Egyptians, who anciently put the public treasure and the records of the genealogies of families in the tower or labyrinth under the custody of the priests.

In fine, there is no better proof that people were perfectly ignorant of the sense of the figures mistaken for deified personages, than the notion which the Greeks framed to themselves of Saturn when he was brought into their country.

The name of Chrone under which he was known to them, very plainly signified the majesty of the judicial assemblies, the crown or circle of the judges. But not knowing what this figure and its intention were, and finding a relation of sound between the name of Chrone and that of Chronos, which among them signified time, they interpreted the whole symbol in that sense. The age of the figure squared with this incomparably well. But what were they to do with the scythe he carries in his hand? Why, he shall use it to cut down everything. Above all, the stones which they made him to devour in Syria, seemed to distinguish him perfectly well. Time consumes everything, and preys upon the very stones.

The following judicious remarks, from the Myth. Dict. of W. Howell, B.D., support the hypothesis of Pluche, in regard to the mannerin which names have been appropriated to individual persons that never had existence.

Semiramis.

The wonderful actions of Ninus and Semiramis may be read in divers historians, Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Ctesias, &c. The accounts are inconsistent and incredible; and indeed what credit can be given to the history of a person, Semiramis, the time of whose life cannot be ascertained within 1535 years? for so great is the difference of the extremes of the following numbers:

According to Syncellus, she lived before Christ 2177 years, Patavius makes the term 2060, Helvicus 2248, Eusebius 1984, Mr. Jackson 1964, Archbp. Usher 1215, Philo Biblius from Sanchoniathon 1200, Herodotus about 713.

The history of Ninus and Semiramis is in great measure founded upon terms which have been misconstructed; and fictions have been invented in consequence of these mistakes. Under the character of Semiramis we are certainly to understand a people called Semarim, a title assumed by the ancient Babylonians. They were called Semarim from their ensign, which was a dove, expressed Semiramis. It was used as an object of worship, and esteemed the same as Rhea, the mother of the gods. It was a common mode of expression to call a tribe

or a family by the name of its founder; and a nation by the head of the line. People are often spoken of collectively in the singular under such a patronymic. Hence we read in Scripture that Israel abode in tents; that Judah was put to the worst in battle, &c. When it was said that the Ninevite performed any great action, it has been ascribed to a person called Ninus, the supposed founder of Nineveh. But we may be assured, that under the character of Ninus and Ninyas, we are to understand the Ninevites; as by Semiramis is meant a people called Semariin: and the great actions of these two nations are in the histories of these personages recorded. But writers have rendered the account inconsistent, by limiting what was an historical series or many ages to the life of a single person.

The Ninevites and Semarim did perform all that is attributed to Semiramis and Ninus. They did conquer the Medes, and largely extended their dominions. But these events were many ages after the foundation of the two kingdoms.

It is said of this ideal personage, that she was exposed among rocks, but delivered and preserved by Simma, a shepherd; and was afterwards married to one Menon: she is likewise said to have constructed the first ship. Now Simma is a personage made out of Sema, or Sama, the divine token. Menon is the deus Lunus, under which type the Ark was reverenced in many regions; and as it was the first ship constructed, with which the history of the Dove was closely connected, they have given to Semiramis the merit of building it.

Sesostris.

The history of this personage has been admitted as credible by the most learned writers and chronologists; though they cannot determine the era of his reign within a thousand years. Notice has been taken under several articles of the supposed conquerors of the earth; and among them of the reputed deities of Egypt, under the name of Osiris, Perseus, &c. These are supposed, if they ever existed, to have lived in the first ages of the world, when Egypt was in its infant state; and Sesostris is made one of the number. He is by some placed before Orus, and by some after. He is also represented under the different names of Sethos, Sethosis, Sesoothis, Seconthosis, and Sesostris.

Osiris is said to have conquered the whole earth; then Zeus, then Perseus, then Hercules, all nearly of the same degree of antiquity; if we may believe the best mythologists. Myrina comes in for a share of conquest in the time of Orus. After her, Thoules subdues the whole, from the eastern ocean to the great Atlantic; and as if nothing had been performed before, Sesostris succeeds, and conquers it over again. By comparing the histories of ancient personages together, we may perceive that they bear a manifest similitude to one another,

though they are attributed to different persons. Sesostris was Osiris; the same as Dionysius, Menes, and Noah.

Origin of Apis and Mnevis.

Nothing could be more convenient or more ingenious than the astronomical language, which immediately characterised each season and the works peculiar to it, by making the governor of the earth enter into the twelve signs of the zodiac, whose names had a just relation to what successively passes upon the earth in the course of a year. Nothing so gross, on the contrary, or so pitiful as the historical sense which the people afterwards annexed to this language; and such is evidently the origin of the ridiculous doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which Pythagoras brought to Italy as a rare discovery.

Generally all the animals of which the stars bear the name, were looked upon with veneration by the Egyptians, as having been the first retreats of their gods, and as being very possibly appointed for that of their dead parents. People never looked without a religious awe upon those in which they knew Osiris and Isis had resided, such as the ram, the bull, the heifer, the goat, and the lion. Their ancient custom of carrying ceremonially at the feasts of certain seasons, the animal whose name the house into which the sun entered, went by, disposed the people of certain provinces to honour particularly the animal carried at the feasts that concurred with the conclusion of their harvest.

