MYTHOLOGY

Is a term compounded of two Greek words, and in its original import it signifies any kind of fabulous doctrine. In its more appropriated sense, it means those fabulous details concerning the objects of worship which were invented and propagated by men who lived in the early ages of the world, and by them transmitted to succeeding generations, either by written records or by oral tradition.

As the theology and mythology of the ancients are almost inseparably connected, it will be impossible for us to develope the latter, without often introducing some observations relating to the former. We must therefore entreat the indulgence of our readers, if upon many occasions we would hazard a few strictures on the names, characters, adventures, and functions of such Pagan divinities as may have furnished materials for those fabulous narrations which the nature of the subject may lead us to discuss.

With respect to fable, it may be observed in general, that it is a creature of the human imagination, and derives its birth from that love of the marvellous which is in a manner congenial to the soul of man. The appearances of nature which every day occur, objects, actions, and events, which succeed each other by a kind of routine, are too familiar, too obvious and uninteresting, either to gratify curiosity or to excite admiration. On the other hand, when the most common phenomena in nature or life are new-modelled by the plastic power of a warm imagination; when they are diversified, compounded, embellished, or even arranged and moulded into forms which seldom or perhaps never occur in the ordinary course of things; novelty generates admiration, a passion always attended with delightful sensations. Here then we imagine we have discovered the very source of fiction and fable. They originated from that powerful propensity in our nature towards the new and surprising, animated by the delight with which the contemplation of them is generally attended.

Many circumstances contributed to extend and establish the empire of fable. The legislator laid hold on this bias of human nature, and of course employed fable and fiction as the most effectual means to civilize a rude, unpolished world. The philosopher, the theologist, the poet, the musician, each in his turn made use of this vehicle to convey his maxims and instructions to the savage tribes. They knew that truth, simple and unadorned, is not possessed of charms powerful enough to captivate the heart of man in his present corrupt and degenerate state. This consideration, which did indeed result from the character of their audience, naturally led them to employ fiction and allegory. From this was derived the allegorical taste of the ancients, and especially of the primary sages of the East.

Though almost every nation on the face of the globe, however remote from the centre of population, however savage and averse from cultivation, has fabricated and adopted its own system of mythology, the orientals have distinguished themselves in a peculiar manner, by the boldness, the inconsistency, and the extravagance of their mythology. The genial warmth of those happy climes, the fertility of the soil, which afforded every necessary, every conveniency, and often every luxury of life, without depressing their spirits by laborious exertions; the face of nature perpetually blooming around them, the skies smiling with uninterrupted serenity; all contributed to inspire the orientals with a glow of fancy and a vigour of imagination rarely to be met with in less happy regions. Hence every object was swelled beyond its natural dimensions. Nothing was great or little in moderation, but every sentiment was heightened with incredible hyperbole. The magnificent, the sublime, the vast, the enormous, the marvellous, first sprung up, and were brought to maturity, in those native regions of fable and fairy land. As nature, in the ordinary course of her operations, exhibited neither objects nor effects adequate to the extent of their romantic imaginations, they naturally deviated into the fields of fiction and fable. Of consequence, the custom of detailing fabulous adventures originated in the East, and was from thence transplanted into the western countries.

As the allegorical taste of the eastern nations had sprung from their propensity to fable, and as that propensity had in its turn originated from the love of the marvellous, so did allegory in process of time contribute its influence towards multiplying fables and fiction almost in infinitum. The latent import of the allegorical doctrines being in a few ages lost and obliterated, what was originally a moral or theological tenet assumed the air and habit of a personal adventure.

The propensity towards personification, almost universal among the orientals, was another fruitful source of fable and allegory. That the people of the East were strongly inclined to personify inanimate objects and abstract ideas, we imagine will be readily granted, when it is considered, that in the formation of language they have generally annexed the affection of sex to those objects. Hence the distinction of grammatical genders, which is known to have originated in the eastern parts of the world. The practice of personifying virtues, vices, religious and moral affections, was necessary to support that allegorical style which universally prevailed in those countries. This mode of writing was in high reputation even in Europe some centuries ago; and to it we are indebted for some of the most noble poetical compositions now extant in our own language. Those productions, however, are but faint imitations of the original mode of writing still current among the eastern nations. The Europeans derived this species of composition from the Moorish inhabitants of Spain, who imported it from Arabia, their original country.

The general use of hieroglyphics in the East must have contributed largely towards extending the empire of mythology. As the import of the figures employed in this method of delineating the signs of ideas was in a great measure arbitrary, mistakes must have frequently been committed in ascertaining the notions which they were at [7:15:676]the first intended to represent.^[1. This, though plausible enough as a mere supposition or hypothesis, must be taken with more than grains of allowance, seeing it proceeds upon an assumption which is by no means correct in point of fact. It is not true that the import of the figures employed in the hieroglyphic delineation of ideas was “ in α great measure arbitrary for, if this had been the case, then the interpretation of such figures would have been, in the same measure or proportion, impossible. Originally, no doubt, arbitrary values may have been affixed to certain figures or symbols, that is, values not depending on any obvious analogy or principle; but these being once conventionally settled, remained invariable, and were ever afterwards employed in an uniform sense or acceptation, as much so indeed as if they had been originally natural instead of conventional signs, expressive of certain ideas. This distinction should never be lost sight of in any observations on hieroglyphical writing, which, in truth, was but ill understood at the period when the above article was composed by its able and ingenious author. If constructed on any other principle than that now stated, it would have been altogether unintelligible— Editor. ] When the development of these arbitrary sighs happened to be attended with uncommon difficulty, the expounders were obliged to have recourse to conjecture. Those conjectural expositions were for the most part tinctured with that bias towards the marvellous which universally prevailed amongst the primitive men. This, we find, is the case even at this day, when moderns attempt to develope the purport of emblematical figures preserved on ancient medals, entaglios, and the like.

The wise men of the East delighted in obscure enigmatical sentences. They seem to have disdained every sentiment obvious to vulgar apprehension. The words of the wise, and their dark sayings, often occur in the most ancient records, both sacred and profane. The sages of antiquity used to vie with each other for the prize of superior wisdom, by propounding riddles, and dark and mysterious questions, as subjects of investigation. The contest between Solomon and Hiram, and that between Amasis king of Egypt and Polycrates tyrant of Samos, are universally known. As the import of those enigmatical propositions was often absolutely lost, in ages when the art of writing was little known, and still less practised, nothing remained but fancy and conjecture, which always verged towards the regions of fable. This, then, we think, was another source of mythology.

