become fond of it, and to have had recourse to it in all cases of difficulty. Thus this figure of Horus in the character of an aged man with a scythe, is made into the emblem of time, who mows down all things, but in this, as in other occasions, we must seek for a solution of this enigma, in the true etymology of the names of Horus and Isis in their present characters.

Here again we find the epithets of Horus perfectly appropriate to his assumed character, which appears to have had allusion to the chief priest as far as the assembly was concerned; his name of Cheun designated him as a priest, while the word Chrone pointed him out as the head of the assembly, and the word Soterim or Soter, alluded to his having laid aside the sacerdotal and assumed the judicial character, and Sudec or Zadoc to his uprightness and integrity. As the annual session in all probability seldom passed without the condemnation. of one criminal, at least, it became a sort of proverbial saying that Soterin or Saturn would have his annual victim: again, instead of painting Horus with a scythe to show that the sitting of the judges was at the approach of the harvests, he was sometimes represented with eyes before and behind, some of which were asleep while the others were waking, and with four wings, two of which were spread and two closed, this served to show the uninterrupted attention of the judges, who continued sitting night and day, one party relieving the other alternately. Out of the opinion that Saturn would have his annual victim, is to be attributed the cruel practice of sacrificing human victims to this deity..

It may be right to observe here that the Greek mythologists were not only led into errors by their ignorance of the Hebrew words, but sometimes by their semblance to some Greek word, thus Chrone having a very near resemblance to Chronos, led them to the conclusion that this figure of Horus with a long beard was the emblem of time. It would be superfluous to repeat all the fictions of the Greeks respecting Saturn; to show the Egyptian pedigree of this deity was my principal object.

We will turn now to Rhea, who is also called Cybele; her name signifies to feed, to be a nurse or feeder, and was very appropriate to the earth, the nurse and feeder of all animals; of which the numerous heads of animals significantly intimated; or it may be considered according to another acceptation of Rhea, namely, a shepherd or feeder of cattle, which is still in unison with the season she is meant to proclaim, viz. the hay and corn harvests, and the animals with which she is begirt. Rhea was exhibited in Phrygia and Syria as having many breasts, this intimated the earth as yielding a superabundant or double crop, she was then called CYBELE, from CUPLE, which means double; she is called by the Greeks the mother of the gods, which appellation may be thus accounted for.

After the termination of the law suits, and while the people were busy with cutting and thrashing their corn, the judges still continued to sit in the capacity of legislators and senators, enacting new laws, and revising and correcting the old ones as circumstances required, and they continued thus employed the remainder of the year, that is, till the rising of the dog-star, in June or July, and the old man, with his scythe, remained in his place till a new Osiris or Sun appeared, that is, till the commencement of a new year; and now the signs return again, that is, Osiris and Isis, who, in the beginning, preceded all the other characters, and were conse quently the parents of the other gods, now follow Saturn and Cybele, or Rhea, and are deemed their child

ren.

But this, absurd as it may seem, must needs be the case, for with whatever signs or characters the series first begins, these must be considered as the parents, and the signs next following as the children; but at the expiration of the year, these signs again coming forward in rotation, instead of parents, are now the children of those personifications that closed the year. Thus Osiris and Isis, but under the names of Jupiter and Juno, are said by the Greek mythologists, to be the children of Saturn and Cybele.

We now see the reason why Osiris and Isis, as well as Thoth, follow Saturn in the Egyptian Theogony, and we also perceive that strict accordance of the Grecian Mythology with the Egyptian, which leaves no doubt of the origin of the former. While Osiris opens the new year with such symbols as denote the sun's place in the ecliptic, Isis indicates the festivals and sacrifices, and Thoth, or Anubis as he is called, announces the arising of the dog star. Anubis is from the Hebrew Hanubach, which signifies the barker.

