There is nothing in the least illogical in our supposition, that Ham, whose name Egypt bears to this day, and who lived with the antediluvians, should have handed down the creed and traditions of the first men to his children, in the only language they possessed; nor is it wonderful, from the metaphorical nature of that language, that these traditions should become distorted, and vary from the true and simple statement of Moses, himself an Egyptian scribe. Neither the general coherency nor peculiar variations of these traditions, ought therefore to excite the least surprise. But it is incumbent on us to proceed to a more elaborate proof of our hypothesis. Our first position is, that Apis was a symbol of antediluvian man; when connected with apples, his paradisiacal state was implied; when connected with water, scyphi, crescents, &c., his partial destruction by a deluge.

It is scarcely necessary to argue that all the Pagan fables of apples are referrible to the forbidden fruit; those, for instance, of Atalanta, of Hercules, of Discord, and the rival goddesses. Let the reader examine these fables, and judge for himself.

It is calculated, that the vernal equinox, at the creation, was in the first degree of Taurus. Two thousand years after, Aries, by the precession of the equinoxes, occupied its place, and Aries is, accordingly, the first sign on the most antient of the zodiacs. Taurus was, therefore, an apt and legitimate symbol of antediluvian man, and we may presume that the mysteries of Apis related to that state.

The mythological account of the fall differs little from that of Moses. According to Plato and his disciples, man fell when he descended from his intellectual to a sensual state, and multiplied himself. This was apparently Milton's idea. It was the version of a large portion of the early Christians, and thence the celibacy of the monastic orders. Moses, therefore, may have employed a delicate metaphor to express what Plato philosophically inferred, and the double interpretation of fruit and fruition at this day warrants the inference. The Mohammedans say, that incontinency was the cause of the fall.

Another Pagan fable bears a remarkable coincidence to the narrative of Moses. The Pagan Eve, Persephoneh, (which name signifies lost fruit,) is condemned to shades, or death, for eating a portion of forbidden pomegranate.

Numerous pictorial and symbolical representations of the same event may be referred to. We apprehend that, according to the laws of hieroglyphical writing, the narrative of Moses could not have been more closely adhered to. We will endeavour to refer to these pictorial descriptions in the order of the Mosaic account.

Montfaucon exhibits several instances of the Bull-man, or first parent, crowned with apples.

Osiris was represented as enclosed in the thigh of Apis, an emblem of Paradise.

Protogonus and Eon, the first man and woman, were described as sailing through space in an egg-shaped vehicle. There are similar representations among the hieroglyphics.

On one of the Egyptian planispheres, exhibited by Kircher, instead of Astrea, who represented the paradisiacal state, there appears a fruit-tree, with two dogs in the branches looking different ways. Now, two cynocephali were symbols of light and darkness, of good and evil.

On a mythraic sculpture, preserved by Hyde, there are two fruittrees. The first has a scorpion winding round it, and near it a ladder, which was the mystic symbol of descent or fall. Scorpio, on some Egyptian zodiacs, is a serpent; in others, Typhon, depictured as the devil now is, with a serpent's tail, and breathing flames.

In Montfaucon there are many representations of the Hesperian tree, with a serpent twined round it, and a male and female on the opposite sides.

So much for the illustration of the Mosaic theory of the fall. The Hesperian gardens, in fact, were the Pagan paradise, the golden apples the fruit of the tree of life, and the dragon, or seraph, the angel who guarded the way to it. Sometimes, indeed, a chimæra, resembling the Jewish cherubim, was substituted for the seraph, or fiery serpent; at others, the golden apples were converted into a golden fleece, and the bulls, (the cherubim of the Hebrews,) with fiery breath, were the guardians. Griffins (a mixed monster, also resembling a cherub) are, in a different hieroglyphical version of the same story, guarding the "treasures of the everlasting hills" promised to Joseph.

Throughout, it is the same Mosaic story, only differently coloured by the picturing vehicle.