The Pagan priests, especially in Egypt, were probably the first who reduced mythology to a kind of system. The sacerdotal tribe, amongst that people, were the grand depositories of learning as well as of religion. That order of men monopolized all the arts and sciences. They seem to have formed a conspiracy among themselves, to preclude the laity from all the avenues of intellectual improvement. This plan was adopted with a view to keep the laity in subjection, and to enhance their own importance. To accomplish this end, they contrived to perform all the ministrations of their religion in an unknown tongue, and to cover them with a thick veil of fable and allegory. The language of Ethiopia became their sacred dialect, and hieroglyphics their sacred character.^[2. The modern doctrine on this subject may be ascertained by consulting the article Hieroglyphics. ] Egypt, of course, became a kind of fairy land, where all was jugglery, magic, and enchantment. The initiated alone were admitted to the knowledge of the occult mystical exhibitions, which, in their hands, constituted the essence of their religion. From these the vulgar and profane were prohibited by the most rigorous penalties. (See Mysteries.) The Egyptians, and indeed all the ancients without exception, deemed the mysteries of religion too sacred and solemn to be communicated to the herd of mankind, naked and unreserved; a mode by which they imagined those sacred and sublime oracles would have been defiled and degraded. “Procul, 0 procul este profani “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.” Egypt was the land of graven images; allegory and mythology were the veil which concealed religion from the eyes of the vulgar; and fable was the groundwork of that impenetrable covering.

In the earliest and most unpolished stage of society we cannot suppose fable to have existed amongst men. Fables are always tales of other times, but at this period other times did not reach far enough backward to afford those fruits of the imagination sufficient time to arrive at maturity. Fable requires a considerable space of time to acquire credibility, and to rise into reputation. Accordingly, we find that both the Chinese and Egyptians, the two most ancient nations whose annals have reached our times, were altogether unacquainted with fabulous details in the most early and least improved periods of their respective monarchies. It has been shown almost to a demonstration, by a variety of learned men, that both the one and the other people, during some centuries after the general deluge, retained and practised the primitive Noachic religion, in which fable and fancy could find no place; all was genuine unsophisticated truth.

As soon as the authentic tradition concerning the origin of the universe was either in a good measure lost, or at least adulterated by the invention of men, fable and fiction began to prevail. The Egyptian Thoth, Thyoth, or Mercury Trismegistus, and Moschus the Phoenician, undertook to account for the formation and arrangement of the universe, upon principles purely mechanical. Here fable began to usurp the place of genuine historical truth. Accordingly, we find that all the historians of antiquity who have undertaken to give a general detail of the affairs of the world, have ushered in their narration with a fabulous cosmogony. Here imagination ranged unconfined over the boundless extent of the primary chaos. To be convinced of the truth of this assertion, we need only look into Sanchoniathon’s Cosmogony, Eusebius (Praep. Evang. 1.1), and Diodorus Siculus. From this we suppose it will follow, that the first race of fables owed their birth to the erroneous opinions of the formation of the universe.

Having now endeavoured to point out the origin of mythology, or fabulous traditions, we shall proceed to lay before our readers a brief detail of the mythology of the most respectable nations of antiquity, following the natural order of their situation.

The Chinese, if any credit be due to their own annals, or to the missionaries of the church of Rome, who pretend to have copied from them, were the first of the nations. Their fabulous records reach upwards many myriads of years before the Mosaic era of the creation. The events during that period of time, if any had been recorded, must have been fabulous as the period itself. These, however, are buried in eternal oblivion. The missionaries, who are the only sources of our information with relation to the earliest periods of the Chinese history, represent those people as having retained the religion of Noah many centuries after the foundation of their empire. Upon this supposition, their cosmogony must have been sound and genuine, without the least tincture of those fabulous ingredients which have both disguised and disgraced the cosmogonies of most other nations.

According to the most authentic accounts, Fohe or Fohi laid the foundation of that empire about four thousand years ago. This emperor, according to the Chinese, was conceived in a miraculous manner. His mother, say they, one day as she was walking in a desert place, was surrounded by a rainbow; and, being impregnated by this meteor, was in due time delivered of that celebrated legislator. This personage, like the Athenian Cecrops, was half a man [7:15:677] and half a serpent. His intellectual powers were truly hyperbolical. In one day he discovered fifty different species of poisonous herbs. He taught his countrymen the whole art of agriculture in the space of a very few years. He instructed them how to sow five different sorts of grain, He invented boats, and nets for fishing, the art of fabricating porcelain, the management of silk-worms, the manufacturing of silk, &c. In a word, that wonderful personage was inspired by Heaven with knowledge, which qualified him for composing that incomparable body of laws which are even at this day the wonder of the world. Our readers will admit, that this whole detail is fabulous and chimerical. The most learned part of them will readily observe, that the Chinese, in ascribing-the invention of all the useful arts to their Fohi, are perfectly agreed with almost all the other nations of antiquity. The Indians ascribe every invention to Budha, or Vishnu, or Foe; the Persians to Zerdusht or Zoroaster; the Chaldeans to their man of the sea, whom they call Oannes; the Egyptians to Thoth or Thyoth; the Phoenicians to Melicerta; the Greeks to the family of the Titans; and the Scandinavians to Odin.

About. 551 years before the Christian era, appeared the famous Chinese philosopher Con-fu-tse or Confucius. Concerning the birth of this prince of philosophers, the Chinese have propagated the following legendary tale. His mother, walking in a solitary place, was impregnated by the vivifying influence of the heavens. The babe, thus produced, spake and reasoned as soon as it was born. Confucius, however, wrought no miracles, performed no romantic exploits, but lived an austere ascetic life, taught and inculcated the doctrines of pure morality, and died, remarkable only for superior wisdom, religious, moral, and political.

About the year of Christ 601, flourished the sectary Lao-kùm. His mother carried him thirty years in her womb, and was at last delivered of him under a plum-tree. This philosopher was the Epicurus of the Chinese. His disciples, who were denominated the Fao-sse, that is, heavenly doctors, were the first who corrupted the religion of the Chinese. They were addicted to magic, and introduced the worship of good and bad demons. Their doctrine was embraced by a long' succession of emperors. One of these princes, called You∙ti, had been deprived by death of a favourite mistress, whom he loved with the most extravagant passion. The emperor, by the magical skill of one of these doctors, obtained an interview with his deceased mistress, a circumstance which riveted the whole order in the affection and esteem of the deluded prince. Here our readers will observe the exact counterpart of the fable of Eurydice, so famous in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans. That such a system of religious principles must have abounded with mythological adventures is highly probable; but as the missionaries, to whom we are chiefly indebted for our information relating to the religion of the Chinese, have not taken the pains to record them, we find it impossible to gratify the curiosity of our readers on that head.

