constellation marked by a cornucopía issuing from the mouth of the crab. For the adoption of the lion as a symbol of the sun, I refer the reader to D'Han carville. Virgo, it will not be disputed, is Ceres, or Nature; and Libra, Justice. In one of the Egyptian planispheres, according to Kircher, the divinity, in the place of Scorpio, leaves no doubt as to the import of the Scorpion. Krishna's victory over Kaliyà took place in the Via Lactea, or Yamuna, which accounts for the Milky Way in the fourth compart ment of the planisphere. Sagittarius and Capricorn, the centaur and antelope, are alluded to in Horace's tenth Epistle; for the antelope belongs properly to the class cervus. Cervus equum pugnâ melior communibus herbis Pellebat: donec minor in certamine longo Non equitem dorso, non frænum depulit ore. The prevalence of the Scorpion destroys that of the Bull, which explains the derivation of KeyTaupos, the Centaur, from ZETE and Taupos. The zodiacal Bull is pricked with a dagger by the bunter in the Mithraic Monuments, and in a statue at the British Museum. I farther conclude that Capricorn related to the use of the animals as food, whether fish, flesh, or birds, (for the latter are found in Sir Wm. Jones's zodiac) from a medal struck in honour of the Emperor Augustus, which has on it the sign Capricorn, with a cornucopia rising from its back, to signify that abundance of every kind prevailed under his fortu. nate auspices. I had assumed that Aquarius was Dhanavantara from the reason of the case. The other day, at Mr. Tassie's, I met with an impression of a gem in the Florentine Cabinet, of Aquarius, pouring the stream from his urn, while a shower of flowers expresses, as in the Mahabarat Geeta, the union of the two ingredients, the water of life and vegetable juices, which compose the amreeta. Dhanishta is the name of the first lunar mansion of Aquarius. In Kircher's northern and southern planispheres it will be seen, that the constellations next to the zodiac corroborate the explanation which I here beg See Wilkins's translation of the Geeta, P. 146, and Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 311. leave to submit with great humility to the public. For example, (and not to lengthen this paper unnecessarily) in the third compartiment, that of the evil prin ciple, one figure over the Scorpion cars ries fire and sword in his hands: another cuts off the head of an antelope. The dog and hawk refer to the hunter-state of society, for both are used in chasing the antelope in India; and Capricorn is evidently an antelope in all the Indian zodiacs of which I have seen engravings. These are some of the grounds upon which I regard the Indian zodiac as the basis of all heathen mythology and poetry. Its inventors have inscribed, in indelible characters, on the heavens around us, what appeared to them to be the history of mankind. To this quadruple division of the signs belong those four heads of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and Krishna, which occur together so frequently in the sculpture of the East. There belong also to these compartments four principal ideas, which have descended in triumph down the stream of Time, transfusing themselves through man's intellectual horizon. I will endeavour to express them by four correspondent terms; Creation, Preservation, Destruction, Renovation. JOHN FRANK NEWTON. Chester-street, Feb. 6, 1812. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, erected her greatness is Commerce. HE basis upon which England has If we look back to the first glimmerings of authentic history, and trace, from thence up to the present times, the various states which have successively raised themselves upon the same foundation, we shall see that the rise of their power has been gradual, and its fall invariably precipitate and fatal. To the rich inheritance of these nations, England has ultimately succeeded, and with the ruins of their commerce and fleets, she has raised herself a naval fabric, broader at its base, higher in its elevation, and more splendid in its structure, than any that have preceded it. It is upon com merce that her dominon has been erected, and every nation, whose greatness has been built upon the same foundation, has fallen suddenly, and in the midst of its prosperity. Is the same fate likely to attend the naval dominion of England? Has she already attained the zenith of her greatness? And will her power decline with the same rapidity that has marked the fall of her great commercial predecessors? predecessors? which we hear occasionally agitated, and which, in the minds of Englishmen at least, must excite the most lively interest. If the fate of those nations is not likely to be also the fate of England, there must then exist some essential difference between England and them: but does any such difference exist? Certainly there does; and it consists in this, that those nations have all fallen by means of an attack which, from the local situation of England, never can be made upon her; I mean an attack on the land-side. If we look to the History of the nations which have preceded her in naval dominion, we shall see that the ocean has been the source of their grandeur, and that the land has been the cause of their fall: we shall see that the same commerce that made them great and powerful at sea, made them weak and feeble on land, by exhausting their energies upon their fleets and naval armaments, which were necessary for the protection of their commerce, and which offered more inducements to the daring and adventurous, than the land service: we shall see that such has been their local situation, that their fleets, in which their chief strength has consisted, have never been able to form a line of protection around them; that they have all been accessible on the land-side; and that by attacks from that quarter, where maritime strength could avail them nothing, they have all successively fallen. Tyre, the father of commercial nations, occupied a situation which rendered it less accessible than most of the nations which have in turn inherited its maritime greatness; yet, however, though its peculiar situation enabled it to bring its powerful fleets to its defence, the facility of approach, which its junction with the land gave to the victorious arms of Alex. ander, led to its ruin; and it fell, like its children, (if I may so term its successors in naval dominion) by an attack on the Jand-side. Carthage, its immediate