240 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 



mineral, prifon. Another of his names is very remark- 

 able; I mean that of Cola, or time, the idea of which is 

 intimately blended with the chara6ters of Saturn and of 

 Noah; for the name Cronos has a manifeft affinity 

 with the word chronos ; and a learned follower of Ze- 

 rdtajht affures me, that, in the books which the Beh- 

 dzns hold facred, mention is made of an univcrfal in- 

 undation, there named the deluge of Time. 



It having been occafionally obferved, that Ceres was 

 the poetical daughter of Saturn, we cannot clofe this 

 head without adding, that the Hindus alfo have their 

 Goddefs of Abundance, whom they ufually call Lacjhmi, 

 and whom they confider as the daughter (not of Menu, 

 but) of Bhrigu, by whom the firfl code of facred ordi- 

 nances was promulgated. She is alfo named Pedmd and 

 Camala, from the facred lotos, or Nymphcea : but her raoft 

 remarkable name is Sri, or, in the firft cafe, Sris, which 

 has a refemblance to the Latin, and means fortune or 

 profperity. It may be contended, that although Lac- 

 JJimi mav be figuratively called the Ceres of Hinduflan^ 

 yet any two or more idolatrous nations, who fubiifted 

 by agriculture, might naturally conceive a Deity to 

 prefide over their labours, without having the leaf! in- 

 tercourfe with each other; but no reafon appears why 

 two nations (hould concur in fuppofing that Deity to be 

 a female. One, at leaft, of them would be more likely 

 to imagine that the Earth was a goddefs, and that the 

 God of Abundance rendered her fertile. Befides, in 

 very ancient temples near Gayd, we fee images of Lac- 

 Jlwd, with full breaft, and a cord twifted under her arm 

 like a horn of plenty, which look very much like the 

 old Grecian and Roman figures of Ceres, 



■o' 



The fable of Saturn having been thusanalyfed,let us 

 proceed to his defendants; and begin, as the Poet ad- 



3 vifes, 