Cybele, the Phrygian, Isis or Rhea, the wife of Saturn, is perhaps more properly a Latin than a Grecian deity, and the Italian history of her is, that she was the daughter of a king of Phrygia, who came from her own country into Italy, and there married Saturn; such obscurity did the lapse of ages throw over the plain and simple signs of the Egyptians; in this we have a retrogade motion, the Egyptians first personified and then deified their public signals, but here Cybele is reduced from a goddess to a mere mortal, though a prinThe priests of Cybele were called Corybantes, that is, sacrificers, from Corban a sacrifice: but the name was also common to the priests of Crete, Phrygia, Lemnos, and Samothracia. Vesta, the daughter of Saturn, seems to have been another Italian deity, that owed her exist. ence to some obscure notions of the ancient Vesta or ops.

cess.

Jupiter was the supreme being of the Greeks, and the sovereign of the gods, as well as of men. How he stood

in the admiration of the Greeks and Latins, the following lines sufficiently testify.

"He, whose all conscious eyes the world beholds, and
Th' eternal thunderer, sits enthroned in gold;
High heaven the footstool of his feet he makes,
And wide beneath him all Olympus shakes;
He speaks, and awful bends his sable brows,
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god;
High heaven, with trembling, the dread signal takes,
And all Olympus to the centre shakes."

Pope's Homer.

"Great Jove himself, whom dreadful darkness shrouds,
Pavillion'd in the thickness of the clouds,

With lightning armed, his red right hand puts forth
And shakes, with burning bolts, the solid earth:
The nations shrink appall'd, the beasts are fled,

All human hearts are sunk and pierc'd with dread;
He strikes vast Rhodope's exalted crown,
And hurls high Athos and Ceraunea down;
Thick fall the rains, the wind redoubl'd roars,

The god now smites the woods, and now the sounding shores."
Pitt's Virgil.

In these lines we find Jupiter raised to the very height of heavenly majesty and splendour; anon, we find him sunk to the level of a man, and guilty of the basest human passions; nor is the wife of Jupiter spoken of with less sublimity of language or magnificence of description, as may be seen in Homer's description of Juno's chariot.

"She speaks, Minerva burns to meet the war,
And now heaven's empress calls her blazing car;
At her command rush forth the steeds divine,
Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine:
Bright Hebe waits, Hebe for ever young,
The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung.
On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel
Of sounding brass; the polished axle steel.
Eight brazen spokes, in radiant order flame;
The circles gold of uncorrupted frame,

Such as the heavens produce; and round the gold
Two brazen rings of work divine were roll'd;
The bossy naves of solid silver shone;
Braces of gold suspend the golden throne;

The car behind an arching figure bore;
The bending concave form'd an arch before;
Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold,
And golden reins the immortal coursers hold;
Herself impatient to the ready car,

The coursers join, and breathes revenge and war.

Iliad.

Juno, though the most exalted of the goddesses, appears to have been frequently actuated by the same fierce passions that agitates the human breast; revenge, jealousy, and pride, often exercised their dominion over this goddess; such were the absurd and unworthy objects of pagan veneration, even among the Greeks, whose character stood high for wisdom.

The history of Jupiter is the most difficult of all to reduce to any tolerable regularity or consistency, for almost every country laid claim to this deity as the native of that place. The gods having in the first instance been considered as illustrious personages, who had once lived on the earth, and conferred great benefits on their country, they identified the most celebrated character among them with the most esteemed of their gods, or in this manner conferred immortal' honour on their primogenitor. Thus the Egyptians confounded Ham with Osiris, calling him Ammon. The same was practised by other countries, each people calling Osiris or the Sun, by the name of the most revered character of that district, adding the epithet of Jupiter to the other, and attaching their own particular history to this their native god. Hence the Jupiter Ammon of the Lybians, the Jupiter Serapis of Egypt, the Belus "of the Assyrians, and other Jupiters almost without number.

The Romans considered him as the guardian of their empire, and gave him different titles, as Jupiter Capitolinus, from a temple erected to his honour on the Capitoline Hill. Jupiter Tonans, or the thunderer. Jupiter Fulminans, the scatterer of the lightning, and the hurler of thunder-bolts. But our chief concern is with the Grecian and Egyptian deities, to whom we now return.