offspring, fell in like manner: had it been content to struggle with its great rival on its proper element-the sea, it might have held its naval empire during a much Jonger period than it did. In modern times, we have beheld Venice, in the midst of her splendor, and whilst her gallies still covered the seas, fall from her exalted station, to a level with the other Italian states, by, a single blow on the land side, inflicted by the league of Cambray. The Hollanders, too, have These are questions fallen in the midst of their prosperity by a similar attack; by an attack on the land-side. an The commerce of France, likewise, and her navy, have been neglected and ruined by the same cause. The sanguinary wars which the revolution drew upon her, required her utmost efforts: and the necessity she was under of defending herself upon the land-side, left her neither leisure nor means to attend to her fleets. Now England, as island, is incapable of falling by the same means, and therefore the fate of other commercial nations ought not to alarm us; seeing, however, that the weakness of their land-forces has invariably been the cause of their fall, it behoves us to attend to ours; and, though our navy should ever be the first object of our care, yet our land-forces, as they may one day or other be necessary for our protection, should always be preserved upon a footing of respectability. Kentish-Town, Dec. 10, 1811. H. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. H SIR, AVING always found your pages open to any observations that had a tendency to benefit either the public or individuals of merit, especially when in obscurity through neglect; I must now press you a little farther on the same. score; although the objects I wish to plead for, I must confess, are incapable of feeling for their own wretched situation, the injuries they are receiving, and have for years received, and are so far from complaining of neglect and obscurity, that they can only excite pity by their silent solitary abandonmcat. There are two bodies of men in this country, who I know can, and I trust will, relieve them when their present condition is sufficiently displayed, and the causes of their slow destruction; when their enemies are pointed out; and the neglect of those, who ought to be their guardians, exposed: and, although { cannot assert that I have a commission to plead for them, except from my injured feelings, yet I hope, when I assure you that they cannot plead for themselves, I may be allowed to dictate for them at least a Petition, and that you will on my part present the following with due humility. G. CUMBERLAND. Jan. 10, 1812. [The humble Petition of nearly all the Ancient Monuments, in this kingdom, of burgesses burgesses, squires, knights, cross-legged and others, heroes, nobles, princes, queens, and kings; also that of abbots, bishops, &c. &c. To which is added that of screens, choirs, sacristies, private-chapels, and cathedrals.] To the Venerable Society of Antiquaries, the Honorable Society of Arts, and the Royal Academy. Sheweth, That your Petitioners are the best remains of the works of the most eminent artists of their times, executed by the commands of exalted and virtuous characters, without any regard to expense, and from the most pious motives; that in them exist still the best resemblances of the clergy, warriors, and norility, of these realms, although cruelly dismembered, fractured, and insolently mutilated. But that which your petitioners have most cause to complain of, is, that, through the negligence of the clergy, the ignorance of corporations, and the disregard of the present race of nobility and gentry, they are delivered over in general to the greatest enemies they have ever had since they were first created out of stone and marble by artists deserving immortality though now forgot, and whose names have perished before their beautiful works were quite obliterated by the infernal hosts of sordid Whits washers, whose annual dawbings have already in many places half extinguished their beauties, and now bid fair, if not speedily opposed, to compleatly envelope them in artificial stalagmites, a fag of mortar, and a shell of mud. Your Petitioners, therefore, humbly hope, that, as it seems impossible to give taste to the clergy, or liberality to corporations, and as none now but artists and antiquarians seem to care about them, the Antiqua. rians will be pleased to reflect on their duty, and solicit Parliament for an act to punish with slitting of noses, and cutting off of ears, &c. &c. any person whatever who shall presume hereafter, to whitewash monuments, either Gothic or Saxon, under pretence of embellishing them, but in reality with a tendency to their slow demolition, many fine foliages being now become, by this infamous invention, solid amorphous masses, jewels obliterated from crowns, robes of far con. verted into dabs of plaister, chains of honour to leathern straps, swords to walking sticks, eyes blinded, mouths gagged, ears plugged up, noses stopped, and hair reduced to the thiums of old mops, while coats of arms are now costs of plaister, and coats of mail are no longer visible. They next hope that the Society of Arts will offer a handsome premium to the person who shall discover, by any chemical process, a mode of dissolving the long laborious dressings of these accursed Whitewashers, so as to deliver shem from the incubus of malice that now, in 1 fifty folds, envelopes some of the most illused of them; and then they hope and trust that, without a miracle, the eyes of the members of the Royal Academy will be opened, and seeing, what they will then be enabled very easily to see, the purest and most venerable forms; ornaments necessary to be studied by those who would wish to excel in historical painting; proportions, the result of the deepest geometrical studies, united with the most exquisite taste; and elevations that lift up the minds of the very stupidest of mankind. They will not fail to send a column of their best students through the kingdom, with the younger Stothard at their head, to actively arrest the hand of Time, by scrupulously delineating all that his slow but persevering hand has spared; and, these ends accomplished, as they ought to be, no one can doubt that the Regent will collect their drawings for the national benefit, and ultimatel place them in the archives of the British Museum, there to remain as helps to art, and the immortal monuments of national grandeur. And your humble Petitioners, &c. THE WHITEWASHED MONUMENTS. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, tion that you frequently allude, with becoming exultation, to the rapid encrease of libraries and literary societies throughout the empire. The establishi ment of these institutions has had a HAVE observed with much satisfac, powerful tendency to hasten the advancement of knowledge, and perhaps has contributed more than any other circum stance to obtain for the times in which we live, the title of “ the Age of Liberal Inquiry." In hours of relaxation from business, men will have amusement. The efforts of moralists have, therefore, properly been directed to persuade them to adopt those, which are not only innocent in themselves, but ultimately lead to mental and moral improvement. Sentiments, somewhat similar to these, have lately been diffused, with uncommon rapidity, among the thinking part of the people of Scotland; and various societies have arisen for the purpose of promoting the disse. mination of knowledge. Views, something analogous to them, must have actuated a few individuals in this city; for they last year* formed a society, to which they gave the name of "the Edinburgh Institute." The principal object this in stitution has in view, is, to have lectures delivered in a popular manner, on scientific and literary subjects, at a moderate expence, (so moderate as to make it accessible to all who have the least taste for such studies) and at convenient hours to those whose professional avocations prevent them from attending academical prelections. It is also intended that a meeting shall be held monthly, for reading ori ginal papers, on scientific, philosophical, or literary, subjects. The members, however, being mostly engaged in the active bustle of commercial pursuits, these pa pers have not hitherto been numerous. The management of this institution is vested in a council of twenty, elected annually from among the meinbers. The Rev. William Tennant, L.L.D. M.A.S. is the present president. The arrangement for the second session, which commenced on the first of October 1811, and will terminate in May 1812, are lectures on Natural Philosophy, Meteorology, Electricity, and Galvanism, Philosophy of History, and Oratory. There is reason to suppose that the professors of our university look upon this institu tion in a favourable manner, already has one of themt, with the munificent liberality of a great mind, given the most substantial proofs of his approbation. The founders of the institution have several ulterior projects in view, such as the purchase of a complete set of philoso. phical apparatus, the formation of a museun, &c. but the execution of these plans must eventually depend upon the support which the citizens of our town are disposed to afford; and unfortunately they have not, hitherto, been much distinguished for that public spirit which alone can secure the existence of an institution founded upon liberal principles, and depending upon popular favour for its continuance. I am persuaded it will not now be said that the being able to give a rational account of the phenomena which the material world continually exhibits, has a tendency to render meu less fit for the discharge of the duties of the merchant or the manufacturer. And that the more intelligent part of your readers will rejoice to learn that one other cause, however small its effect may be, is added to those which are, by slow, but certain, steps, meliorating the condition of mankind, and hastening the dissemination of right opinions, by diffu * One guinea annually. Professor Christison. 66 a And he remarks that, "The numerals of the Old Testament appear on this bypothesis, to have been exaggerated by the different modes of arithmetical notation, in fashion at different ages of the world," &c. &c.; and that even Hebrew transcriber himself, at the distance of a few hundred years, would be likely to mistake the more ancient notation of that language, particularly after the invention and general introduction of the Arabic notation." By notation the author evidently means the Rabbinical punctuation, and it is remarkable that the very chapter to which he has referred as bearing evidence against the longevity of the antidiluvian patriarchs, affords an incontestable proof to the contrary, which I am sure will incline the candid author to acknowledge when the fifth chapter of Genesis is fairly explained to him. The Rabbinical punctuation is so far from having any canonical authority, that it did not commence until about 900 years after the birth of the Messiah, though the Rabbins now pretend to have a tradition, that it always existed from the beginning. But their ancestors, the Israelites, were always a rebellious people; in every age examples of it are recorded in the holy Scriptures. And their rebellion against the son of David, the eternal king of Israel, predicted by all the prophets of God, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting !"Micah, v. 2. "The living Word of God,'' the creator of heaven and earth, even "Jesus, the Christ, the son of the living God." Matth. xvi, 16. "Who con victed the Scribes and Pharisees of at- It is remarkable that the Holy Hebrew Scriptures, even the first book that was ever written, should bear testimony to the arithmetical rule of addition, as used even to this day, beginning the line of figures on the right hand, in the exact order of units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. The following table of the ages of the patriarchs, in the fifth chapter of Genesis will demonstrate this. The Ages of the Antediluvian Patriarchs as recorded in the Fifth Chapter of Genesis. 12. And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel: (Heb. Maleleel) 13. And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years; 14. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years, and he died. 15. And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years and begat Jared: 16. And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared' eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters: 17. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred and ninety-five years, and he died 18. And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: 19. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years: .... 20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years, and he died. MONTHLY MAG. No. 224. } 73 |