The worship of the idol Fo, or Foe, was transplanted from India into China about the fifty-sixth year of the Christian era, upon the following occasion. One of the doctors of the Fao-sse had promised a prince of the family of Tchou, and brother of the Emperor Ming-ti, to make him enter into communion with the spirits. At his solicitation an ambassador was despatched into India, in order to inquire where the true religion was to be found. There had been a tradition, say the missionaries, ever since the age of Confucius, that the true religion was to be found in the West. The ambassador stopt short in India; and finding that the god Fo was in high reputation in that country, he collected several images of that deity painted on chintz, and with it forty-two chapters of the canonical books of the Hindus, which, together with the images, he laid on a white elephant, and transported into his native country. At the same time he imported from the same quarter the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which is firmly believed in China to this day. The doctrine and worship of Fo, thus introduced, made a most rapid progress all over China, Japan, Siam, &c. The priests of Fo are called amongst the Siamese Talapoins; by the Tartars, Lamas ; by the Chinese, Ha-chang ; and by the people of Japan, Bonzes. By this last appellation they are generally known in Europe.

An infinitude of fables was invented and propagated by the disciples of Fo, concerning the life and adventures of their master. If the earlier ages of the Chinese history are barren of mythological incidents, the later periods, after the introduction of the worship of Fo, furnish an inexhaustible store of miracles, monsters, fables, intrigue, exploits, and adventures, of the most villanous complexion. Indeed, most of them are so absurd, so ridiculous, and at the same time so impious and profane, that we are convinced our readers will easily dispense with a detail from which they could reap neither entertainment nor instruction. Such as may find themselves disposed to rake into this abominable puddle, we must refer to the reverend fathers Du Halde, Couplet, Amiot, Kircher, and other members of the propaganda, in whose writings they will find wherewithal to satisfy, and even to surfeit, their appetite.

The Hindus, like the other nations of the East, for a long time retained the worship of the true God. At length, however, idolatry broke in, and, like an impetuous torrent, overwhelmed the country. First of all, the genuine history of the origin of the universe was either utterly lost, or disguised under a variety of fictions and allegories. We are told that Brahma, the supreme divinity of the Hindus, after three several efforts, at last succeeded in creating four persons, whom he appointed to rule over all the inferior creatures. Afterwards Brahma joined his efficient power with Bishon and Rulder, and by their united exertions they produced ten men, whose general appellation is Munies, that is, the inspired. The same being, according to another mythology, produced four other persons, as imaginary as the former; one from his breast, one from his back, one from his lip, and one from his heart. These children were denominated Bangs, the import of which word we cannot pretend to determine. According to another tradition, Brahma produced the Brahmins from his mouth, to pray, to read, to instruct; the Chiltern from his arms, to draw the bow, to fight, to govern; the Bice from his belly or thighs, to nourish, to provide the necessaries of life by agriculture and commerce; the Soder from his feet, for subjection, to serve, to labour, to travel. The reader will see at once, in these allegorical persons, the four castes or septs into which the Hindu nations have, from time immemorial, been divided. These are some of their most celebrated mythological traditions with relation to the origin of the universe.

The Hindus have likewise some mythological opinions which seem to relate to the general deluge. They tell us, that desiring the preservation of herds and of brahmans, of genii and of virtuous men, of vedas of law, and of precious things, the lord of the universe assumes many bodily shapes; but though he pervades, like the air, a variety of beings, yet he is himself unvaried, since he has no quality in him subject to change. At the close of the last calpa, there was a general destruction, occasioned by the sleep of Bralιm, whence his creatures in different worlds were drowned in a vast ocean. Brahm being inclined to slumber after a lapse of so many ages, the strong demon Hy-agri-va came near him, and stole the vedas which had flowed from his lips. When Heri, the preserver of the universe, discovered this deed of the prince of Dainavas, he [7:15:678]took the shape of a minute fish called Sap∙hari. After various transformations, and an enormous increase of size in each of them, the lord of the universe, loving the righteous man,^[3. He was sovereign of the world. His name was Μαnα i or Statgavrata; and his patronymic was Vaisυata i or Child of the Sun. ] who had still adhered to him under all these various shapes, and, intending to preserve him from the sea of destruction caused by the depravity of the age, thus told him how he was to act: “In seven days from the present time, O thou tamer of enemies, the three worlds will be plunged in an ocean of death; but in the midst of the destroying waves a large vessel sent me for thy use shall stand before thee.” The remaining part of the mythology so nearly resembles the Mosaic history of Noah and the general deluge, that the former may be a strong confirmation of the truth of the latter. To dry up the waters of the deluge, the power of the Deity descends in the form of a boar, the symbol of strength, to draw up and support on his tusks the whole earth, which had been sunk beneath the ocean. Again, the same power is represented as a tortoise sustaining the globe, which had been convulsed by the violent assaults of demons, while the gods charmed the sea with the mountain Mandar, and forced it to disgorge the sacred things and animals, together with the water of life, which it had swallowed. All these stories, we think, relate to the same event, shadowed by a moral, a metaphysical and an astronomical allegory; and all three seem connected with the hieroglyphical sculptures of the old Egyptians.

The Hindus divide the duration of the world into four yugs or jugs, or jogues, each consisting of a prodigious number of years. In each of those periods the age and stature of the human race have been gradually diminished; and in each of them mankind has gradually declined in virtue and piety, as well as in age and stature. The present period they call the collae, that is, the corrupt yug, which they say is to last four hundred thousand years, of which near five thousand years are already past. In the last part of the preceding yugs, which they call the dwa paar, the age of man was contracted into a thousand years, as in the present it is confined to a hundred. From this proportional diminution of the length of human life, our readers will probably infer, that the two last yugs bear a pretty near resemblance to the Mosaic history of the age of the antediluvian and postdiluvian patriarchs; and that the two first are imaginary periods prior to the creation of the world, like those of the Chinese, Chaldeans, and Egyptians.

According to the mythology of the Hindus, the system of the world is subject to various dissolutions and resuscitations. At the conclusion of the collae jogue, say they, . a grand revolution will take place, when the solar system will be consumed by fire, and all the elements reduced to their original constituent atoms. Upon the back of these revolutions, Brahma, the supreme deity of the Hindus, is sometimes represented as a new-born infant, with his toe in his mouth, floating on a camala or water flower, sometimes only on a leaf of that plant, on the surface of the vast abyss. At other times he is figured as coming forth of a winding shell, and again as blowing up the mundane foam with a pipe at his mouth. Some of these emblematical figures and attitudes, our learned readers will probably observe, nearly resemble those of the ancient Egyptians.

But the vulgar religion of the ancient Hindus was of a very different complexion, and opens a large field of mythological adventures. We have observed above, that the Fo or Foh of the Chinese was imported from India; and now we shall give a brief detail of the mythological origin of that divinity. We have no certain account of the birthplace of this imaginary deity. His followers relate that he was born in one of the kingdoms of India near the line, and that his father was one of that country. His mother brought him into the world by the left side, and expired soon after her delivery. At the time of her conception, she dreamed that she had swallowed a white elephant y a circumstance which is supposed to have given birth to the veneration which the kings of India have always shown for a white animal of that species. As soon as he was born, he had strength enough to stand erect without assistance. He walked abroad at seven, and, pointing with one hand to the heavens, and with the other to the earth, he cried out, “In the heavens, and on the earth, there is no one but me who deserves to be honoured.” At the age of thirty, he felt himself all on a sudden filled with the divinity; and now he was metamorphosed into Fo or Pagod, according to the expression of the Hindus. He had no sooner declared himself a divinity, than he thought of propagating his doctrine, and proving his divine mission by miracles. The number of his disciples was immense; and they soon spread his dogmas over all India, and even to the higher extremities of Asia.

