some other animal; and that after using as vehicles every species of terrestrial, aquatic, and winged creatures, it finally enters a second time into a human body. They affirmed that it undergoes all these changes in the space of three thousand years. In the Travels of Anacharsis, Barthelemi has collected the confessions of Empedocles: and as he refers to a book which I have not been able to obtain, I will repeat the quotation: "I have appeared,” says the Sicilian philosopher, "successively under the form of a young man, a maiden, a plant, a bird, and a fish. In one of these transmigrations, I for some time wandered like an airy phantom in the expanse of the heavens. But suddenly I was several times precipitated into the sea, thrown again upon the land, hurled into the sun, and again repelled into vortices of air.”— A pre-adamite idea was also indulged. The soul was described as descending to our earth, that being a sentence upon some extra-mundane frailty. Here it was to refine and then regain its sphere. In Moore's "Epicurean" there is a beautiful description of the idea, and still more of the mechanism which depicted it. The young philosopher listened attentively to the hierophant, when he saw near him a lovely female form crouching to the earth, as subdued by error and sin. She soon began to rise, her countenance opened in smiles, she soared from earth a pure and spotless thing, entered a star in which were kindred essences, until the vision disappeared. Wordsworth almost sings a similar strain, though apparently afraid to carry it further than the first dreams of childhood. The ode will be easily recalled by the one line of fervid boldness: "The Cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep."-The progress of the soul was a favourite conception. Spenser, Bunyan, and Donne followed an idea common to the Pagan idolatry. Cupid and Psyche is a most beautiful comment.

It is generally pleaded in behalf of these initiations, that they type the purgation of the soul. The poets are cited for the proof.

“ Ω μακαρ δις ευδαιμων τελέας θεων

Ειδως, βιόζαν αγίσουν,

-

Claudian delineates in his Descent the same idea. Taylor most ingeniously argues for this opinion, but what cannot he prove? Cerberus, he gravely states, is the discriminative part of the soul, of which a dog on account of its sagacity is an emblem; and the three heads signify the triple distinction of this part into the intellectual, dianoëtic, and doxastic powers! Hercules dragged the three-headed dog to-day,— intimating that by temperance, continence, and the other virtues, he drew upward these three qualities of the soul! These are the cathartic virtues, by which our higher nature is refined !*

In these initiations there would be frequent attempts to explain away the more singular observances. This would be particularly the case as the decay of superstition and the growth of philosophy demanded an extenuation of the forms. The learned would be told that many of the Egyptian rules of diet were but a "religio medici," the simple precautions of health. They would perceive that the mournings so very common in all the ancient heathen systems,-men and women rending the air with shrieks and gashing themselves,-referred to some of the great changes of nature. Thus the Phrygians mourned for Adonis, that is, the sun in its winter recession from them. Thus the Parthian Magi held the sea to be sacred, and that to defile its waters was impiety. The use or meaning of this tenet was to prevent emigration, and that part of the Caspian, close to Parthia, was called Pium Mare. The wanderings of Isis, in pursuit of the mangled limbs of Osiris, may be but the revolution of our earth through its orbit, always seeing the sun in the opposite sign of the zodiac, never finding more than eleven, itself being always in the twelfth. Plutarch describes the wailing, practised in her mysteries, as denoting the burying of the corn-seed, that wailing always being for something lost or dead. Proserpine or Persephone, when gazing on the Narcissus, is suddenly hurried away by Pluto; and this may but intend the sudden breaking up of spring, while her permission to return to earth, to her

Vide a Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, by Thomas Taylor, in the Pamphleteer.

mother Ceres, may signify the happy renewal of that season. Every thing in these allusions seems based upon agriculture. But a truce with these significations: they who have read Lord Bacon's "Wisdom of the Ancients," will perfectly well understand what ingenuity can do with such legends. Isis was considered, in fine, the goddess of goddesses, as Osiris was the god of gods, the Demiurgus. She therefore assumes any form. She appropriates every perfection. It was in the pride of this emulation, that Cleopatra clothed herself with the divine robes and badges of the goddess when she received Marc Antony. She rallies her troops with the crepitaculum.

We shall find that the philosophers are compelled to guess at the meanings of these ministrations, and to refine upon them. The following extracts from Plato's Phoedo will suffice. "The discourse delivered about these particulars, in the arcana of the mysteries, that we are placed in a certain prison secured by a guard, and that it is not proper in any one to free himself from this confinement, and make his escape,' appears to me an assertion of great moment and not easy to be understood.” "And those that instituted the mysteries for us appear by no means to have been contemptible persons, but to have really signified formerly, in an obscure manner, that whoever descended into Hades uninitiated, and without being a partaker of the mysteries, should be plunged into mire; but that whoever arrived there, purified and initiated, should dwell with the gods."

