102 



stances Avliich will suffice to point out some of these traces in 

 the mythology of the people, from whom the Israelites* imbibed 

 their early tendency to idolatry. 



It has been justly observed thatf " all the priests of antiquity 

 " had two sets of religious doctrines and opinions, which were 

 " very different from one another;" a circumstance which by its 

 general prevalence suffices to demonstrate, that all mythologies had 

 originally in them something above the vulgar creed, " adapted to 

 " the capacities and superstitious humours of the people." Plu- 

 tarch asserts thus of the Egyptian Fables, and one of the most 

 beautiful of them will corroborate the assertion. I allude to the 

 allegory of Cupid and Psyche, and the emblems connected with 

 it.§ No customs are preserved so long unchanged as those which 

 relate to the burial of the dead, and we may, therefore, expect 



" totalement avcc 1 embleme.'' p. 52 : and again, in its reviewer, " D'ou il resulte que toutes 

 " ces tlieogonies ne sont, a proprenient parler, q'une ecriture symbolique ; & I'idolatrie 

 " cette ecriture mal cntendue." (p. 206, at the end of the work.) For the origin of the ora- 

 cle of Dodona, see Herodotus, Ed. 1551. p. 175. This oracle " etoit le centre de Druidisme,'' 

 (Antiq. Dev.) — For the worsliip of the Druids, connected with the subject of this note, see 

 Henry's England, v. 1. p. 97, 100, &c. 



• The Egyptians had so corrupted the Israelites, and the influence of their superstitions 

 had spread so rapidly to infect the only remnant of pure religion upon earth, that it was found 

 necessary to denounce image worship, by an express and written command : and it affords 

 much probability to the conjecture, that alphabetical writing was first revealed to mankind in 

 tlie decalogue, that tlie first notice we have of its existence is a document which commands 

 the total disuse of hieroglyphical images of the Deity, the purposes of which writing alone 

 could supply. 



t Henry's England, V. 1. C. 2. Sect. 1. 



j There is, in Norden's travels, (V. 1 . plate 58.) the representation of a very curious piece 

 of sculpture of the most remote antiquity, which he found in Egypt; it is impossible not to 

 acknowledge it to be a delineation of the History of the Fall of Man, and to represent Adanj 

 and Eve, and the tree of knowledge. 