One of the principal doctrines which Fo and his disciples propagated, was the metempsychosis or transmigration of souls. This doctrine, some imagine, has given rise to the multitude of idols reverenced in every country where the worship of Fo is established. Quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and the vilest animals, had temples erected for them; because, say they, the soul of the god, in his numerous transmigrations, may have at one time or other inhabited their bodies.

Both the doctrine of transmigration and of the worship of animals seems, however, to have been imported from Egypt into India. If the intercourse between these two countries was begun at so early a period as some very late writers have endeavoured to prove, such a supposition is by no means improbable. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was early established among the Egyptians. It was, indeed, the only idea they formed of the soul’s immortality. The worship of animals among them seems to have been still more ancient. If such an intercourse did actually exist, we may naturally suppose that colonies of Egyptian priests found their way into India, as they did afterwards into Asia Minor, Italy, and Greece. That colonies of Egyptians did actually penetrate into that country, and settle there, many centuries before the Nativity, is a fact that cannot be called in question, for reasons which the bounds prescribed us in this article will not allow us to enumerate. We shall only observe, that from the hieroglyphical representations of the Egyptian deities seem to have originated those monstrous idols which from time immemorial have been worshipped in India, China, Japan, Siam, and even in the remotest parts of Asiatic Tartary.

Foh is often called Eudha or Budda, and sometimes Vishnu; perhaps, indeed, he maybe distinguished by many other nan⅛es, according to the variety of dialects of the different nations among which his worship was established. An infinitude of fables was propagated by his disciples concerning him after his death. They pretended that their master was still alive; that he had been already born eight thousand times, and that he had successively appeared under the figure of an ape, a lion, a dragon, an elephant, a boar, &c. These were called the incarnations of Vishnu. At length he was confounded with the Supreme God; and all the titles, attributes, operations, perfections, and ensigns of the Most High were ascribed to him. Sometimes he is called Amida, and represented with the head of a dog, and worshipped as the guardian of mankind. He sometimes appears as a princely personage, issuing from the [7:15:679]mouth of a fish. At other times, he wears a lunette on his head, in which are seen cities, mountains, towers, trees, in short, all that the world contains. These transformations are evidently the children of allegorical or hieroglyphical emblems, and form an exact counterpart of the symbolical worship of the Egyptians.

The enormous mass of mythological traditions which have in a manner deluged the vast continent of India would fill many volumes. We have selected the preceding articles as a specimen only, by which our readers may be qualified to judge of the rest. If they find themselves disposed to indulge their curiosity at greater length, we must refer them to Thevenot’s and Hamilton’s Travels, to Μ. Anqnétil in his Zendavesta, Halhed’s Introduction to his translation of the code of Gentoo Laws, Colonel Dow’s History of Hindustan, Grose’s Voyage to the East Indies, and the Asiatic Researches (vol. i. and ii.).

The mythology of the Persians is, if possible, still more extravagant than that of the Hindus. It supposes the world to have been repeatedly destroyed, and repeopled by creatures of different formation, who were successively annihilated or banished for their disobedience to the Supreme Being. The monstrous griffin Sinergh informs the hero Cakerman that she had already lived to see the earth seven times filled with creatures, and seven times a perfect void; that before the creation of Adam, this globe was inhabited by a race of beings called Peris and Dives, whose characters formed a perfect contrast. The Peris are described as beautiful and benevolent; the Dives as deformed, malevolent, and mischievous, differing from infernal demons only in this, that they are not as yet confined to the pit of hell. They are for ever ranging over the world, to scatter discord and misery amongst the sons of men. The Peris nearly resemble the fairies of Europe; and perhaps the Dives gave birth to the giants and magicians of the middle ages. *∙The Peris and Dives wage incessant wars; and when v the Dives make any of the Peris prisoners, they shut them up in iron cages, and hang them on the highest trees, to expose them to public view, and to the fury of every chilling blast.

When the Peris are in danger of being overpowered by their foes, they solicit the assistance of some mortal hero, which produces a series of mythological adventures highly ornamental to the strains of the Persian bards, and which at the same time furnishes an inexhaustible fund of the most diversified machinery.

One of the most celebrated adventurers in the mythology of Persia is Talιmuras, one of their most ancient monarchs. This prince performs a variety of exploits while he endeavours to recover the fairy Merjan. He attacks the Dive Derarush in his own cave, where, having vanquished the giant or demon, he finds vast piles of hoarded wealth, which he carries off with the fair captive. The battles, labours, and adventures of Rostan, another Persian worthy, who lived many ages after the former, are celebrated by the Persian bards with the same extravagance of hyperbole with which the labours of Hercules have been sung by the poets of Greece and Rome.

The adventures of the Persian heroes breathe all the wildness of achievement recorded of the knights of Gothic romance. The doctrine of enchantments, transformations, and the like, exhibited in both, is a characteristic symptom of one common original. Persia is the genuine classic ground of eastern mythology, and the source of the ideas of chivalry and romance, which were thence propagated to the regions of Scandinavia, and indeed to the remotest corners of Europe towards the west.

Perhaps our readers may be inclined to adopt our opinion, when we offer it as a conjecture, that the tales of the war of the Peris and Dives originated from a vague tradition concerning good and bad angels. Nor is it, we think, at all improbable, that the fable of the wars between the gods and giants, so famous in the mythology of Greece and Italy, was imported into the former of these countries from the same quarter. (For a more particular account of the Persian mythology, our readers may consult Dr Hyde, Relig. Vet. Pers. ; D’Herbelot’s Bibl. Orient. ; and Richardson’s Introduction to his Persian and Arabic Dictionary.)

