theologians and the fancy of philosophers to unite in the invention of a form of building like that recently described, and upon such a comprehensive scale as might seem to render it an epitome of the universe itself, in which all the phenomena of nature should be exhibited at one glance to the astonished spectator: and all the deities adored in that universe, superior or subordinate, receive at once his profound adoration. Among supernal temples, it was to be exactly similar to what the cave of Mithra, in the Median mountains was among subterraneous shrines. That cave, Porphyry acquainted us, resembled the world fabricated by Mithra; a cave, in the lofty roof of which the signs of the Zodiac were sculptured in golden characters; while through its spacious dome, represented by orbs of different metals, symbolical of their power and influences, the sUN and PLANETS performed their ceaseless and undeviating revolutions. From an extensive and accurate examination of the systems of Asiatic theology, descending down through various ages and by various channels to the ancient people of Italy, I think I may safely venture to assert that the grand PANTHEON, or ROTUNDO, of Rome, was a temple of this distinguished kind, and I proceed to prove the assertion, by the strong internal

I of the Universe Among these the noblest in fly CONVEXDOME the expanded CANOPY of HEAVEN

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evidence which that fabric exhibits, that it was neither more nor less than a stupendous Mithratic temple.

Mark! how the dread Pantheon stands

Amidst the domes of meaner hands!
Amidst the toys of idle state,

How simply, how severely great!

This vast edifice, this most august, most venerable, and most perfect, relic of antiquity remaining in the world, according to the more common opinion among antiquaries, was built by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, in his third consulate, about twenty-five years before Christ. However, Dion Cassius informs us that Agrippa only repaired the building, and adorned and strengthened it with that admirable portico, which, indeed, is scarcely less an object of wonder than the fabric itself, consisting of sixteen pillars of Oriental granite of prodigious magnitude, yet each composed of only a single stone. These pillars are of the Corinthian order, and are ranged in two rows of eight columns each, one in the front, and the other rising to a great height behind them. The conjecture founded on the assertion of Dion Cassius, that the date of its fabrication was considerably more ancient than the era of Agrippa's conM

́ VOL. III.

sulship, is by far the most probable of the two, since it carries us back still nearer to the æra in which the mysteries of Mithra were first imported into Rome by those of her conquering sons, who first carried the Roman arms into Asia. I conceive, therefore, the Pantheon to be a temple erected to Apollo, that is, the Mithra of the Romans, to whom I before observed an altar was erected in the Capitol, thus inscribed; Deo Soli invicto, Mithra; to Mithra, the Sun, the unconquered God. Dedicated to the solar deity, and symbolical of the world, vivified by his ray, the Pantheon, like all other temples, was built circular; the body of that immense rotundo representing the earth, and the convex dome the expanded canopy of heaven. Pliny, indeed, speaking of this boast of ancient, and ornament of modern, Rome, expressly affirms this circumstance concerning its spacious dome; quod forma ejus convexa fastigiatam CŒLI SIMILITUDINEM OStenderet. To admit the FOUNTAIN OF LIGHT, to whose honour it was erected, in the centre of its vaulted cupola, a cavity, twenty-nine feet in diameter, was pierced, by which, alone, the whole edifice was illuminated; and, when the sun was exalted to its highest southern meridian, those beams descended into the body of it