Chance having produced a calf at Memphis which had some spots nearly in the figure of a circle or crescent, symbols so much reverenced among them, this singularity was taken by them for the characteristic of Osiris and Isis stamped upon the animal which their gods had an affection for: and that this was an apparition of the governor, a visit which the protector of Egypt deigned to make them. This miraculous calf, after having served preferably to any other at the ordinary ceremonial, was lodged in the finest place in Memphis. All his motions were judged prophetical, and the people flocked to him with their offerings. He received the great name of Apis, which means the mighty, the powerful god.

They took great care after his death to replace him with another that had nearly the same spots. When the marks desired were not neat and exact, they were improved with a pencil,

They even seasonably and after a certain time prevented the indecency of his death, by leading him in ceremony to a place where they drowned and then interred him very devoutly. This melancholy ceremony was intermixed with torrents of tears, and was emphatically called Sarapis, or the retreat of Apis ( sur, recedere; -sar bir, recessit Apis. Vid. Judic. xvi. 20), a name which was afterwards

given to Pluto, the infernal Osiris. After the burial of Apis, his successor was sought for. Thus was this strange devotion perpetuated. A powerful motive contributed greatly to it, viz. it was lucrative.

The inhabitants of Heliopolis, who made a separate dynasty, or a kingdom different from that at Memphis, thought themselves too much in the favour of the sun whose name their capital bore, not to partake of his visits or those of his son. They therefore soon had the sacred ox as well as those of Memphis. They called him Menavis or Mnevis, which is the same thing as Menes the mighty, or the same with Menophis; and in choosing this magnificent name for him, they supposed other qualities and other functions in him no less capable of drawing crowds of people thither.

Phyton or Typhon.

Osiris being become the common father of the Egyptians, was by degrees looked upon as the principle from which all the good that happened to Egypt sprung; in like manner, Phyton, when he was become the name of the symbol that signified the havock of waters, was looked upon as an ill-minded spirit, as a principle fond of thwarting, perpetually intent upon crossing and prejudicing them. They made him the principle of all disorder, and charged him with all the physical evils they could not avoid, and all the moral evils which they did not care to lay to their own charge. Hence came the doctrine of the two opposite principles, equally powerful, incessantly striving against each other; (Plutarch, de Isid. and Osir.) and alternately vanquished and victorious. This doctrine, which from the Egyptians was handed down to the Persians, under the names of Oromazes and Arimazes, is altogether different from ours, according to which God, conformably to the adorable views of his providence, employs the ministry of the spirits who have persevered in a spirit of uprightness, and leaves a certain measure of power to those who are fallen from it.

The aversion of the Egyptians for this Phyton, their imaginary enemy, and according to them incessantly intent upon vexing them, went so far, that they no longer dared to pronounce his name. However, we find it entire in the language of the Hebrews who had dwelt in Egypt, and had contracted the habit of calling by that name the most mischievous of serpents, that is, the asp. (- peteu.) The entire name of Phyton or Python is found again in the most ancient and most celebrated fables of paganism. There we see this terrible monster engaged with the god who enlightens the world, and spreading desolation everywhere.

Nothing has been more celebrated in antiquity than the victory of the sun; nothing more abhorred than Phyton, when, from a painted monster, he was become a being intent upon doing mischief. The Egyptians, fearing to defile themselves by the bare pronouncing of that

detestable name, retained the letters of it, and converted them into that of Typhon.*

We have seen how the cross, as well entire as abridged, was the mark of the increase of the Nile, because it was the measure of it. When confined in the hand of Osiris, in the claws of the hawk, or the hand of Horus, it very plainly signified the overflowing of the Nile regulated by the sun, strengthened by the wind, and subject to fixed rules. This cross in their vulger writing, as likewise in the ancient Hebraic characters, in the Greek, and the Latin alphabet, was the letter Tau.

That the cross or the T, suspended by a ring, was taken by the Egyptians for the deliverance from evil, we may assure ourselves by consulting their practices, which are the surest interpretation of the opinion that governed them.

They hung it round the neck of their children, and of their sick people; they applied it to the string or fillets with which they wrapped up their mummies, where we still find it. What can in their ideas signify a T placed near those to whom they wished health and life, if not the deliverance from the disease and death, which they hoped to obtain by these superstitious practices.

Hence we see how strangely they misapplied those figures, which in their first institution related to the Nile, to husbandry, and to things totally foreign to the applications of succeeding times. This very probably is an introductive key wherewith one might strive to explain part of the meaning which the Egyptians of the later times have given to their sacred writing.

This custom of the Egyptians appeared so beneficial and so important, that it was adopted by other nations. The children and the sick most commonly wore a ticket wherein was a T, which they looked upon as a powerful preservative. In process of time other characters were substituted in the room of the letter T, which was at first engraved on this ticket, but of which the other nations understood neither the meaning nor the intention. They often put a serpent in it, an Harpocrates, or the object of the devotions in vogue; nay sometimes ridiculous figures, or even some that were of the utmost indecency. But the name of Amulet (Amolimentum malorum) that was given to this ticket, which signifies the removal of the evil, most naturally represents the intentions of the Egyptians, from whom this practice came.

The above-mentioned practice, we have seen, arose from the instrument used for measuring the height of the inundation of the Nile, being

Some people, even at this day, have a reluctance to pronounce the common English name of this prince of darkness. They call him the de'il, the old nick, old harry, &c.-Edit.