The mythology of the Chaldaeans, like that of the other nations of the East, commences at a period myriads of years prior to the era of the Mosaic creation. Their cosmogony, exhibited by Berosus, who was a priest of Belus, and deeply versed in the antiquities of his country, is a piece of mythology of the most extravagant nature. It has been copied by Eusebius (Chron. lib. i. p. 5); and it is likewise to be found in Syncellus, copied from Alexander Polyhistor. According to this historian, there were at Babylon written records preserved with the greatest care, comprehending a period of fifteen myriads of years. Those writings likewise contained a history of the heavens and the sea, of the earth, and of the origin of mankind. “In the beginning,” says Berosus, copying from Oannes, of whom we shall afterwards give a brief account, “there was nothing but darkness and an abyss of water, wherein resided most hideous beings produced from a twofold principle. Men appeared with two wings; some with two and some with four faces. They had one body, but two heads; the one of a man, the other of a woman. Other human figures were to be seen, furnished with the legs and horns of goats. Some had the feet of horses behind, but before were fashioned like men, resembling hippocentaurs.” The remaining part of this mythology is much of the same complexion; indeed so extravagant, that we imagine our readers will readily enough dispense with our translating the sequel. “Of all these,” says the author, “were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon. The person who was supposed to preside over them was called Omorea. This word, in the Chaldean language, is Thalath, which the Greeks call Oα ∖ ασσα, but it more properly imports the moon. Matters being in this situation, their god, says Eusebius, the god, says Syncellus, came and cut the woman asunder; and out of one half of her he formed the earth, and out of the other he made the heavens; and, at the same time, he destroyed the monsters of the abyss.” This whole mythology is an allegorical history copied from hieroglyphical representations, the real purport of which could not be deciphered by the author. Such, in general, were the consequences of the hieroglyphical style of writing.

Oannes, the great civilizer and legislator of the Chaldaeans, according to Apollodorus, who copied from Berosus, was an amphibious animal of a heterogeneous appearance. He was endowed with reason, and a very uncommon acuteness of parts. His whole body resembled a fish. Under the head of a fish he had also another head, and feet below similar to those of a man, which were subjoined to the tail of the fish. His voice and language were articu ι ∙ late, and perfectly intelligible; and there was a figure of him still extant in the days of Berosus. He made his appearance in the Erythrean or Red Sea, where it borders upon Babylonia. This monstrous being conversed with men by day; but at night he plunged into the sea, and remained concealed in the water till next morning. He taught the Babylonians the use of letters, and the knowledge of all the arts and sciences. He instructed them in the method of building houses, constructing temples, and all other edifices. He taught them to compile laws and religious ceremonies, and explained to them the principles of mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. In a word, he communicated to them every thing necessary, useful, and ornamental; and so universal were his instructions, that not [7:15:680]one single article had ever been added to them since the time they were first communicated. Helladius is of opinion that this strange personage, whoever he was, came to be represented under the figure of a fish, not because he was actually believed to be such, but because he was clothed with the skin of a seal. By this account our readers will see that the Babylonian Oannes is the exact counterpart of the Fohi of the Chinese, and the Thoth or Mercury Trismegistus of the Egyptians. It is likewise apparent that the idea of the monster compounded of the man and the fish has originated from some hieroglyphic emblem of that form grafted upon the appearance of man. Some modern mythologists have been of opinion that Oannes was actually Noah, the great preacher of righteousness, who, as some think, settled in Shinar or Chaldaea after the deluge, and who, in consequence of his connection with that event, might be properly represented under the emblem of the Man of the Sea.

The nativity of Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, is another piece of mythology famous amongst the Babylonians and Assyrians. An egg, say they, of a prodigious size, dropped from heaven into the river Euphrates. Some doves settled upon this egg, after the fishes had rolled it to the bank. In a short time this egg produced Venus, who was afterwards called Dea Syria, or the Syrian goddess. In consequence of this tradition, says Hyginus, pigeons and fishes became sacred to this goddess amongst the Syrians, who always abstained from eating the one or the other. Of this imaginary being we have a very exact and entertaining history in the treatise De Dea Syria, generally ascribed to Lucian.

In this mythological tradition our readers will probably discover an allusion to the celebrated Mundane Egg; and at the same time the story of the fishes will lead them to anticipate the connection between the sea and the moon. This same deity was the Atargatis of Ascalon, described by Diodorus the Sicilian; the one half of her body being that of a woman, and the other that of a fish. This was no doubt a hieroglyphic figure of the moon, importing the influence of that planet upon the sea and the sex. The oriental name of this deity evidently points to the moon; for it is compounded of two Hebrew words,^[4. Adar or HaDaR, magnificus, and Gad, exercitus, turmce. ] importing “the queen of the host of heaven.”

The fable of Semiramis is nearly connected with the preceding one. Diodorus Siculus has preserved the mythological history of this deity, which he and all the writers of antiquity have confounded with the Babylonian princess of the same name. That historian informs us, that the word Semiramis, in the Syrian dialect, signifies “a wild pigeon ;” but we apprehend that this term was a name or epithet of the moon, as it is compounded of two words^[5. Shem or Sent, a sign, and ramah, high. ] of an import naturally applicable to the lunar planet. It was a general practice amongst the Orientals to denominate their sacred animals from that deity to which they were consecrated. Hence the moon being called Semiramis, and the pigeon being sacred to her divinity, the latter was called by the name of the former.^[6. As the bounds prescribed for the present article render it impossible for us to do justice to this interesting piece of mvthologv, we must beg leave to refer our readers forfarther information to Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii.; Hyginus, Poet. Astron. Fab. 197; PĬiarnutus, de Nat. Dear. ; Ovid, Metam, lib. iv.; Athen, in Ayol. ; Izetzes, cbil. ix. cap. 27ß; Selden, de Diis Syr. ii. 183. ]

We should now proceed to notice the mythology of the Arabians, the greater part of which is, however, buried in the abyss of ages; although, when we reflect on the genius and character of that people, we must be convinced that they too, as well as the other nations of the East, abounded in fabulous relations and romantic compositions. The natives of that country have always been enthusiastically addicted to poetry, of which, in its early stage, fable is the essence. Wherever the Muses have erected their throne, fables and miracles have always appeared in their train. In the Koran we meet with frequent allusions to well-known traditionary fables. These had been transmitted from generation to generation by the bards and rhapsodists, for the entertainment of the vulgar. In Arabia, from the earliest ages, it has always been one of the favourite entertainments of the common people, to assemble in the serene evenings around their tents, or on the platforms with which their houses are generally covered, or in large halls erected for the purpose, in order to amuse themselves with traditional narrations of the most distinguished actions of their most remote ancestors. Oriental imagery always embellished their romantic details. The glow of fancy, the love of the marvellous, the propensity towards the hyperbolical and the vast, which constitute the essence of oriental description, must ever have drawn the relation aside into the devious regions of fiction and fairy land. The religion of Mahommed beat down the original fabric of idolatry and mythology together. The Arabian fables current in modern times are borrowed or imitated from Persian compositions; Persia being still the grand nursery of romance in the East.

