Vulcan runs thus; Juno, the mother of Vulcan, being displeased with his awkward figure, kicked him out of heaven; after a long fall he lighted in the isle of Lemnos, with the sole accident of breaking one of his legs, by his violent concussion against the earth on his alighting. Here he beguiled the tedious hours of his exile from heaven, by employing himself, in the caverns of Mount Masycle, with melting metals from their ores, and in the exercise of various mechanic arts. The Sicilians and the inhabitants of Strongoli, in the islands of Lipari, pretended that they, as well as those of Lemnos, were honoured with the presence of this god, who had given the preference to their volcano for his forge: they made the same pretensions in the forges of Mount Ida, in Crete, as well of those of Ida, in Phrygia, all which serves to prove the migrations either of Egyptians or of Phoenicians into these countries, where they practised the ceremonials they had been accustomed to in their native country.

The idea of Vulcan's being the husband of Venus probably originated in his being accompanied by Isis to assist in the exhibition, by indicating some peculiar circumstances, that did not so properly come within the sphere of Horus's functions. The story of the preference given to Mars by Venus, probably originated in Horus's assuming a martial character, as a signal for the troops to assemble, preparatory to some military expedition, which might give occasion to some sarcastic remarks on the soldier's taking the place of the artificer. The lameness which the person representing Vulcan assumed on these occasions, might be intended to hold out a useful lesson to the husbandman, who, from the benefits which his country derived from his labours, might feel disposed to undervalue those of the mechanic, while Horus, the real character, seemed to acknowledge by his limping that agriculture would proceed with a slow and halting pace if not assisted by the mechanic.

In this way the origin of Vulcan is satisfactorily ac counted for. To show that Phthal, the first on the list

of Egyptian deities is really Vulcan, it is enough to say that the plough-share is the ancient symbol of that deity, being to the Egyptians one of the most useful productions of his ingenuity. Having thus examined into the pretensions of Phthah, the first in order in the Egyptian list, let us turn to Celus the first on the Grecian list of man-made deities, and the great ancestor of their gods.

At the commencement of these public exhibitions it was well understood that whatever signals were displayed by the officiating characters or personages, the person displaying was either Osiris, Isis, or Horus. Osiris principally indicating the sun's annual path, and its particular situation in the heavens; and Isis the periodical courses of the moon, and the civil and religious occupations of each, and that Horus was chiefly employed to intimate what more immediately concerned the husbandman and the mechanic; there were then two principal characters and an inferior one, viz. the representative of the sun and of the earth, the one male and the other female, and the third their beloved son. These are the leading characters that in time became deified, and notwithstanding the order in which aftertimes has placed them, they are indeed to be considered as the ancestors of all the other deities.

The Grecian Mythology, the earliest parts of which are centuries antecedent to the arrangement of the Egyptian deities now before us, sanction this view of the subject; for the Uranus and the Vesta, the Cœlus and the Terra of the Greeks and Latins, are evidently no other than the Osiris and Isis, the sun and earth of the Egyptians.

In the Grecian Mythology, Titan and Saturn come next in order, being the sons of Coelus and Terra, who are also termed Uranus and Vesta. In referring to the Hebrew language and to the public signs of the Egyptians, for an explanation of this genealogy, we shall find the Egyptian and the Grecian Theogony pleasingly harmo

nizing with each other; we shall at the same time see good reason to conclude that the Theogony which we are told is the most accurate and authentic, is indeed the inaccurate composition of a later period, than that in which the Greeks derived their first rudiments of science and religion from Egypt.

Osiris and Isis, the representatives of the sun and the earth, became also, as I have before shown, the representatives of all the circumstances that were monthly to be indicated to the people. When these characters thus assumed by Osiris became deities, through the stupidity of the people, then Osiris and Isis were considered as the parents of these ideal divinities, and stood at the head of the list, or table of Theogony; but in some of their characters they were recognized as Osiris and Isis, as the sun and the earth, and in other characters the primitive idea was absorbed in the secondary one, and they became distinct deities, in consequence of which much confusion and perplexity arose, for thus Isis was sometimes the wife, and sometimes the sister of the same deity, sometimes the mother of the gods, and at others the daughter of some of her own posterity; such are the absurdities attending both the Egyptian and the Grecian Mythology.

