358 HA.BITS OF BIRDS. 



of the harshness of the first letter, the Greeks would 

 make it (poivij- (phoenix) *." 



By the same mode of reasoning he might have 

 made the phoenix to be like Hamlet's cloud, " almost 

 in shape of a camel, backed like a weasel, or very 

 like a whale.'* Forster's explanation, indeed, reminds 

 us much of certain other sage expounders of antiquity, 

 such as the Abbe Bergier, who, rejecting Hardouin's 

 opinion that Hercules was Moses f, undertakes to 

 demonstrate that he was nothing more than a large 

 causeway to prevent rivers from overflowing their 

 banks, which rivers have been fabled to be serpents, 

 boars, and lions, that he destroyed; while in the 

 same spirit he imagines Jupiter to be rain, which im- 

 pregnated Semele, a fountain, which brought forth 

 Bacchus a marsh ; and Prometheus he fancies to have 

 been a quantity of mortar, or a batch of potter's 

 clay ; the eagle that preyed on his liver, the fire of a 

 pottery kiln; and Mount Caucasus, the hearth or 

 rather the kiln itself J. The late Mr. Bryant, in a 

 similar way endeavoured to prove all our early his- 

 tories to be symbolical fables of Noah's Ark, and the 

 Deluge . And a more recent author, Mr. Faber, a 

 disciple of Bryant's, seems strongly inclined to con- 

 sider not only our celebrated outlaw (Robin Hood), 

 but, more wonderful still, the present Isle of Bute, to 

 be identical with the northern imaginary god, Woden 

 or Odin || . 



When we see fancies so extravagant as these set 

 forth by. learned and grave authors, we need not 

 wonder that the fable of the phoenix has received a 



* Indian Zool. 4to. ed. p. 16. 



t ( Hercules non alius quam Moses est.' Note on Cicero, De 

 Nat. Peor. iii. 



J I/Origine des Deux, Paris, 1774, 

 Analysis of Ancient Mythology, passim. 

 || Pagan Idolatry, ii. 3937, 



