holding the candle in the right hand Panthon + Craton + Muriton + Bisecognaton Siston + Diaton + Maton + Tetragrammaton + Agla + Agarion Tegra + Pentessaron + Tendicata + Then rehearse these names Sorthie + Sorthia + Sorthios + Milia + Achilia + Sibylia + In nomine patris et filij et spiritus sancti. Amen." Examples might be multiplied ad infinitum, but this is enough for my purpose.

Mr. Jewitt's love-spell has evidently been erected from sources similar to the foregoing. The magic square is again that of the sun, as ruler of the talisman, maghen; the planet is naturally Venus, whose angel is Anael; at least, I trace some resemblance to his "seal" in the badly-formed characters so liberally strewed about. For comparison with this curious fac-simile I have drawn (Plate XVII., figs, 1 to 4) from the Second Book of Agrippa, the seals of Venus; of her proper "intelligence," Hagiel; of her evil spirit or demon, Kedemel; and of the Seraphim, who conjointly act as the celestial intelligences of this favoured planet. If the reader will turn to Mr. Jewitt's plate (RELIQ. X., 139), he will see at the left hand, over the magic square, the seal of the "intelligence" of Saturn, Agiel; next, that of Jupiter, and of his "intelligence," Jophiel; followed by that of the "intelligence" of Mars, Graphiel. In this charm, Jupiter, a beneficent planet bringing worship, is strongly opposed to the planets Saturn, sadness, and Mars, discord; the solary virtue binds and draws all the inferiors into admiration of, and obedience to, Venus, whose characters complete the spell. The writing is so obscure, and the spelling so faulty, that I am not surprised some mistakes should have been made in printing the names of power;" they must be read as follows:Cassiel (the angel of Saturn), Sachiel (the angel of Jupiter), Samael (of Mars), Michael (of the Sun), Anael (of Venus), Raphael (of Mercury), Gabriel (of the Moon). The angels of the whole seven planets are therefore invoked for the purpose of bringing the reluctant swain to the feet of the disconsolate fair one.

In conclusion, let me say that the whole subject, thus briefly touched upon, is of the most intricate nature. I have purposely refrained from criticising the very free translation of the Latin original which has already appeared in the "RELIQUARY," although, to some, the omission of any rendering of the words (hanc bestiam) must have seemed as extraordinary as the magician's intentional omission of the words, (panem nostrum quotidianum), from the Paternoster, was to Dr. Dodds. It is not for want of materials, either, that the Mirific Name has been only incidentally dwelt upon; and some readers of these imperfect notes will readily understand the reasons for this reticence. Suffice it to add that the science of magic, like other occult sciences, has had a marked effect upon the civilization of the world; but, degraded as it is by the tricks of spiritualistic charlatans and fortune-tellers, not even the art of Cornelius Agrippa himself could now render it respectable. Perhaps the scientific superstition of the present day (if I may venture to use such an expression) will elevate the Black Art to its former place in the minds of those whose motto is and ever will be

Omne ignotum pro mirifico!

ON ARBOR LOW. II.

BY WILLIAM HENRY GOSS, ESQ.

THUS far my object has been to note that the lateness of the recognition in modern times of the ancient British, or ante-Roman character of Arbor Low, and the other rude stone monuments in question, does not favour their Arthurian origin; that Cæsar's non-observance of ancient British temples does not damage the Druidical, nor favour the Arthurian theory of the rude stones; that there were stones associated with the grove and holy-well worship, which worship, from its deep-rootedness, it was difficult to exterminate; and that these stones were distinct from the Romano-British temples, and, just possibly, some Saxon temples, which, by command of Gregory the Great were converted into Christian churches.

