felves; and was the means to a more perfect and certain happiness in the other world: whilft, on the con trary, fuch as had not been initiated, befides the evils, they had to apprehend in this life, were doomed, after their defcent to the fhades below, to wallow eternally, in dirt, filth, and excrement. i Diogenes the Cynic believed nothing of the matter, and when his friends endeavoured to perfuade him to avoid fuch a misfortune, by being initiated before his death-"What," faid he "fhall Agefilaus and Epaminondas lie amongst mud and dung, whilft the vileft Athenians, becaufe they have been initiated, poffefs the moft diftinguifhed places in the regions of the bleffed ?" Socrates was not more credulous; he would not be initiated into thefe myfteries, which was perhaps one reafon that rendered his religion fufpected. Without this qualification none were admitted to enter the temple of Ceres; and Livy informs us of two Acarnanians, who, having followed the croud into it upon one of the feaft-days, although out of miflake and with no ill defign, were both put to death without mercy. It was alfo a capital crime to divulge the fecrets and myfteries of this feaft. Upon this account Diagoras the Melian was profcribed, and had a reward fet upon his head. He intended to have made the fecret coft the poet Efchylus his life, from fpeaking too freely of it in fome of his tragedies. The difgrace of Alcibiades proceeded from the fame cause. *Whoever had violated the fecret was avoided as a wretch accurfed and * Liv. i. xxxi. n, 14. Diogen. Laert. 1. vi. p. 389. *Eft et fideli tuta filentio Merees, Vetabo qui Cereris facrum Sit trabibus, fragilemque mecum Solvat phafelum. HOR. Od. II. 1. iii. Safe is the filent tongue, which none can blame, The faithful fecret merit fame; Beneath one roof ne'er let him reft with me, Who Ceres' myfterics reveals; In one frail bark ne'er let us put to fea, Nor tempt the jarring winds with spreading fails. excommunicated. 1 Paufanias in feveral paffages, wherein he mentions the Temple of Eleufis, and the ceremonies practifed there, ftops fhort, and declares he cannot proceed, because he had been forbade by a dream or vision. This feast, the most celebrated of profane antiquity, was of nine days continuance. It began the fifteenth of the month Boedromion. After fome previous ceremonies and facrifices on the first three days, upon the fourth in the evening began the proceffion of the Basket; which was laid upon an open chariot flowly drawn by oxen*, and followed by great numbers of the Athenian women. They all carried myfterious baskets in their hands, filled with feveral things, which they took great care to conceal, and covered with a veil of purple. This ceremony reprefented the basket into which Proferpine put the flowers fhe was gathering when Pluto feized and carried her off. The fifth day was called the day of the Torches; because at night the men and women ran about with them in imitation of Ceres, who having lighted a torch at the fire of mount Etna, wandered about from place to place in fearch of her daughter. The fixth was the most famous day of all. It was called Iachus, the name of Bacchus, fon of Jupiter and Ceres, whofe ftatue was then brought out with great ceremony, crowned with myrtle, and holding a torch in its hand. The proceffion began at Ceramicus, and paffing through the principal places of the city, continued to Eleufis. The way leading to it was called the facred way, and lay cross a bridge over the river Cephifus. This proceffion was very numerous, and generally confifted of thirty thousand perfons. The temple of Eleufis, where it ended, was large enough to contain the whole multitude, and Strabo fays, its extent was equal to that of the theatres, which every body knows were capable of holding a much greater. number of people. The whole way refounded with the found of trumpets, clarions, and other musical inftruments. Hymns were fung in honour of the goddeffes, accompanied with dancing, and other extraordinary marks of rejoicing. The rout before mentioned, through the facred way and over the Cephifus, was the ufual way: but after the Lacedæmonians in the Peloponnefian war had fortified Decelia, the Athenians were obliged to make their proceffion by fea, till Alcibiades re-established the ancient cuftom. The seventh day was folemnized by games, and the gymnaftic combats, in which the victor was rewarded with a measure of barley; without doubt, because it was at Eleufis the goddess firft taught the method of raifing that grain, and the use of it. The two following days were employed in fome particular ceremonies, neither important nor remarkable. During this feftival it was prohibited, under very