In Egypt we find idolatry, theology, and mythology, almost inseparably blended together. The inhabitants of this region, too, as well as of others in the vicinity of the centre of population, adhered for several centuries to the worship of the true God. At last, however, conscious of their own ignorance, impurity, imperfection, and total unfitness to approach an infinitely perfect Being, distant, as they imagined, and invisible, they began to cast about for some beings more exalted, and more perfect than themselves, by whose mediation they might prefer their prayers to the Supreme Majesty of heaven. In this state, the luminaries of heaven, which, they imagined, were animated bodies, naturally presented themselves. These were splendid and glorious beings. They were thought to partake of the divine nature; they were revered as the satraps, prefects, and representatives of the Supreme Lord of the universe. They were visible, they were beneficent; they dwelt nearer to the gods; they were obvious to the worshipper, and always accessible. These were, of course, employed as mediators and intercessors between the Supreme Divinity and his humble subjects of this lower world. Thus employed, they might claim a subordinate share of worship, which was accordingly assigned them. In process of time, however, that worship, which was originally addressed to the Supreme Creator by the mediation of the heavenly bodies, was in a great measure forgotten, and the adoration jof mankind ultimately terminated upon those illustrious creatures. To this circumstance, we think, we may ascribe the origin of that species of idolatry called Tsabaism, or the worship of the host of heaven, which overspread the world early and almost universally. In Egypt this mode of worship was adopted in all its most absurd and most enthusiastic forms, and at the same time the most heterogeneous mythology appeared in its train. The mythology of the ancient Egyptians was so various and multiform, so complicated and so mysterious, that it would require many volumes even to give a superficial account of its origin and progress, not only in its mother country, but even in many other parts of the eastern and western world. Besides, the idolatry and mythology of that wonderful [7:15:681] country are so closely connected and so inseparably blended together, that it is impossible to describe the latter without at the same time developing the former. We hope, therefore, that our readers will not be disappointed, if, in an article of this nature, we touch only upon some of the leading or most interesting articles of this complicated subject.

The Egyptians confounded the revolutions of the heavenly bodies with the reigns of their most early monarchs. Hence the incredible number of years included in the reign of their eight superior gods, who, according to them, filled the Egyptian throne successively in the most early periods of time. To these, according to their system, succeeded twelve demigods, who likewise-reigned an amazing number of years. These imaginary reigns were no other than the periodical revolutions of the heavenly bodies preserved in their almanacs, which might be carried back, and actually were carried back, at pleasure. Hence the fabulous antiquity of that kingdom. The imaginary exploits and adventures of these gods and demigods furnished an inexhaustible fund of mythological romances. To the demigods succeeded the kings of the cynic cycle, personages equally chimerical with the former. The import of this epithet has greatly perplexed critics and etymologists. We apprehend that it is an oriental word importing royal. dignity, or elevation of rank. This appellation intimated, that the monarchs of that cycle, admitting that they actually existed, were more powerful and more highly revered than their successors. After the princes of the cynic cycle came another race, denominated Nekyes i a title likewise implying royal, splendid, glorious. These cycles figure high in the mythological annals of the Egyptians, and have furnished materials for a variety of learned and ingenious disquisitions. The wars and adventures of Osiris, Orus, Typhon, and other allegorical personages who figure in the Egyptian rubric; the wanderings of Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris; the transformation of the gods into divers kinds of animals; their birth, education, peregrinations, and exploits; compose a body of mythological fictions so various, so complicated, so ridiculous, and often so apparently absurd, that all attempts to develope and explain them have hitherto proved unsuccessful. All, or the greater part, of those extravagant fables, were the offspring of hieroglyphical or allegorical emblems devised by the priests and sages of that nation, with a view to conceal the mysteries of their religion from that class of men whom they stigmatized with the name of the uninitiated rabble.

The worship of brute animals and of certain vegetables, universal amongst the Egyptians, was another exuberant source of mythological adventures. The Egyptian priests, many of whom were likewise profound philosophers, observed, or pretended to observe, a kind of analogy between the qualities of certain animals and vegetables, and those of some of their subordinate divinities. Such animals and vegetables they adopted, and consecrated to the deities to whom they were supposed to bear this analogical resemblance; and in process of time they considered them as the visible emblems of those divinities to which they were consecrated. By these the vulgar addressed their archetypes, in the same manner as, in other countries, pictures and statues were employed for the very same purpose. The mob, in process of time, forgetting the emblematical character of those brutes and vegetables, addressed their devotion immediately to them; and of course these became the ultimate objects of vulgar adoration.

After these objects, animate or inanimate, were consecrated as the visible symbols of the deities, it soon became fashionable to make use of their figures to represent those deities to which they were consecrated. This practice was the natural consequence of the hieroglyphical style which universally prevailed amongst the ancient Egyptians. Hence Jupiter Ammon was represented under the figure of a ram, Apis under that of a cow, Osiris of a bull, Pan of a goat, Thoth or Mercury of an ibis, Bubastis or Diana of a cat. It was likewise a common practice amongst those deluded people to dignify these objects, by giving them the names of those deities which they represented. By this mode of dignifying these sacred emblems, the veneration of the rabble was considerably enhanced, and the ardour of their devotion inflamed in proportion. From these two sources, we think, are derived the fabulous transformation of the gods, so generally celebrated in the Egyptian mythology, and from it imported into Greece and Italy. In consequence of this practice, their mythological system was rendered at once enormous and unintelligible.^[7. See, on this subject, Sir William Drummond’s Origines, &c. b. iv. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 146. Instead, therefore, of prosecuting this inexplicable subject, which would swell the present article beyond all proportion, we must beg leave to refer those who are desirous of further information, to the following authors, where they will find enough to gratify their curiosity, if not to inform their judgment :—Herodotus, lib. ii.; Diodorus Siculus, lib. i.; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris ; Jamblichus, de Μ y st. Egypt. ; Horus Apollo, Hieroglyph. Egypt. ; Macrobius, Saturn, cap. 23, amongst the ancients: and, amongst the modems, Kircher’s Oedipus ; Vossius, de Orig. et Prog. Idol. ; Mr Bryant’s Analysis of Anc. MythoL ; Gebelin, Monde Primitif; and, above all, to the learned Jablonski’s Pantheon Egyptiorum. ]

Their Thoth, or Mercury Trismegistus, was, in our opinion, the inventor of this unhappy system. This personage, according to the Egyptians, was the original author of letters, geometry, astronomy, music, and architecture; in a word, of all the elegant and useful arts, and of all the branches of science and philosophy. He it was who first discovered the analogy between the divine affections, influences, appearances, operations, and the corresponding properties, qualities, and instincts of certain animals, and the propriety of dedicating particular kinds of vegetables to the service of particular deities. The priests, whose province it was to expound the mysteries of that allegorical hieroglyphical religion (see Mysteries), gradually lost all knowledge of the primary import of the symbolical characters. To supply this defect, and at the same time to veil their own ignorance, the sacerdotal instructors had recourse to fable and fiction. They heaped fable upon fable, till their religion became an accumulated chaos of mythological absurdities. Two of the most learned and most acute of the ancient philosophers have attempted a rational explication of the latent import of the Egyptian mythology; but both have failed in the attempt; nor have the moderns, who have laboured in the same department, performed their part with much better success. 2

The elements of Phoenician mythology have been preserved by Eusebius (Praeparat. Evang, sub ini t.). In the large extract which that learned father had copied from Philo Biblius’s translation of Sanchoniathon’s History of Phoenicia, we are furnished with several articles of mythology. Some of these throw considerable light on several passages of the sacred history; and all of them are strictly connected with the mythology of the Greeks and Romans. There we have preserved a brief but entertaining detail of the fabulous adventures of Uranus, Cronus, Dagon, Thyoth or Mercury, probably the same with the Egyptian hero of that name. Here we find Muth or Pluto, Aephcestus or Vulcan, Aesculapius, Nereus, Poseidon or Neptune, &c. Astarte, or Venus Urania, makes a conspicuous figure in the catalogue of Phoenician worthies; Pallas or Minerva is planted upon the territory of Attica; in a word, all the branches of the family of the Titans, who in after ages [7:15:682]figured in the rubric of the Greeks, are brought upon the stage, and their exploits and adventures briefly detailed.