It can scarcely be doubted that Jacob, in his blessing on the twelve tribes, alluded to the figures of some Chaldean or Egyptian zodiac. Without we admit this, we must infer that the patriarch uttered complete nonsense. If, as is not disputed, the twelve tribes were signalized by the twelve signs of the zodiac on their standards, they must have adopted them from the circumstances of Jacob's prophecy. In blessing the twelve tribes that were to fill the world, it is not only wonderful that the old patriarch should refer to the twelve signs, but they clearly furnish the most obvious illustration, and the most lasting memorial. Common sense, therefore, is in favour of an argument which has been exclusively referred to Sir William Drummond, but which belongs to Kircher.

The scriptural allusions to Taurus are the following: "His glory (Joseph's) is like the firstlings of the bullock." See blessings of Moses. 66 Ephraim is an heifer." Hosea. "And unto Enoch (behemoth, or the ox,) thou hast given one part to dwell wherein are a thousand hills." Esdras. Jacob's blessing on Joseph (according to the reading of Hebraists) is as follows: "Joseph is a fruitful bull by the well, whose children run over the neck. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob; from thence is the shepherd, the stone

of Israel." Now we maintain, that all this is nothing but a correct translation of the antediluvian prophecy, pictorially represented in the figures which accompany Taurus, as extant on the planisphere and zodiac of Dendereh. Let us arrange them in the order in which they presented themselves to the eyes of Jacob, the inspired interpreter, of an imagery not improbably invented by his great antediluvian ancestor, Seth, the Thoth of Egypt.

A bull, and near it an eye in a circle, (ain, means an eye, or a well.) Another representation of the seven Atlantidæ on the neck of Taurus. Another representation of a bull recumbent, and shot at by an archer. Two more characters expressive of the same violence. A bull beheaded. A chimerical figure of the head and thigh of Taurus held chained by Typhon, while another personage transfixes it with an arrow. To this the allusion of the Brethren, or Gemini, the next sign, also applies. "Cursed be their wrath, for it was cruel, for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they houghed an ox." In fact, "violence" characterizes the whole of these two starry habitations. Next we have the Bowman rising from the decapitated Taurus, and destroying the power of Evil as Scorpio. The strange metaphor, the "arms of the hands," is doubtless taken from the front limbs of the chimæra, representing Sagittarius having human hands. Next to Taurus is the Shepherd, with his pastoral staff, the Shiloh elsewhere noticed, and directly beneath, Agathodæmon, on a square stone.

Symbolic mementos of man's predicted restoration, and the means to be employed for effecting it, are equally common as those which record his fall. But as these will more naturally occur during the consideration of other portions of the zodiac, we shall confine ourselves, at present, to such only as relate to Taurus.

Apis was drowned at particular periods, as a symbol of the flood; as a symbol of the anticipated hope of the antient world, he was buried in a sarcophagus; and, on the fourth day, a new Apis was led forth to the people, as a pledge of the resurrection.

It was by a violent death of the chief god (such was the dogma of the earliest priests) that man was to be restored. A bull was torn to pieces at the Bacchanalian orgies. Apis was cut in pieces, as was Osiris, whom he represented, before he was deposited in his three days' sepulchre. The thigh was set apart as something mystical and sacred. A vast number of evidences of this are to be found in the sculptures of Belzoni's tomb. As for the head, the curse of all evil was laid upon it in Egypt, as it is now in India. On the zodiac of Esneh, the head and thigh of Apis are on the point of being pierced by a figure with an arrow. At Dendereh, a bull is represented shot at by an archer. In the centre of the planisphere of the latter place, is the thigh of Apis, and Typhon standing beside it with a sacrificial knife. The archer at Dendereh is a centaur, and thence, perhaps,

Among the Mythratic sculptures is a head of Taurus hung on a tree, with a quiver of arrows impended beside it.

