86 



The veneration altached to national ensigns was in most empires 

 excessive. To pass by later instances of the Danish Raven, the Ro- 

 man Eagle, and others ; among the nations with whom this inquiry 

 is most concerned, the Egyptians and the Jews, it amounted to ado- 

 ration. So great was the devotion paid by the former to the figures 

 which formed the bond of their military union, that, as Diodorus 

 Siculus tells us, it had led several of the writers of his age into the 

 false opinion of its having been the origin of animal worship: with 

 respect to the latter, I shall hereafter prove, that the golden calf 

 of Horeb was set up, by the Israelites, at once as their standard 

 and their God. The common source* from whence these Talismans 

 principally derived their magical power, was their allegorical na- 

 ture : from the commencement of their use to the present day, they 

 liave been either the memorials of such virtues in their original 

 bearers as were most esteemed ; the emblems of such characters, 

 or the records of such exploits, as gave to primitive Heroes and 

 Patriarchs their rank of Deities in the Pagan world ; or, finally, 

 they perhaps contained a mystical allusion, deeply connected with 

 religious mystery, or popular superstition. 



Had alphabetical writing been invented when the use of military 

 ensigns first became necessary, the name of a chieftain, or some 

 inscription, appropriate to the circumstances of the band, might 

 have preceded or prevented the adoption of emblems ; but, long 

 before the discovery of that art, new tribes were compelled to the 

 use of this general bond ; and the mark chosen was the represen- 



• The wearing of the skins of beasts in battle, whether from necessity, or to strike a panic 

 by the terrific appearance of their heads, could not have been, as has been conjectured, the ori- 

 gin of armorial devices : ( Plutarch in vit. Marii. and Virg. /En. VII. 666. ) this cause is quite 

 inadequate to account for the worship of such emblems. 



