208 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



of having been formed upon popular legends, or 

 fairy tales, to which a superstructure derived from 

 metaphysical speculation was afterwards added ; 

 and though many of their Deities were of Egyp- 

 tian origin*, the office and character of some seem 

 rather attributable to accidental analogy, discovered 

 at a subsequent period, with those of the Egyptians, 

 and other people whose religion had been long 

 modelled into a systematic form, than to any posi- 

 tive notions they previously had upon the subject. 

 And thus we may account for the inconsistency of 

 Jupiter being considered the same as Amun, one 

 of the eight great Gods of Egypt, and Saturn his 

 father as one of the second order of Deities ; an 

 error which originated in Seb being the parent of 

 Osiris and Isis, and having in Egypt the title of 

 "Father of the Gods." 



Many of their popular legends may have been 

 the offspring of foreign notions, accidentiilly re- 

 ceived from other people, and altered by time or 

 local prejudices; and when we recollect that the 

 mythology of Greece was chiefly invented, or at 

 least arranged, by the poets, we may readily account 

 for the unsubstantial texture of its construction. t 



In the history of Greece, the admission of mytho- 

 logical tales was much more resorted to than in that 

 of Rome, where events may be more readily traced 

 than in the fabulous accounts of Greek writers; 

 and though the Romans sacrificed truth to their 



* Vide supra, p. 3., and Banier, Mythol. vol. i. pp. 25. 28. 44. 6 

 66, 67. 76. 80. 83, 84. 115. 118. 121. 189. 303. &c. 

 \ Vide supra. 



