THE BEE-HIVE-NOTICES RESPONSIVE.

OUR friend, who indulges his "sonuetto mania" on the sea-shore, would do well to publish his productions under the title of the Sandpiper.

Quoth-Titus Oatmeal, founder of the water-gruel school of poetry, is a plagiarist.

The popularity which we have obtained amongst the heroes of Man, is not the least of our gratifications. We take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Jefferson for his polite attention in forwarding us the Manks Advertiser, and for his exertions in promoting our circulation among the gleg Islanders.

Thalia complains, that we respond not in poetry. We lament that our fair readers should be in any respect disappointed, and will take the subject into consideration.

Our friend Martial appears to think, that "brevity being the soul of wit," is the only requisite for epigram: We differ.

The continued favours of ◊ we are proud to acknowledge, and are particularly gratified by the punctuality with which he observes the 15th.

We would recommend Nihil to send his effusions to Sir R. Phillips; that learned Theban might possibly give them a "local habitation and a name" amongst his other absurdities.

In reply to the inquiries of our anxious friends at Oxford and Cambridge, we beg leave to observe, that the OLIVE is withering in the southern parts of England, and will, we doubt not, shortly vanish in toto. It may be thought that we are ini. mical to Blackwood;-far from it, we admire his principles, and enjoy his monthly lucubrations; but when the gauntlet is thrown by a Scotchman, where is the Oxonian or Cantab, who will not rise in defence of his brethren in arms.

We have received a stinging epistle, signed Jesse Nettletop; we have only to say, in reply, we are entirely innocent of the allegation.

Our friend W. Wordsworth-whose inimitable style we immediately recognisedwill perceive his star beaming in our azure-clothed pages, in all its native lustre. Why do not Southey, Milman, and the other glories of Britain contribute? Wilson, of the Isle of Palms, is, we are informed, aloue restrained by the amor patriæ, which still renders him a stickler for Blackwood.

We offer our best thanks to S., and confess we cannot help feeling a sort of selfish gratification at the circumstances he mentions. He cannot confer a greater favour on us than by letting us hear from him as frequently as possible.

We wish our friend "The Recluse," he of the "Mountain Musings," E. C., W. W., T, and the rest of the "Celestials," would assist at one of our monthly meetings; we should then indeed have the “noctes cœnæque Deum.”—HOR.

THE

BRIGHTON MAGAZINE,

No. V.

MAY, 1822.

ON THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.

1. TAURUS THE BULL.

THE subject of the ancient zodiac has been frequently dis

cussed, but too often with a spirit far from conducive to the establishment of truth, and not unfrequently with a view to unsettle chronology, or to impugn Scripture. It is my intention to enter the same arena of discussion, with less glittering arms, but under a more consecrated banner; to maintain the thesis of " Pagan evidence to the truth of Holy Writ ;" to throw down the gauntlet in the teeth of infidelity, and begin the contest with the chivalric war cry of-" God defend the right."

Of the evidence to which I allude, the zodiac appears to me one of the most important. Of the symbols which compose it, Taurus, or the Bull, is the most conspicuous; inasmuch as it is supposed to have once been the leading constellation; but chiefly, inasmuch as the superstitions connected with it have deeply coloured the whole stream of Ancient Mythology. With TAURUS, therefore, I propose to begin my investigation.

Most of the conquests of animals ascribed to heroes belong to Hercules, under other names, as Jason, Theseus, Cadmus, Perseus. They originate, most probably, in Egyptian illustrations of the zodiac; or mystical paintings of the sun passing through the signs, which were misunderstood, or misinterpreted by the Greeks.

In Grecian fable, Hercules was represented as conquering the Elean bull. In Persia, he was pictured as Mythra Victrix, grasping a bull with one hand, and in the other holding a sacrificial knife. Jason the Argonaut, who killed the bull with brazen hoofs, and thereby obtained the golden fleece; Cadmus, whom a bull conducted to the site of Thebes; and Theseus, who slew the Minotaur, (the Grecian Apis), are only modifications of the same story which describes the Grecian Hercules as triumphing over the Elean bull.

VOL. I.

2 L

The mysteries of Apis, as this sign was called in Egypt, were the oldest in the world, and entered into the religious dogma of most, if not all, of the primæval nations. The ancient Persians pictured the first man with a bull's head. The Hindoos an-. ciently, and still venerate the same character. One of the Hindoo avatars pictures the bull-man perishing in the flood. A bull-headed human form is frequent among Javanese monuments; and agrees precisely with similar figures on those of Egypt. The monuments preserved by Hyde, leave nothing uncorroborated on the same subject, as far as regards the Mythratic rites. The god OSIRIS was sometimes portrayed with a bull's head sometimes with bull's horns. Among the Syrians, ASTARTE was a human figure with a bull's head; for she was male and female. So, among the Phoenicians, their chief god, MOLOCH, bore the head of an ox annexed to the figure of a man. The Greek Osiris, namely, Bacchus Bugenes, or TAURIFORMIS, was represented, as the name imports, by the same form. So was the Cretan MINOTAUR. The golden fleece and golden apples of the Hesperides were equally guarded by BULLS. An apple formed into the shape of a BULL was sacred to Hercules. A bull's head hung upon a tree was a symbol appertaining, as appears from Hyde, to Mythra Victrix. The head of BACCHUS TAURIFORMIS was hung upon trees, as Spence instances, in order to produce fructification. Even the Druids devoted two milk-white steeds to the sacred mistletoe. The same traditional veneration exhibits itself repeatedly among Jewish antiquities. The Jews had scarcely left Egypt, when they recurred to the worship of the calf APIs; and, as it was their first offence, so it adhered to them till their punishment and dispersion."Thy calf, O Samaria!" says the denouncing prophet, "has cast thee off." The chimerical bulls of the Hebrews, or cherubim, (as they named them from the root, to plough,) are evidently of Egyptian origin. The twelve bulls of Solomon's brazen sea, arranged in threes towards each cardinal point, have a precise Egyptian counterpart in the twelve bulls, arranged also in threes, round the apex of the HELIOPOLITAN obelisk; and, like the former, quadrate with the cardinal points. The behemoth and leviathan of the rabbins are the Apis, or Osiris, and the river-dragon, or the Typhon of the Egyptians. Joseph was symbolized by an ox, as well as the half-tribes of MANASSEH and EPHRAIM; and it was to him, under this symbol of Behemoth, that the blessing of the "ancient mountains" was promised, the "thousand hills" of Esdras, and the Elysios collos" of Hesiod. To the last, according to Esdras, was assigned the ocean, and thence the Scandinavian seasnake. The Leviathan and river-dragon were both to receive their final wound. According to the rabbins, Behemoth, or the ox, is, at the consummation, to be divided among the