great penalties, to arreft any perfon whatfoever, in order to their being imprifoned, or to present any bill of complaint to the judges. It was regularly celebrated every fifth year, that is, after a revolution of four years; and no history obferves that it was ever interrupted, except upon the taking of Thebes by Alexander the Great". The Athenians who were then upon the point of celebrating the great myfteries, were so much affected with the ruin of that city, that they could not refolve in fo general an affliction to folemnize a festival, which breathed nothing but merriment and rejoicing. It was continued down to the time of the Chriftian emperors; and Valentinian would have abolished it, if Prætextatus, the pro-conful of Greece, had not represented in the most lively and affecting terms, the universal for Her.. viii. c. 65. l. ix. p. 395. a Plut. in vit. Alex. p. 671. Zofim. hift. 1. iv. row row which the abrogation of that feaft would occafion. among the people; upon which it was fuffered to fubfift. It is fuppofed to have been finally fuppreffed by Theodofius the Great; as were all the reft of the Pagan folemnities. Of Augurs, Oracles, &c. Nothing is more frequently mentioned in ancient hiftory, than oracles, augurs, and divinations. No war was made, or colony fettled; nothing of confequence was undertaken, either public or private, without the gods being first confulted. This was a cuflom univerfally established amongst the Egyptian, Allyrian, Grecian, and Roman nations; which is no doubt a proof, as has been already obferved, of its being derived from ancient tradition, and that it had its origin in the religion and worship of the true God. It is not indeed to be queftioned, but that God before the Deluge did manifeft his will to mankind in different methods, as he has fince done to his people, fometimes in his own person, and viva voce, fometimes by the miniftry of angels or of prophets infpired by himself, and at other times by apparitions or in dreams. When the defcendants of Noah difperfed themselves into different regions, they carried this tradition along with them, which was every where retained, though altered and corrupted by the darkness and ignorance of idolatry. None of the ancients have infifted more upon the neceffity of confulting the gods on all occafions by augurs and oracles than Xenephon, and he founds that neceffity, as I have more than once obferved elsewhere, upon a principle deduced from the most refined reason and difcernment. He reprefents in feveral places, that man of himself is very frequently ignorant of what is advantageous or pernicious to him; that far from being capable of penetrating the future, the prefent itfelf efcapes him, fo narrow and fhort-fighted is he, in all his views, that the flighteft obftacles can fruftrate his greatest defigns, that only the divini ty, ty, to whom all ages are prefent, can impart a certain knowledge of the future to him; that no other being has power to facilitate the fuccefs of his enterprizes, and that it is reasonable to believe he will guide and protect those who adore him with the pureft affection, who invoke him at all times with greatest conftancy and fidelity, and confult him with most fincerity and refignation. Of Augurs. What a reproach is it to human reafon, that fo bright and luminous a principle fhould have given birth to the abfurd reasonings, and wretched notions in favour of the fcience of augurs and foothfayers, and been the occafion of efpoufing with blind devotion the most ridiculous puerilities: to make the most important affairs of ftate depend upon a bird's happening to fing upon the right or left hand; upon the greedinefs of chickens in pecking their grain; the infpection of the entrails of beafts; the liver's being entire and in good condition, which, according to them, did fometimes entirely difappear, without leaving any trace or mark of its having ever fubfifted! To thefe fuperftitious obfervances may be added, accidental rencounters, words fpoken by chance, and afterwards turned into good or bad prefages, forebodings, prodigies, monsters, eclipses, comets, every extraordinary phænomenon, every unforeseen accident, with an infinity of chimeras of the like nature. Whence could it happen, that fo many great men, illustrious generals, able politicians, and even learned philofophers, have actually given into fuch abfurd imaginations? Plutarch, in particular, fo eftimable in other refpects, is to be pitied for his fervile obfervance of the fenfelefs cuftoms of the Pagan idolatry, and his ridiculous credulity in dreams, figns and prodigies.. He tells us fomewhere, that he abftained a great while from eating eggs upon account of a dream, with |