essay accords. Every thing is involved in the veil of allegory and physics. Thus Osiris, being the first great and good principle, and water, according to the doctrine both of Hermes and the Grecian Thales, the first principle of things, is represented of a black colour; because water is black, and gives a black tint to every thing with which it is mingled. Again, water, or the principle of abundant moisture in human bodies, causes generation, and therefore, in another respect, is a proper symbol of Osiris, the source of nutrition and fecundity. For instance, observes Plutarch, in young and vigorous persons, in whom moisture preponderates, the hair is black and bushy, while in wrinkled age, where moisture is deficient, the hair is thin and grey. Hence the Mnevis, or sacred ox of Heliopolis, the symbol of Osiris, was black; while the land of Egypt itself derived the name of CHEMIA (a term explained in the preceding chapter) from the blackness of its fat and humid soil. On this account, Osiris is sometimes delineated on coins and sculptures sitting on the leaf of the lotos, an aquatic plant; and, at other times, sailing with Isis in a boat round that world which subsists and is holden together by the pervading power of humidity.

In various preceding passages we have seen

`how remarkably, in many points, the characters of Osiris and Seeva agree; and, if the characters of the Egyptian and Indian deities thus coincide, no less do many of the peculiar rites with which they were honoured.

Many of the circumstances more immediately parallel have been already noticed, and many additional will be pointed out hereafter. It may, with truth, be remarked, in regard to the mythology of these respective nations, that the general principles upon which it is founded are nearly the same; although the object, by which their conceptions are symbolized, occasionally vary. To present the reader with a remarkable instance of this in the case of Isis, in her lunar character, and Chandra, or the lunar orb, personified by the Hindoos, I have already observed, that, in Egypt, the symbol of the moon was a CAT; whereas the symbol of that satellite, in India, is a RABBIT. One reason, assigned by Plutarch for the former symbol, was the contraction and dilatation of the pupil of the eye of the former animal, which, he asserts, grows larger at the full of the moon, but decreases with her waning orb. There are, however, other reasons equally probable, and not less curious, mentioned by that author, and in the same page, for the adoption of the compa

rison, which are the activity and vigilance of that animal during the season of the night, the variegated colours which its spotted skin discloses to the view, and its remarkable FECUNDITY. These latter peculiarities are equally exemplified in the RABBIT of the Indian CHANDRA, and shew a remarkable conformity of idea.

Nearly all the animals and plants of Egypt were made use of in illustration of their evervarying and complicated mythology. While some were honoured as the representatives of benevolent, others were dreaded and abhorred as the symbols of malignant deities. By these deities were principally meant the orbs of heaven; and, by the benevolence and malignity alluded to, were intended the benign or noxious influences which they shed.

The DOG was at once an emblem of vigilance and fidelity, and a symbol of SIRIUS, the dogstar, that celestial BARKER, whose heliacal rising, we have seen, announced the commencement of the new year; and, for my own part, I am inclined to think that the bull, equally sacred to Osiris and Seeva, was, after all, principally symbolical of the BULL Of the zodiac, or sol in tauro.

When the period of the inundation approached, the figure of Anubis, with a dog's head placed

on its shoulders, was exalted on high, as a signal for the retreat of the natives to their artificial terraces, elevated beyond the utmost height of the rising waters. This Anubis was the Mercury of the Egyptians, as is evident from the caduceus which he bears in his hand on most Egyptian sculptures; hence he was often called 'Egunve1s, in other words, MercuryAnubis. Plutarch, when explaining upon astronomical principles the mythology of Egypt, tells us, that, by Anubis, the Egyptians meant the HORIZONTAL CIRCLE, that separates the invisible part of the world, which they called NEPTHYS, from the visible, to which they gave the name of Isis. If the reader should be inclined to credit this assertion of Plutarch, and, carrying on the astronomical allusion, should be anxious to know the real meaning of the caduceus, which he constantly bears, it falls to my province to unfold the real signification of that mistaken symbol, as it will hereafter largely to descant on the true history of this famous mythologic character, who I have observed is the god Bhood, of whom we read in the Indian history. The reader, who will take the trouble to turn to page 201 of the preceding volume of this work, will find all the mystery laid- open the figure of the celestial serpents, a symbol by

in

which, it is there observed, the ancients hieroglyphically designated the sun's path through the zodiac; and the circular curve described by the moon's orbit, to which the Oriental astronomers anciently gave the name of the dragon's head, belly, and tail.

O

Let him now take a pencil and draw the straight line of the equator through the centre of that circular figure, so as that one part shall pass through the opening, called the moon's ascending node, and the opposite one, called her descending node. He has only to suppose the bodies of those, or similar serpentine figures, lengthened and twisted round the line thus drawn, and he will have the true caduceus of Hermes; of that god, who, being nothing else, in reality, but the horizontal circle personified, equally touches upon the confines of light and darkness, and is, therefore, like the faithful dog,