosis, of which the different stages are represented by its steps. I am further inclined to suggest, that the window denotes perfection or the highest stage of it. In the Monumenti Inediti of Winckelmann, is inserted a grotesque illustration of the story of Jupiter and Alcmene. She is seated at a window, and Jupiter, conducted by Mercury, ascends by a ladder to the feigned character, who (might I be pardoned for an etymological transgression) seems in this place to be no more than Axμ-, denoting the summit, or perfection.

Similar with the preceding is a vase, where a grotesque figure, attended by an agent with the torch and situla, and the emblematical chaplet, ascends by a ladder to a female at a window, to whom he offers the Hesperian fruit and the mystic girdle. That the ladder is emblematical of life, we are assured by its being occasionally impregnated by the mysterious dots §; and as the steps denote the Metempsychosis, it is fair to conclude that the window is the highest stage.

But, perhaps, the curiosity of the reader may not rest here. He may desire to look in at this window, and ascertain what may be passing within this elevated apartment. I scruple not to gratify him in his wish, and in doing so, I apprehend I shall

1

• Dissertation on the Oriental Trinities, p. 257.

+ D'Hancarville was mistaken when he referred that gem of ancient rude sculpture, Antiq. Etrusques, vol. iii. p. 195. plate xxvIII. fig. 19, to the potter Choreous, and the bee, which, as he supposed, denoted him to be one of those Athenian tribes, which occupied Mount Hymettus. It represents the Dioscurus with a vase in each hand, ascending the ladder of the Metempsychosis, above the upper end of which is the Psyche, or butterfly.

Passeri, vol. iii. plate ccvi. § Ibid. vol. i. plate XLVII.