By comparing this fragment with the mythology of the Atlantidae and that of the Cretans preserved by Diodorus the Sicilian (lib. v.), we think there is good reason to conclude, that the family of the Titans, the several branches of which seem to have been both the authors and objects of a great part of the Grecian idolatry, originally emigrated from Phoenicia. This conjecture will receive additional strength, when it is considered that almost all their names recorded in the fabulous records of Greece may be easily traced up to a Phoenician original. We agree with Herodotus, that a considerable part of the idolatry of Greece may have been borrowed from the Egyptians; at the same time, we imagine it highly probable, that the idolatry of the Egyptians and Phoenicians was in its original constitution nearly the same. Both systems were Tsabiasm, or the worship of the host of heaven. The Pelasgi, according to Herodotus, learned the names of the gods from the Egyptians; but in this conjecture he is certainly warped by his partiality for that people. Had those names been imported from Egypt, they would no doubt have bewrayed their Egyptian original; whereas the skilful etymologist will be convinced that every one is of Phoenician extraction.

The adventures of Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Apollo, Diana, Mars, Minerva or Pallas, Venus, Bacchus, Ceres, Proserpine, Pluto, Neptune, and the other descendants and coadjutors of the ambitious family of the Titans, furnish by far the greatest part of the mythology of Greece. They left Phoenicia, we think, about the age of Moses; they settled in Crete, a large and fertile island; from this region they made their way into Greece, which, according to the most authentic accounts, was at that time inhabited by a race of savages. The arts and inventions which they communicated to the natives; the mysteries of religion which they inculcated; the laws, customs, polity, and good order which they established; in short, the blessings of humanity and civilization which they everywhere disseminated, in process of time inspired the unpolished inhabitants with a kind of divine admiration. Those ambitious mortals improved this admiration into divine homage and adoration. The greater part of that worship, which had been formerly addressed to the luminaries of heaven, was now transferred to those illustrious personages. They claimed and obtained divine honours from the deluded rabble of enthusiastic Greeks. Hence sprung an inexhaustible fund of the most inconsistent and irreconcilable fictions.

The foibles and frailties of the deified mortals were transmitted to posterity, incorporated, as it were, with the pompous attributes of supreme divinity. Hence the heterogeneous mixture of the mighty and the mean which chequers the characters of the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey. The Greeks adopted the oriental fables, the import of which they did not understand. These they accommodated to heroes and illustrious personages, who had figured in their own country in the earliest periods. The labours of Hercules originated in Egypt, and evidently relate to the annual progress of the sun in the zodiac, though the vain-glorious Greeks accommodated them to a hero of their own, the reputed son of Jupiter and Alemena. The expedition of Osiris they borrowed from the Egyptians, and transferred to their Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Semele the daughter of Cadmus. The transformation and wanderings of Io are evidently transcribed from the Egyptian romance of the travels of Isis in quest of the body of Osiris, or of the Phoenician Astarte, drawn from Sanchoniathon. Io or Ioh is in reality the Egyptian name of the moon, and Astarte was the name of the same planet amongst the Phoenicians. Both these fables are allegorical representations of the anomalies of the lunar planet, or perhaps the progress of the worship of that planet in different parts of the world. The fable of the conflagration occasioned by Phaeton is clearly of oriental extraction, and alludes to an excessive drought which in the early periods of time scorched Ethiopia and the adjacent countries. The fabulous adventures of Perseus are said to have happened in the same regions, and are allegorical representations of the influence of the solar luminary; for the original Perseus was the sun. The rape of Proserpine and the wanderings of Ceres, the Eleusinian mysteries, the orgia or sacred rites of Bacchus, the rites and worship of the Cabiri, were imported from Egypt and Phoenicia, but strangely garbled and disfigured by the hierophants of Greece. The gigantomachia, or war between the gods and the giants, and all the fabulous events and varieties of that war, form an exact counterpart to the battles of the Peris and Dives, celebrated in the romantic annals of Persia.

A considerable part of the mythology of the Greeks .sprung from their ignorance of the oriental languages. They disdained to apply themselves to the study of languages spoken by people whom, in the pride of their heart, they stigmatized with the epithet of barbarians. This aversion to every foreign dialect was highly detrimental •to their progress in the sciences. The same neglect or aversion has, we imagine, proved an irreparable injury to the republic of letters in all succeeding ages. The aoids, or strolling bards, laid hold on those oriental legends, which they sophisticated with their own additions and improvements, in order to accommodate them to the popular taste. These wonderful tales figured in their rhapsodical compositions, and were greedily swallowed down by the credulous vulgar. Those fictions, as they rolled down, were constantly augmented with fresh materials, till in process of time their original import was either forgotten or buried in impenetrable darkness. A multitude of these Hesiod has collected in his Theogonia, or Generation of the Gods, which unhappily became the religious creed of the illiterate part of the Greeks. Indeed fable was so closely interwoven with the religion of that airy, volatile people, that it seems to have contaminated not only their religious and moral, but even their political tenets.

The far-famed oracle of Dodona was copied from that of Ammon at Thebes in Upper Egypt. The oracle of Apollo at Delphos was an emanation from the same source. The celebrated Apollo Pythius of the Greeks was no other than the Ob or Aub of the Egyptians, who denominated the basilisk or royal snake Ov Cai, because it was held sacred to the sun. Ob or Aub is still retained in the Coptic dialect, and is one of the many names or epithets of that luminary. In short, the groundwork of the Grecian mythology is to be traced in the East. Only a small part of it was fabricated in the country; and what was imported pure and genuine was miserably sophisticated by the hands through which it passed, in order to give it a Grecian air, and to accommodate its style to the Grecian taste. To enlarge upon this topic would be altogether superfluous, as our learned readers must be well acquainted with it already, and the unlearned may, without much trouble or expense, furnish themselves with books upon that subject.