Of the form of Isis we know little of her appearance to the initiated, nothing. The Isiac Table, explained by Montfaucon, and copiously detailed by Shuckford,-even if it be genuine,-yields very scanty information. I believe it is now at Turin. Her general inscription was: "I am all that has been, and that shall be, and none among mortals has taken off my veil." The poppy wreath generally environed her head. Apuleius puts the following prayer in the lip of Psyche to Ceres. "Per ego te frugiferam tuam dextram istam deprecor, per lætificas messium cæremonias, per tacita sacra cistarum, et per famulorum tuorum draconum pinnata curricula, et illuminarum

Proserpinæ nuptiarum demeacula, et cetera, quæ silentio tegit Eleusis, Atticæ sacrarium; miserandæ Psyches animæ, supplicis tuæ, subsiste." Aithra, in the Suppliants of Euripides, makes her earliest prayer to Her as the Protectress of Eleusis. Indeed she was always figured as the help and comforter of the afflicted, an impersonation of the most indulgent mercy. It is often difficult to restrain the mind, amidst these descriptions, from thinking in the most solemn direction; for the Goddess is invoked with much of that sentimental devotion which the Madonna so widely receives as the Refugium et Consolatrix afflic

torum.

The great policy of the Mysteries was to secure secresy. This was in every way induced by honour and by fear. The traitor, could he even have expected impunity, levelled himself with the common vulgar of mankind. Bayle, in his Historical Dictionary, states that red-haired men were offered to the manes of Osiris and according to Horace, in his seventeenth Epistle of the first book, the common beggars and impostors of Rome made their last appeal to charitable credulity: "per sanctum juratus dicat Osirim." The rose-garland was an emblem of silence. We have the common phrase, doubtless of such origin, "under the rose:" but I hesitate to determine whether it was the sign of confidence from its use in the mysteries, or from being worn on the head at private feasts, the conversation at which in all civilised countries has been held sacred. But why this secresy? It is almost incredible, but it admits not of any doubt, that it arose from the selfishness of a desired monopoly. So mean was the common opinion of the deities, entertained by the great and devout as well as the obscure and ignorant, that they feared to be supplanted in the divine regards by other nations. They dreaded the transfer of these regards on inducements of costlier sacrifice by surrounding peoples. They seriously believed that such regards might be purchased by a higher price. They knew that many envious tribes and kingdoms thirsted to know who their deities were, that they might obtain this patronage. They therefore kept the secret, concealed the powers on whom they depended, lest they should be suborned from them

by richer bribes and alienated to the defence and aggrandisement of their foes!

We may now enquire into the architecture which would admit of all the wondrous illusions which initiation required. There was a succession of platforms. Immense perspectives stretched out to the eye. Perhaps there was a solid perspective, like that of Palladio's theatre at Vicenza. The actors must have been numerous, and the scenery could only be of the most curious and sumptuous description. Darkness gave way before the sudden blaze of Naptha, and the softest sounds of music stole upon the sense. Withal there was a facility, a naturalness, in these changes, so that the strongest minds could not resist the awe and rapture which attended them. Eleusis stood admirably for the purpose. It looked immediately upon Salamis in the Saronic Gulf: it was about mid-way between Athens and Nisæa. The extent of Grecian buildings was never their distinguishing property. Their proportion, their finish, their lightness, combined with certain though unobtruding strength, constitute their charm. But in this temple of the Mysteries, we must think of much subterranean space. The great oath was always taken in the deepest recess or crypt. This probably was closely connected with the Musixos oxos,—an apartment perfectly arranged for the formation of sounds and their transmission. This was an important instrument of illusion. The strains rose and fell, swelled and softened, approached and receded, and wrought their magic upon the aspirant. He felt that harmony was every where, and that, like attendant spirits, for him awoke all these modulations. Then the sacred precincts extended far beyond the vaulted roof. There was a terrace, which Chandler says, may still be seen cut in the rock behind, about nine feet above the floor of the temple, two hundred and seventy feet in length, and forty-four in breadth. Much was probably exhibited on it; along it the "pueri et homines scenici" would wind; and the penetralia were in a small shrine at its end, where the deity unfolded her veil to the votary. These measurements generally disappoint. The temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, and in breadth two hundred and