218 Idolatry and Philosophy of the Zabians. 
or elliptical orbit, without stumbling upon the fact of the attractive 
force of the sun. We might indeed suppose that the orbits of Ju- 
piter or Mars were first determined, and then those of Venus and 
Mercury guessed at. But the Chaldeans boasted themselves in 
their accurate observation, and if we are to give them a credit, which 
some writers attribute, under the fable of the Phcenix, they hid the 
theory of cometary motion. For the comet, like the fabled bird of 
the sun, travels into the interminable desert for a certain but fixed 
number of years, and then returning burns himself in the sun; but 
rising from his ashes, and gaining new life from death, he renews his 
journey, and travels on forever. 
In the perpetual and undeviating revolution of the planets, they 
found an areument for their great doctrine of the eternal duration of 
matter; but then they had a stronger inducement to study astronomy 
than we at present know. The stars were looked upon to have their 
influence on human affairs, and the birth of every man was under 
the dominion of the spirit of some star; and these angelic influences 
had moreover their representatives upon earth. Certain vegetables 
were dedicated to the angels, and iron was sacred to Mars, and silver 
to Venus, and gold to the Sun. 
The hidden virtues of these substances in the cure of human dis- 
eases, were early discovered, and this would afford the vulgar a sure 
proof of the truth of the national faith. But the same powers 
which could arrest the fatal progress of sickness, might also act as a 
preservative in cases of incidental nature; this led to Telesms, and 
judicial Astrology. 
There are in the British museum, a collection of small cylinders, 
an inch or two long, and half an inch in external diameter, the tubu- 
lar part of them being sufficiently large to put a string through, for 
the purpose of suspending them round the neck, like beads. ‘They 
are covered all over with unknown letters, and were brought from 
the ruins of Babylon. ‘These are the telesms, or protectors from 
accident and disease. ‘Their magical inscriptions still render them 
sacred to some star, and doubtless at one time they did really act as 
they were reported, but their wonderful influence has long ago ceas- 
ed, because the tmagination of the wearer, puts no more a faithful 
reliance on their virtues. ‘They were the predecessors of the Ro- 
man Penates. 
Of the poetry of the Chaldeans nothing remains. But those men 
who had held so much communion with the stars, who professed a 
