trust without success, to unlock the portals of the sanctuaries in which their theological and philosophical mysteries were anciently celebrated in caverns and cavern-temples, and possibly I may have contributed somewhat towards removing the veil of obscurity, in which the history, the rites, and design, of the ancient superstitions have been so long involved. That certain mysterious rites were there celebrated has been proved, as far as analogy, in theological sentiments, and similarity, in the fabrication of the Indian caverns and cavern-temples, with those in the mountains of Persia and Upper Egypt, could tend to establish the proof. For, to what purpose was there the double entrance into them, by NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN GATES, according to the Homeric description of the Cave of the Nymphs, inserted in a former volume, of which, the North entrance was that through which the soul, in its journey of the Metempsychosis, passed to the lower spheres, while that to the South was sacred to celestials alone; and, finally, for what purpose were intended the winding avenues, the high altars, the tanks for ablution, and the gloomy interior recesses, but for the regular performance of similar ceremonies, and the arduous exercise of kindred virtues.

SECTION V.

The Whole of this Section is devoted to the more particular Consideration of that ancient Species of physical Superstition practised in the Temples of Egypt above-described; and, in the Course of it, the celebrated Treatise of Plutarch concerning Isis and Osiris is examined and explained.-Nearly all the hieroglyphic Animals and Plants honoured with Veneration in Egypt have Reference to the astronomical Speculations of the Priests of that Country; or are illustrative of the various Phænomena of Nature.-Osiris, why represented of a black Colour, and sitting on the Lotos.-Why, among Animals, the Cat, the Dog, the Lion, the Sphynx, the Scarabæus, the Ibis, the Ichneumon, and Crocodile, considered as sacred.-Why, among Plants, the Nymphea, the Onion, and others, regarded in the same Light.-The Arguments of the whole Inquiry summed up, and farther Proof

adduced from the Result of the close Affinity of the ancient Religion and Customs of Egypt

and India.

HAD the extensive history, to which these Dissertations are only introductory, allowed me sufficient leisure, I had formed the design of comparing throughout the famous treatise of Plutarch, on the superstitious worship anciently paid to Osiris and Isis, with the accounts of the Indian mythology and the theological rites, detailed to us in the page of M. Sonnerat and our more accurate countryman Sir W. Jones. That treatise contains a vast, but confused, mass of matter relative to the ancient theology of the Oriental world; on the whole highly instructive, but ill arranged and digested; and, as is sufficiently evident, scarcely understood by the author himself. The whole treatise is probably a mythological history of the earliest sovereigns and heroes of Egypt, under the fabulous cha-, racters of Osiris, Isis, Orus, and Typhon, represented by symbols emblematical of their respective' powers, and the good or evil qualities possessed by them. Indeed Plutarch confirms this supposition, by expressly asserting, that the intention of the institution of the Egyptian rites

and mysteries was, " to preserve the memory of some valuable piece of history, or to represent to us some of the grand phænomena of nature."*

The precise period when the Egyptians began first to darken the page of genuine history, by blending with it the fables of mythology, was probably that moment of national infatuation when they began to deify deceased mortals; when they began to worship the host of heaven, and regard with veneration the elements of nature; for, in fact, their deities almost entirely consisted of canonized heroes, planets, stars, and elements, symbolically sculptured in their temples. At whatever period, however, the Egyptian hieroglyphics were first invented, their original meaning was scarcely known, even to the priests themselves, at the æra of the invasion of Cambyses: and, at the time when the Macedonian invader constructed Alexandria, probably out of the ruins of Memphis, the knowledge of them was wholly obliterated from their minds. The reader, who may not have perused Kircher and other antiquaries on the subject, will be able to form some idea of their general designation and intention from the following account given by Plutarch, concerning those on the

*Plutarch de Iside et Osiride, p. 20. edit. Squire.

portal of the temple of Minerva, at Sais. The first, in order, of the hieroglyphics engraven on that portal was AN INFANT; next to him was sculptured AN OLD MAN; next followed a HAWK ; then A FISH; and lastly, A SEA-HORSE. The meaning of this hieroglyphic inscription he asserts, probably on the express authority of the priests of that temple, was as follows: "Oh! you, who are coming into the world, and you,. who are going out of it, know that the Deity abhors immodesty." And he thus explains the symbols that designated the precept: by the infant were signified those who are coming into life, or the young; by the old man, those who are going out of it, or the aged; the hawk was their most common symbol of Osiris, or God; the fish was an animal which the Egyptians held in abhorrence, because it had relation to that sea, the cruel Typhon, which swallowed up their beloved Nile, for which reason also they thought every association with pilots induced pollution; while by the sea-horse was typified impudence, that creature being affirmed, by naturalists, first to slay his sire, and afterwards to violate his dam. Consonant to this mode of symbolizing ran the whole stream of the Egyptian theology; and, in exact unison with it, the universal tenor of Plutarch's philosophical