the name, which means to pierce a bull. It is indeed a remarkable fact, that the original Sagittarius is a winged and crowned figure, having a bow, and with the faces of a man and a lion (precisely conquering Messiah of the Apocalypse). This was the goldenwinged divine dove of Aristophanes. The half-human figure in question is represented as arising from the decapitated body of Apis, and, beyond a doubt, was a symbol of the resurrection of Horus, the second person of the Egyptian trinity, who is called by antient writers the Mediator, who generally grasps a fac-simile of the Christian cross, and who is represented sometimes nursed upon the lap of Virgo, and at another, piercing Tryphon, or the great dragon, with his finally extirpating arrows. It is not, therefore, unlikely that, as the terminating scene of the mysteries, Horus, or Chrysaor, was represented rising in glory from the sarcophagus in which the several fragments of Apis had been deposited.

ANACREONTIC.

YES! I'll revel in joy, and will drink deep of bliss,
While my brow with a wreath of green myrtle I'll bind;
And though Cynics may rail at a world such as this,
Still I fancy no fairer or brighter they'll find.

For since Mahomet's heaven is fabulous quite,

And flown are his Houries, and faded his bowers,
Tis in vain that you look through the stars of the night,
For a planet more splendid than this one of ours.

Where where will you find in that star-studded sky,
Although thousands of worlds are seen glittering there,
A gleam from above like the fair Rosa's eye,

Or a tendril of gold like a tress of her hair?

Ah! no where; for wine, and for mirth, and for love,
I am sure that no happier world has been known!
And should others discover a dearer above,

E'en let them lay claim to the spot as their own.

W.

MR. CARRINGTON'S DARTMOOR.'

HAVING lately noticed the Banks of Tamar,' a poem by the same author as the work before us, we shall perhaps be liable in some measure to repetition, as both poems are of the same class, and not very unequal in merit. It is, however, much better that reviewers should risk a little critical tautology, than that works deserving of praise should pass unregarded into the world. We shall therefore enter at some length into the merits of Dartmoor,' a poem which, in many points of view, deserves the notice of the public.

Mr. Carrington is a schoolmaster of Devonport. His laborious profession, unfortunately too little respected in this country, and seldom either pleasurable or lucrative, usurps unavoidably the greatest portion of his time, and shuts him out equally from company and from elegant study. However, besides the reputation his poetical talents have procured him, he enjoys in his native town the much higher reputation of virtue and integrity.

It is very seldom advantageous to an author when he happens not to occupy a commanding position in society, to have his domestic circumstances made known. Few love genius for its own sake, and they are not numerous who can duly appreciate its productions. The greater number suppose, with some show of reason, that minds oppressed and made gloomy by privation and misfortune, or distracted by incessant cares, are ill capacitated to nourish those lofty sentiments and splendid fancies which constitute the soul of poetry. But they are mistaken. Sympathy is best excited by similarity, and the man who most resembles mankind in his joys and sorrows, in his misfortunes and successes, in his attachments and antipathies, is best calculated, if he possess genius, to rouse and delight the feelings of the public. Besides, enthusiastic minds, deprived of the envied material, pleasures bestowed by riches, bend their energies toward a new order of delights, the delights of study and meditation, and in these most commonly discover more than compensation for the loss of the others. It is thus that poor men have often become poets, and not, as is ignorantly imagined, from the vulgar desire of gain.

Notwithstanding, when artificial refinement has reached a certain pitch, the general feeling is against authors who are not wealthy. To mingle with fashionables, and converse with the great, becomes necessary to success; or, at least, it is thought indispensable to seem to have done so. The unknown bard may start up suddenly, and chaunt his wild dithryambic to a tribe of Indians or Arabs, and he will be listened to, before any body knows who was his father, and whether he had a tent to cover him, or made the clouds his canopy. In civilized coun

Dartmoor, a Descriptive Poem, by N.T. Carrington, author of the Banks of Tamar,' 8vo. London, 1826.