The Roman mythology was borrowed from the Greeks. That people had addicted themselves for many centuries to the arts of war and civil polity. Science and philosophy were either neglected or unknown. At last they conquered Greece, the native land of science, and then “Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit arte et intulit agresti Latio.” This being the case, their mythology was, upon the whole, a transcript from that of Greece. They had indeed gleaned a few fables from the Pelasgi and Etruscans, which, however, are of so little consequence, that they are scarcely worth the trouble of transcribing.
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The mythology of the Celtic nations is in a great measure lost. There may possibly still remain some vestiges of the druidical superstition in the remotest parts of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and perhaps in the uncivilized places of Ireland. These, we presume, would afford our readers but little entertainment, and still less instruction.

The mythology of the northern nations, that is, of the Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, and Icelanders, is uncommonly curious and entertaining. The Edda and Voluspa contain a complete collection of fables which have not the smallest affinity with those of the Greeks and Romans. They are wholly of an oriental complexion, and seem almost congenial with the tales of the Persians above described. The Edda was compiled in Iceland in the thirteenth century. It is a kind of system of the Scandinavian mythology; and it has been reckoned, and we believe justly, a commentary on the Voluspa, which was the Bible of the northern nations. Odin or Othin, or Woden or Waden, was the supreme divinity of those people. His exploits and adventures furnish the far greater part of their mythological creed. That hero is supposed to have emigrated from the East, but from what country or at what period is not certainly known. His achievements are magnified beyond all credibility. He is represented as the god of battles, and as slaughtering thousands at a blow. His palace is called Valhalla; it is situated in the city of Midgard, where, according to the fable, the souls of heroes who had bravely fallen in battle enjoy supreme felicity. They spend the day in mimic hunting matches, or imaginary combats. At night they assemble in the palace of Valhalla, where they feast on the most delicious viands, dressed and served up by the -Valkyriae, virgins adorned with celestial charms, and flushed with the bloom of everlasting youth. They solace themselves with drinking mead out of the skulls of enemies whom they had killed in their days of nature. Mead, it seems, was the nectar of the Scandinavian heroes.

Sieepner, the horse of Odin, is celebrated along with his master. Hela, the hell of the Scandinavians, affords a variety of fables equally shocking and heterogeneous. Loke, the evil genius or devil of the northern people, nearly resembles the Typhon of the Egyptians. Signa or Sinna is the consort of Loke; and from this name the English word sin is derived. The giants Weymur, Ferbanter, ßelupher, and Hellunda, perform a variety of exploits, and are exhibited in the most frightful attitudes. One would be tempted to imagine, that they perform the exact counterpart of the giants of the Greek and Roman mythologists. Instead of glancing at these ridiculous and uninteresting fables, which is all that the limits prescribed us would permit, we shall take the liberty to lay before our readers a brief account of the contents of the Voluspa, which is indeed the text of the Scandinavian mythology.

The word Voluspa imports, “the prophecy of Vola or Fola.” This was, perhaps, a general name for the prophetic ladies of the North, as Sibyl was appropriated to women endowed with the tike faculty in the South. Certain it is, that the ancients generally connected madness with the prophetic faculty. Of this we have two celebrated examples; the one in Lycophron’s Cassandra, and the other in the Sibyl of the Roman poet. The word vola signifies “mad or foolish whence the English words fool, foolish, folly. Spa, the latter part of the composition, signifies “to prophecy,” and is still current amongst the common people in Scotland, in the word spae, which has nearly the same signification.

The Voluspa ≡>nsists of between two and three hundred lines. The prophetess having imposed silence on all intelligent beings, declares that she is about to reveal the works of the Father of nature, the actions and operations of the gods, which no mortal ever knew before herself. She then begins with a description of the chaos; and then proceeds to the formation of the world, and the creation of the different species of its inhabitants, giants, men, and dwarfs. She then explains the employments of the fairies or destinies, whom the northern people call normes, the functions of the deities, their most memorable adventures, their disputes with Loke, and the vengeance which ensued. She at last concludes with a long, and indeed animated description of the final state of the universe, and its dissolution by a general conflagration. In this catastrophe, Odin, and all the rabble of the Pagan divinities, are to be confounded in the general ruin, no more to appear on the stage of the universe; and out of the ruins of the former world, according to the Voluspa, a new one shall spring up, arrayed in all the bloom of celestial beauty.

Such is the doctrine exhibited in the fabulous Voluspa. So congenial are some of the details therein delivered, especially those relating to the final dissolution of the present system, and the succession of a new heaven and a new earth, that we find ourselves strongly inclined to suspect, that the original fabricator of the work was a semipagan writer, much of the same complexion with the authors of the Sibylline oracles, and of some other apocryphal pieces which appeared in the world during the first ages of Christianity.

In America, the only mythological countries seems to be Mexicoand Peru. The other parts of that large continent were originally inhabited by savages, most of them as remote from religion as from civilization. The two vast empires of Mexicoand Peru had existed about four hundred years only before the Spanish invasion; but in neither of them was the use of letters understood; and of course the ancient opinions of the natives relating to the origin of the universe, the changes which succeeded, and every other monument of antiquity, were obliterated and lost. Clavigero has indeed enumerated a crowd of sanguinary gods worshipped by the Mexicans; but he produces nothing either entertaining or interesting with respect to their mythology. Humboldt has gone deeper into the subject, and produced much information that is equally curious and instructive; whilst subsequent travellers, following his example, and extending their inquiries and researches, have thrown new light on both the mythology and antiquities of Mexico See Mexico

The only remarkable piece of mythology in the annals of the Peruvians, is the pretended extraction of Manco Ca-pec the first inca of Peru, and of Mama Ocolla his consort. These two illustrious personages appeared first on the banks of the lake Titicaca. They were persons of a majestic stature, and were clothed in decent garments. They declared themselves to be the children of the Sun, sent by their beneficent parent, who beheld with pity the miseries of the human race, to instruct and to reclaim them. Thus we find that these two legislators availed themselves of a pretence which had often been employed in more civilized regions for the very same purposes. The idolatry of Peru was gentle and beneficent, that of Mexicogloomy and sanguinary. The principle of good predominated in the one, the principle of evil in the other. The former borrowed its complexion from the character of its founders; the latter assumed the dark and repulsive aspect of the tyranny which it was intended to cement and consolidate. In a word, the idolatry of Mexicostood to the idolatry of Peru in a relation somewhat analogous to that which the wild and savage superstitions of the northern nations bore to the more refined and graceful mythology of Greece and of Rome.

In the course of this article, we have not much enlarged upon the mythology of the Greeks and Romans; that subject we conceive to be so universally known by the learned, [7:15:684]and so little valued by others, that a minute discussion of it would be altogether superfluous. We flatter ourselves, however, that in the course of this disquisition we have thrown out some reflections and observations which may perhaps prove more acceptable to both descriptions of readers, and serve to direct their attention to a subject which is yet far from being exhausted. (o. o. o. o.)