considered as a Greek fiction, is indeed the fragment of one of those historic memorials which were delivered by Noah to posterity.

But though the Greeks did not attempt to translate these Hebrew epithets, they altered them to suit their own ideas of euphony; this they have uniformly done in every instance in which Hebrew words have occurred, either in the ancient traditions, or the Egyptian ceremonials. Thus with respect to the names of the giants, under a Greek disguise the Hebrew origin is still obvious.

It is not within the most distant range of probability that so many words should have accidentally concurred together, to express the new order of things that took place in the atmosphere, at and after the flood.

Strong indeed must the impressions have been which were made on the minds of Noah and his sons, when instead of a cloudless sky, and the sun shining in per petual lustre, unobscured by clouds or rain, the luminary of the day was darkened by dense showers of rain, or by clouds like mountains successively passing over his surface; and when to perpetual spring, a variety of seasons, exhibiting the extremes of heat and cold succeeded; and when perpetual calmness and tranquillity, gave place to the war of elements and the contentions of nature. The discordant sounds of the headlong torrents, and the howling tempests, with the bursting of the earth, and the awful rolling of the thunder, were not more alarming than they were novel.

Should it be said, may not these names of the supposed giants have as satisfactory meanings in the Greek language as those thus derived from the Hebrew? the answer is prompt and explicit, viz: they have not. And it is in vain that we turn over the Greek lexicon to find an explanation of the names of these imaginary giants; it is in the Hebrew language alone that we shall be able to obtain a satisfactory explanation of this memorial, as well as of some of the earliest of the Grecian fictions. But we must bear in mind, that in these the Hebrew words are always modelled so as to reconcile them to the eye and ear of the Greeks, and this was effected chiefly by substituting the following Greek terminations for the Hebrew ones, viz: as, es, is, os, us, on, ades, edes, &c. or by the transposing, the cancelling, or the adding of a letter; by these means the word is considerably disguised, yet seldom so completely altered, as not to be recognized by an attentive observer.

I shall give some examples of the changes which the Hebrew words have undergone, in passing through the hands of the Greek authors, as opportunity offers. But I must first make a few more observations on this very interesting and truly valuable fragment of almost ANTEDILUVIAN ANTIQUITY, for it carries us back to the state of the atmosphere before the flood, to circumstances attending that dreadful event, and lastly to the changes that took place immediately after.

And first, Beri or Beri-harus, loss of serenity-that which is lost must once have existed: there must then have existed prior to the flood a settled serenity in the atmosphere, a circumstance of which none but Noah and his sons were surviving witnesses, therefore none but they could have informed mankind of it.

MIM. Of all the Hebrew terminations, im seems to have been the most unpleasant to the Greek orthoepists, and they constantly either changed it for some others, or added some terminations of their own to it; and as,

was that which they generally used: thus the Hebrew word Mim is in this instance converted into Mim-as. The meaning of the word is waters. This has reference in all probability, both to the torrents of water which descended from above at the time of the deluge, and to the rains which were frequent after it. That there should have existed no proper name for this meteor for the sixteen hundred years prior to the flood, which is clearly the fact, from no other word being used by Noah in this memorial than that of Mim, which signifies water generally, is a strong presumptive evidence that the rain which fell in torrents, at the time of the deluge, was an entirely new phenomenon. Moses was not thus limited, for in his time rain had its own appropriate epithet, and he accordingly sometimes uses the word Matan to designate rain.

Another circumstance which at once serves to strengthen this assertion, and to furnish an answer to the flippant objections of infidels, is that of the Rainbow, which we are given to understand was first exhibited in the heavens, immediately after the flood. The language with which the Almighty condescended to encourage Noah, leaves no doubt that the Rainbow was a novel phenomenon, and if so, rain must also have been a novelty, and under the circumstances of its first appearance a dreadful one. Had there been rain before the flood, there doubtless must have been frequent opportunities of seeing this beautiful appearance; but the expression, "behold I set my bow in the heavens," clearly intimates that this phenomenon then made its first appearance. It is reasonable to suppose that while the rain was incessantly falling that a gloomy darkness prevailed, this is expressed by the Hebrew words obi, ovi, thick; and altah, darkness, rendered by the Greek writers Ephi-altes, and that in consequence of this state of the atmosphere the sun was invisible during the forty days of the deluge.

On the coming forth of Noah and his family from the ark, the sun re-appeared, rain also again appeared,

but not as before, attended with clouds and thick darkness; not in the terrific form which it assumed as the commissioned agent of general devastation, when the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven being opened, it descended in overwhelming torrents; but falling with all that gentleness that was thenceforth to characterize the fertilizing showers of the spring, while the radiant sun-beams illumined the falling drops, and heaven's variegated arch was then first seen extended from one side of the horizon to the other, lovely token of the covenant of God with man, and beautifully emblematic of the arms of returning mercy once more extended to embrace a sorrowing world.

The words Ovi-altah had then a reference to both the gloomy darkness that prevailed during the flood, and to the dark mountainous clouds that distinguished the new heavens from the unclouded beauty and lustre of the former. Oin Kel, the Encelades in the Grecian story of the Giants, is composed of the Hebrew word Oin, a fountain, and Kel, a breaking or bursting forth: this evidently has allusion to the process of the deluge, and is in perfect unison with the expression of Moses, when he informs his reader that "the fountains of the great deep were broken up." The sacred historian in these sentences uses the very word Oin for fountains.

PUR, or as is usual in Hebrew, to render the word more emphatic, PHUR-PHUR, is the Porphyrion of the Greek, signifies either breaking very small, or a very violent fracture; such was no doubt the fracturing of the earth at the bursting forth of the fountains of the deep.

RUACH, the Rhacus of the Greeks, means breath or wind: the applying of this word to express a stormy wind is another proof that this memorial was composed when such a wind was so great a novelty in nature that there was no proper name to express it by.

OTHIм, rendered by the Greeks Othus, means set or appointed times, and seems to imply a change or diver

sity of seasons contrasted with the perpetual spring that prevailed before the flood, which the poets so often allude to, most probably on the authority of some other equally ancient and authentic memorial.

It is evident from this analysis of the proper names or epithets in the Grecian story of the Giants, that the said story, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, is not a deliberate fiction of the Greek poets, but a misapprehension of the subject into which they were led by their ignorance of the true meaning of these oriental epithets, and that it is a specimen of one of those concise histories which the primogenitors of the Hebrews had recourse to for the preservation and promulgation of their histories, their genealogies, their science, and their religion, before the art of writing was invented; and that it contains an account of the circumstances attending the flood, and of the changes in the atmosphere that succeeded this catastrophe, in the very words of those who were eye-witnesses of the awful scene, and of the mournful change in nature that succeeded it.

There are other apparent fables or fictions in the Grecian mythology, that in all probability owe their origin to the same source as the preceding, and their appearance of fiction to the same cause, viz. ignorance of the Hebrew epithets contained in the narrative. Similar errors have been fallen into by the Greeks, with respect to various histories and ceremonials received from the Egyptians; from the same cause; ignorance of the meaning of the Hebrew words contained in them. This will be most clearly illustrated by endeavouring to trace the Grecian Mythology to its Egyptian origin. The most orderly way of proceeding in this, will be to begin with a careful examination of the Grecian Theogony, or the genealogy of their Grecian deities.

The two that claim the precedence in the order of the Grecian deities are Cœlus or Uranus among the gods, and the ancient Vesta or Terra among the goddesses.