The Greeks, difciples of the Egyptians, eagerly adopted these allegories, in their Theogony; gave them their colouring, and added new fables. Some changed the name of Typhon into Typhoeus; others retained the antient appellation. Hefiod, in his Theogony, describes him with a hundred dragons heads, projecting from his fhoulders. Pindar, in his firft ode, fays he was buried under Mount Etna, whence he discharged his fires. Apollodorus, who lived one hundred and forty years before Chrift, defcribes him thus. "The enormous giant Typhon, foaming "with wrath, and bellowing, cafts burning "rocks toward heaven, and vomits torrents "of flames. The gods, beholding him "ready to fcale Olympus, fled, terrified, "and escaped into Egypt, where, pursued by "their enemy, they concealed themselves "under the forms of animals; but Ju

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piter, perceiving Typhon afar off, ftruck "him with thunder, and buried him under "Mount Etna". Hyginus, in his fables, adds, the mountain hath ever fince fent forth Aames. The Latins fucceeded, and imitated their predeceffors. Ovid thus relates the gi

3

ants

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ants war. Typhoeus, fprung from the "earth's entrails, terrified the heavens, and "forced the immortals to fly. Egypt, and

"the fhores of the Nile, famous for its "feven mouths, gave them asylum. The "dreadful fons of the earth followed, to ef66 cape whofe fury they were obliged to suffer

a metamorphofis. Jupiter became a shep"herd, wherefore his statue is ftill represented "with horns (p), Apollo a crow, Bacchus

a goat, Ifis a cat, Juno a white cow, Venus "a fish, and Mercury an ibis (q*).”

This truth, wandering from its original fource, and paffing from one nation to another, becomes obfcure, and scarely to be difcovered, and thus fucceeding poets, employing the fame fables to decorate their verse, adopt words the sense of which they do not understand. The Greeks and Latins evidently, however, were defirous of explaining the adoration paid to various animals in Egypt, and feigned the gods affumed their forms to escape the pursuit of Typhon. This error

(p) It is not neceffary, here, to note, how far the Latin poet departs from truth. The ftatue of Ammon is represented with horns, because this symbolical deity denoted tbe fun in the fign of the ram.

has lately been revived by the learned Warburton, but is not, therefore, more credited. Herodotus and the ancients wrote nothing like this. Hyginus, in his fables, on the contrary, affirms, "The Egyptians suffered "no violence to be done to animals, be"cause they held them to be the image of the gods." They confecrated them, either in gratitude for benefits received, or to preserve the memory of important difcoveries, and honoured them as the living types of their de

ities.

The priests relate the tragical death of Typhon very differently, whom they drown in the waters of a peftilential lake. "The “lake Sirbon, in which Typhon is said to

be buried, is near Pelufium (q)" and, according to Plutarch (r), the Egyptians called it the breath of Typhon. This lake, and its vapours, fo injurious to the falubrity of Pelufium, is now no more to be found; as well as many others, it is filled up with fand.

'The fable of Adonis feems to have been imitated from that of Ofiris. Macrobius who, with wonderful fagacity, has explained

(c) Euftath. Comment. in Dionyf. Pericget,

(r) De Inde et Oftide.

the

the mysteries of ancient religions, fays,—Attentively confidering the Affyrian religion, "we cannot doubt but that Adonis fignifies "the fun. Philofophers have called the up

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per hemifphere, a part of which we in"habit, Venus. Regarding the boar as the fymbol of Winter, because he loves marshy and frozen places, they figured this animal "to have killed Adonis. Winter, there"fore, which diminishes light, and the fun's "heat, is the wound of Adonis (s)". I need not point out the refemblance between this fable and that of the Egyptians. Winter, in both, makes the country defolate, and causes the fun's death. This mysterious language is embellished by the Greeks, whose poetry, full of grace, nature, and feeling, harmonioufly fings the grief of Venus for her lover. Thus we perceive how an allegory, under the veil of which the phænomena of nature. are defcribed, is metamorphofed in pafling from Egypt to Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome: but, collecting hints from the antients, with judgment, we again difcover it, nearly, as it was first invented.

I have the honour to be, &c.

(s) Saturnal. lib. 1.

LETTER

LETTER

XXXV.

OF NEPHTHYS, A SYMBOLICAL DEITY.

Nephthys, the barren wife of Typhon, having commerce with Ofiris, became fruitful: fignified the fandy plains, which lay between the Nile and the Red Sea, and are greatly expofed to the South Eaft winds. The adultery of Ofiris with Nephthys denoted the years when a high flood occafioned the waters to extend fo far. Thueri, or Afo, Queen of Ethiopia, the fuppofed concubine of Typhon, denoted the South-wind, which joining the Eaft, formed the South Eaft, dreaded by the Egyptians for its parching quality, and the torrents of fand it drove over Egypt.

To M. L. M.

Grand Cairo.

THE priefts of Egypt, continuing their allegory, gave Typhon a wife, named Nephthys (t), the fifter and rival of Ifis; the was ftruck with barreness, and only became fruit

(t) Plut. de Ifide et Ofiride.

ful