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elect. By this was evidently implied, the partition of Paradise, or of the whole earth in a state of Paradise, as by the wine of Adam to be then produced, was meant original prosperity; for grapes and prosperity are synonymous in Hebrew. This rabbinical fable is very singular, inasmuch as Osiris Apis appears to have been similarly separated into various divisions, during the mysteries, which divisions were subsequently rejoined with one exception; a type not to be mistaken of the expected restoration of mankind, as one family, to pristine innocence. In the mysteries of the Grecian Osiris, or Bacchus, the same remarkable feature was preserved, a bull being torn to pieces by the devotees. Among the hieroglyphics, the thigh of Apis is frequently seen. Belzoni found one in the tomb of Psammis. I take it, as the ox was a symbol of the first race of men, perhaps of antediluvian man, that the thigh was a symbol of the choicest part of the earth or Paradise. Hence it was always set apart for the gods, and considered sacred. The thigh was the region sacred to oaths. It contained the sinew forbidden to be eaten by the Jews; and the incorruptible bone, or luez, which the rabbins suppose to be the germ of a restored future corporeal life. Paradise is called Meru by the Hindoos, which is the root of the Greek word for a thigh; and the Brahmins seat their tenth world of gardens in the thigh of Brahma. It is worthy here of remark, that pots of flowers, similar to what were called the gardens of Adonis, (see Coptic Manuscript in Denon,) were offered to the ox; neither will it be unimportant to add, that apples and apple-trees were connected with the mysteries of Apis.

What is human reason to infer from all this singular analogy of facts, and images as singular? My inference is short: That the whole is a hieroglyphical portraiture, (of what Moses described in words,) viz., of the fall and expected restoration of man, with some dark shadowing of the means through the death of a second Adam, leader or teacher, (ox in Hebrew.)

There is nothing in the least illogical in our supposition, that Ham, whose name Egypt bears to this day, and who lived with the antediluvians, should have handed down the creed and traditions of the first men to his children, in the only language they possessed; nor is it wonderful, from the metaphorical nature of that language, that these traditions should become distorted, and vary from the true and simple statement of Moses, himself an Egyptian scribe. Neither the general coherency, nor peculiar variations, of these traditions, ought therefore to excite the least surprise. But it is incumbent on me to proceed to a more elaborate proof of my hypothesis. My first position is, that Apis was a symbol of antediluvian man; when connected with apples, his paradisiacal state was implied; when connected with

water, scyphi, crescents, &c., his partial destruction by a deluge.

It is scarcely necessary to argue that all the pagan fables of apples are referable to the forbidden fruit-those, for instance, of Atalanta, of Hercules, of Discord and the rival goddesses. Let the reader examine these fables, and judge for himself.

It is calculated that the vernal equinox, at the creation, was in the first degree of Taurus. Two thousand years after, Aries, by the precession of the equinoxes, occupied its place, and Aries is, accordingly, the first sign on the most ancient of the zodiacs. Taurus was, therefore, an apt and legitimate symbol of antediluvian man, and we may presume that the mysteries of Apis related to that state.

The mythological account of the fall differs little from that of Moses. According to Plato and his disciples, man fell when he descended from his intellectual to a sensual state, and multiplied himself. This was apparently Milton's idea. It was the version of a large portion of the early Christians, and thence the celibacy of the monastic orders. Moses, therefore, may have employed a delicate metaphor to express what Plato philosophically inferred, and the double interpretation of fruit and fruition at this day warrants the inference. The Mahometans say, that incontinency was the cause of the fall.

Another pagan fable bears a remarkable coincidence to the narrative of Moses. The pagan Eve, Persephoneh, (which name signifies lost fruit,) is condemned to Hades, or death, for eating a portion of the forbidden pomegranate.

Numerous pictorial and symbolical representations of the same event may be referred to. I apprehend that, according to the laws of hieroglyphical writing, the narrative of Moses could not have been more closely adhered to. I will endeavour to refer to these pictorial descriptions in the order of the Mosaic account.

Montfaucon exhibits several instances of the Bull-man, or first parent, crowned with apples.

Osiris was represented as enclosed in the thigh of Apis, an emblem of Paradise.

Protogonus and Eon, the first man and woman, were described as sailing through space in an egg-shaped vehicle. There are similar representations among the hieroglyphics.

On one of the Egyptian planispheres, exhibited by Kircher, instead of Astrea, who represented the paradisiacal state, there appears a fruit-tree, with two dogs in the branches looking different ways. Now, two cynocephali were symbols of light and darkness, of good and evil.

On a mythraic sculpture, preserved by Hyde, there are two fruit-trees. The first has a scorpion winding round it, and near it a ladder, which was the mystic symbol of descent or fall.