C 6S ] 



THE PHOINIX OF THE ANCIENTS. 



To Mr, Tilloch. 



Sir, — Since I communicated the little paper on the adjust- 

 ment of our civil chronology [see p. 314 of vol. 55], I have met 

 with " An Essay on the Identity of the Phoenix of the Ancient* 

 with the great Comet of 1680;" and thinking that there is fuU 

 as mwM reason for concluding that the accounts of this fabulous 

 bird would be more satisfactorily explained by reference to the 

 correction of time amongst the Egyptians, I take the liberty of 

 sending you the grounds of my opinion. The authorities quoted 

 are taken from the above-mentioned Essay, which appeared in 

 the New Monthly Magazine of February last. 



And first I premise the shrewd opinion held by the author 

 of the cometary explanation, that " not to astronomical imagi- 

 nation only may this type be attributed, but to astronomical se- 

 crecy and jealousy also." 



Herodotus : — " It comes but once in five hundred years into 

 the country where its father dies." 



Artemidorus, the Ephesian, in the time of Antoninus Pius, — 

 ^'A certain time elapsed, a worm is produced from the ashes [of 

 the former phoenix], and this worm being transformed, becomes 

 again a phoenix." 



According to Philostratus, *' the phoenix resembles an eagle, 

 and emits rays of light from its feathers." 



Achilles Tatius : — " It comes from Ethiopia into Egypt : It 

 vaunts the sun as its lord, as is testified by the image of that lu- 

 minary with which its head is crowned : it is of a cerulean co- 

 lour, of a rosy aspect, and its feathers project like the solar 

 rays:' 



Sir William Drummond informs us, that " the bird called the 

 phoenix* owes its imaginary existence to the Egyptians. It was 

 a type of the renovation of the year, and of the sun, and indeed 

 its picture was a mere hieroglyphic." 



Clemens Romanus : — " The Egyptian priests search into the 

 records of time, and find that the phoenix returned precisely at 

 the end of 500 years." 



Now holding to most grave and very authentical Herodotus*, 

 who like other foreigners saw but its picture, and gathered from 

 * the report of the people of HeHopolis' (incredible to him), "that 

 coming out of Arabia, it carries to the temple of the Sun its 

 father, wrapped up in myrrh, and there buries him," — it would 



* Solinus, Suidas, Pliny, Tacitus, give contradictory accounts of the du- 

 ration of the phoenix. 1 therefore adhere to ' the earliest ^vriter who gives a 

 detailed account of the phoenix,' as received from the priests. Achillas 

 Tatius likening the bird to » peacock is at issue with Philostratus. 



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