The order of genealogical descent, was, as I have already said, pretty much the order in which the public signs followed each other, but a perfect order is not to be expected in a system so calculated to generate confusion, contradiction, and absurdity. To recur then to the succession of the public signs, Titan is the next in importance after Phthah, whose history is this: At the commencement of the hot weather, in the month of February, the people of Egypt cleansed their houses and stables, bringing forth every thing that was useless and liable to mould or putrify, by laying by undisturbed, of these they made large heaps, and set fire to them, in order that being entirely consumed, the contagion arising from putrefaction might be avoided. To proclaim the season for their purifications by fire, Horus

and Isis were exhibited under the names of Aür, or Oür and Ops. With what particular symbols they were distinguished is not known, but their names were very expressive, Our signifying fire, the agent to be used, and Ops mouldiness or putrefaction. Isis also on

this occasion, as on some others, assumed a similar epithet to that of her companion, she accordingly was called Ashta, i. e. fire.

The Greeks converted the word Oür to Uranus, and Asta to Vesta; and as Uranus in Greek signifies heaven, they considered Vesta as meaning the earth, and the parents of the other gods; this was referring the origin of the gods to the true Egyptian source, viz. Osiris and Isis, the sun and the earth.

To this purification of the houses and the streets succeeded the cleansing of the channels of the Nile, and the public ditches, the heat of the weather being favourable to these operations, by drying up the moisture, and thus rendering the mud more solid. This operation, like every public concern in Egypt, was not left to the caprice of the inhabitants to do or to leave undone, as suited their own convenience, but the due time was announced by the exposition of a Horus, who on that occasion bore the name of Titan, and the Isis that accompanied him was called Tit or Tetis. The one being merely the feminine and the other the masculine termination, the literal meaning of the word is mud or clay. Hence the Titan and the Thetis of the Greeks.

About this time Saturn made his appearance attended by Rhea. Titan and Saturn thus closely succeeding each other, sanctioned the idea of their being brothers. The history of Saturn is as follows: In the month of February the judges assembled for the purpose of hearing and deciding the causes that were to be referred to them: according to ancient custom the priests united the sacred and the judicial offices in their own persons, they were both priests and judges; the weather being now fine, was favourable to those who had to come from

distant parts; another reason for choosing this season of the year was that the several harvests were then coming on, and it was desirable that these causes should be determined, that there might be nothing to interrupt or interfere with the labours of the harvest.

During the principal part of the year the priests appeared but seldom in public, but in the spring, that is in February, they met together in a judicial capacity, that all the differences being got rid of, the people might be at liberty to follow, without interruption, the occupations that they were soon to be engaged in. The judges living so excluded from their fellow-citizens, and being kept at the public expence, had but little inducement to swerve from the strictest integrity.

The assembling of the priests to judge the people, was proclaimed by a Horus with a great beard, and a scythe in his hand; the large beard had reference to the priests, who were ancient men; and the scythe to the harvests that were approaching. In this character Horus received the appellations of Sudec, Keren, Chun, Cheunna and Saterin; he was accompanied on these occasions by an Isis, with many breasts, and encompassed with the heads of animals. Thus invested Isis received the name of Rhea; and Isis, the wife of Osiris, or the Sun, is now the companion of Saturn, which is noticed to her disadvantage by those writers who treat these as real deities, or personages that once acted a part on the great theatre of the world, if not in the court of heaven. The manner in which she is noticed by these slanderers is this, "Rhea, the wife of the Sun, is said to have been familiar with both Thoth and Saturn;" and the same author observes with regard to Cronus, "Cronus, or Saturn is only known from his connexion with Rhea, the wife of the Sun." To such mistaken ideas as these is to be referred, the true cause of many of those tales so derogatory to the moral character of the gods and goddesses of the Grecians. The Greek mythologists having been inadvertently led into fiction at an early period, seem gradually to have