together, without any effort or opposition, to produce and perfect the universe. In this state of the first heaven, man was united inwardly to the supreme Reason; and outwardly he practised all the works of justice. The heart rejoiced in truth, and there was no mixture of falsehood. The four seasons of the year succeeded each other regularly and without confusion. There were no impetuous winds, nor excessive rains. The sun and the moon, without ever being clouded, furnished a light purer and brighter than at present. The five planets kept on their course without any inequality. There was nothing which did harm to man, or which suffered any hurt from him; but an universal amity and harmony reigned over all nature.' In this description, the Chinese manifestly allude to a state of pristine innocence: and their established doctrine on that point exactly harmonizes with those notions of a golden age, which have been so familiar to the bulk of mankind. On the other hand, the account, which they give of the commencement of the second heaven, seems clearly to point out the dreadful convulsion, which the world underwent at the time of the deluge. The pillars of heaven were broken. The earth shook to its very foundations. The heavens sunk lower towards the north. The sun, the moon, and the stars, changed their motions. The earth fell to pieces; and the waters inclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence, and overflowed it. Man Chev. Ramsay on the Mythology of the Pagans. p. 266. having rebelled against heaven, the system of the universe was totally disordered. The sun was eclipsed, the planets altered their course, and the grand harmony of nature was disturbed.' 3. It may likewise be observed, that the moral cause of the deluge is assigned by the Chinese in a very striking manner. All these evils arose, says the book Liki, from man's despising the supreme. monarch of the universe. He would needs dispute about truth and falshood; and these disputes banished the eternal reason. He then fixed his looks on terrestrial objects, and loved them to excess: hence arose the passions. He became gradually transformed into the objects which he loved; and the celestial reason entirely abandoned him. Such was the source of all crimes; and hence originated those various miseries, which are justly sent by heaven as the punishment of wickedness." VI. Not less interesting is the account, which the Burmans give of the deluge: though it is interwoven with the favourite pagan doctrine of a succession of numerous similar worlds; each of which either has been, or will be, destroyed in consequence of the wickedness of its inhabitants. Their writings allege three remote causes for the destruction of a world; luxury, anger, and ignorance. From these, by the power of fate, arise · the physical or proximate causes; fire, water, and 2 Chev. Ramsay on the Mythology of the Pagans. p. 267. wind. When luxury prevails, the world is consumed by fire; when anger prevails, it is dissolved in water; when ignorance prevails, it is dispersed by wind. A thousand years before the destruction of a world, a certain Nat descends from the superior abodes. His hair is dishevelled; his counte nance is mournful; and his garments are black. He passes every where through the public ways and streets with piteous voice, announcing to mankind the approaching dissolution. When water is to destroy the world, at first there fall very gentle showers; which, by degrees increasing, become at length of a most prodigious magnitude. By such rain the abodes of men are entirely dissolved: and, after the greater part have perished, another heavy rain falls, and sweeps away into the rivers the unburied bodies. Then follows a shower of flowers and sandal-wood to purify the earth: and all kinds of garments fall from above. The scanty remains of men, who had escaped from destruction, now creep out from caverns and hiding-places; and, repenting of their sins, henceforth enjoy longer lives. In the midst of various impertinent additions, we may here distinctly observe the history of an universal deluge, preceded by an eminent preacher of righteousness, who vainly warns an irreclaimable race to put away their iniquities. VII. The same tradition of a general flood prevailed also among the ancient Goths. Asiat, Res. vol. vi. p. 174-244.. According to their legends as we have them preserved in the Edda, all the families of the giants were once drowned in the streams of blood which flowed from the mundane body of Ymer. A single person however with his household was saved from the universal devastation, by taking refuge in his ship and from him descended the succeeding race of giants.' VIII. Equally is a belief, in the occurrence of an universal deluge, proved by the traditions of the Egyptians. The priest, who conversed with Plato on the subject, after discussing a destruction of the earth by fire, next proceeded to discourse of its dissolution by a mighty flood. The gods, said he, now wishing to purify the earth by water, overwhelmed it with a deluge. On this occasion, certain herdsmen and shepherds were saved on the tops of the mountains: but they, who dwelt in the towns which are situated in our country, were swept away into the sea by the rising of the rivers.2 IX. Of a similar origin are such Druidical legends, as have been preserved to us in the writings of the bards. The sum of them, we are told, is briefly as follows. The profligacy of mankind had provoked the Great Supreme to send a pestilential wind upon the earth. A pure poison descended: every blast was death. At this time the Patriarch, distinguished for his integrity, was shut up, together with his Edda. Fab. 4. 2 Platon. Tim. fol. 22, 23. select company, in the inclosure with the strong door. Here the just ones were safe from injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose. It split the earth asunder to the great deep. The lake Llion burst its bounds: the waves of the sea lifted themselves on high round the borders of Britain. The rain poured down from heaven: and the water covered the earth. But that water was intended as a lustration, to purify the polluted globe, to render it meet for the renewal of life, and to wash away the contagion of its former inhabitants into the chasms of the abyss. The flood, which swept away from the surface of the earth the expiring remains of the patriarch's contemporaries, raised his vessel on high from the ground, bore it safe upon the summit of the waves, and proved to him and his associates the waler of life and renovation." X. Having now surveyed the traditions of the old continent, let us next consider those of America. 1. There is still extant a Mexican painting; which, from an ignorance of alphabetic writing, served to exhibit the history of the deluge, as received by the Aztuk tribes. This picture represents Coxcox or Tezpi, in the midst of the waters, recumbent in his bark. The mountain, which rises above the waves crowned with a tree, is the peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of the Mexicans. At the foot of it appear the heads of Coxcox and his wife Xochiquetzal, who was saved along with him. I Davies's Mythol. of the Brit. Druids. p. 226. H |