28 Some conjectures on the progress of [Jan. 



other accounts one of the Cabiri himself) king dominant in Asia ; the 

 offspring of Jove and Luna, i. e. of the creative element and the 

 seasons (?) ; or lastly of Nisus and Thione. 



It will be seen that we have insensibly passed from the mystical and 

 physical character of the wine-god to his true mythical nature as an 

 accessory to history. He is the invader of India, a peaceful one 

 however, surrounded by troops of merry followers who with dance 

 and shouting, herald his coming, and gladden the way he takes : he, 

 as the very type of that fertility which culture directs to the benefit 

 of mankind, becomes predominant as a king in Asia, the fertile ; or as 

 one of the mysterious three (as some say, seven) Cabiri, or as the son 

 of one of them, he stands forth in dim tradition as among the number 

 of the first benefactors of mankind. But Sobeck, the great critical 

 historian of the mystical creeds of the Greeks, has contented himself 

 with a mere examination of the actual nature of the mysteries as 

 practised by them. He is the antagonist of all symbol-mongers ; — he 

 disbelieves in types and their alleged origins ; — he refuses to acknow- 

 ledge that Bacchus is Osiris, or indeed anything, beyond the exposU 

 facto application of a fable to local practices current for years at the 

 different seasons of the year among the early cultivators of scarce 

 known and half-settled countries. In spite of this, and with all defer- 

 ence to so great an authority, I must take facts, laid open before us 

 since he wrote (A. D. 1829), as authorising the admission of the type 

 of the Egyptian Bacchus, as indication of the progress of civilization 

 in whatsoever quarter the Egyptian evidences of that progress be dis- 

 covered, be it by Dennis in old Etruria, or by Layard on the banks of 

 the Euphrates. My first citation is of course purely collateral in 

 proof, as showing generally the excursive character of this civilization ; 

 my second takes us directly on our Bacchic way towards India, to be 

 met, we know not as yet at what point, by a race coming from another 

 quarter ; but verging to the same focus as ourselves, destined to fill 

 the untried land with a modified form of Egyptian institutions, derived, 

 shall we say, from one common source with these ? The plurality of 

 Bacchic gods, or of Bacchic types exceeding the number, as I have 

 incidentally noticed, which is cited by Cicero, points in the historic 

 application of the myth, to the identity of Bacchus with that descrip- 

 tion of inventive spirit in man, which diverts him from the chase and 