Let me now trace the probable origin of the ancient well-authenticated sun, moon, and grove worship, and show its connection with the said lingering worship of the sun and moon, stones, trees, and fountains, so repeatedly deprecated by the Christian Fathers, and forbidden by Canute the Great. But, since controversy so animated has been held about the Druids, that the mere name has acquired power to disturb the equanimity of some archæological minds, I should like first to find a way of dispensing with the title in the further discussion of this subject; probably I may succeed. Of the candidate derivatives of the word-namely, the Hebrew Derussini for contemplators; the Greek Drus, or old British Dru for oak; old British Drus for magician; Saxon Dry for the same; and the Teutonic Druthiw for servant of truth ;—I think the Welsh term Derw-ydd, for one that lives in an oak-grove, appears quite sufficient. And that term was applied to those who were described by classical authorities as the allpowerful priests of the Celtic race. I will, therefore, speak of them as Celtic priests-priests of the Sun, of Apollo, and of Baal, will be equally applicable, although they combined also with their sacerdotal office the functions of magistrates, philosophers, and physicians. The worship which they conducted was not special to Britain, nor to Europe, but was the religion of the primitive home of man, established before the original community sent forth emigrants to people the lands--before the origin of nations. Mr. Fergusson has pointed out the remarkable similarity of the monuments of peoples so widely separated on the face of the earth, as the north of Europe, Egypt, India, and even central America; and, assuming that there has never been any contact between the ancestors of some of these peoples, leads to the suggestion that there may be an uniform development of stone structural design natural to the human mind in all cases and places. It does seem just possible that the human mind, without example or instruction of any kind, should naturally, every where, suggest the creation of cairns or pyramids, menhirs or obelisks, dolmens, and stone circles, but when in addition to this remarkable uniformity of symbolic structure, we have a similarity of words, special habits, and

remarkable traditions, we must assume that there has at some period been a contact or association of the ancestors of these peoples, however widely they may be now separated, and that the similarities are the result of a common source or derivation. The Mandan Indians of North America had among them the tradition of a flood which covered the earth, from which only one man escaped in a large canoe; and of a bird flying to the big canoe with a leaf in its mouth, not olive, however, but willow. And the Carribean Indians preserved a legend of the submersion of the earth through the disobedience of some of its inhabitants, and of the re-peopling of it by a few who were placed on a safe spot until the waters subsided. These traditions appear to be derived from the same source as the scriptural account of the Flood, and that on the Assyrian tablets. Doubtless the ancestors of these Indians carried the story with them from the first home of mankind, at the same time that they took with them to the west the rites and ceremonies of the eastern Sun-worship, which was already an ancient religion in the Mexican and Peruvian empires, when they were first made known to the old world. So, probably, had they carried with them a knowledge of the pyramid, the obelisk, and the stone circle, as religious symbols, for they are found there as well as in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The resemblance between the architecture of ancient Mexico and Egypt, megalithically and in the pyramid, is remarkable. In Thomas Maurice's "Indian Antiquities" (1793), there is a beautiful engraving of a large Mexican pyramidal temple to the sun and moon, which resembles in a very surprising manner the temple of Belus at Babylon, according to the description of the latter by Herodotus in Clio, 181. Herodotus calls it the temple of Jupiter Belus, which would be Bel, Baal, or the Sun. There is also a remarkable similarity between the ceremonies of the enchanters or mystery-men of the North American Indians, and the rain-making ceremonies of Africa. The custom, too, of addressing the chief of men as Father," which was once common in the old world, and from which we have Sire and Pope, is still preserved in the North American Indian's synonyms of Father and Great Father. The tortures which the Indian youth had to pass through to test their powers of endurance, and initiate them into the rank of warriors and hunters, were inflicted and endured for the purpose of gaining the favour of the Great Spirit, so that he might make them successful in their pursuits. For it was, and is, supposed by them that the Great Spirit especially approves of a bold and daring hunter, and favours, as acceptable to him, those who are brave in the endurance of privations, fatigue, and wounds. So Nimrod was styled "the mighty hunter before the Lord," as though at that early period it was thought that the Lord delighted in the deeds of a mighty hunter. The writer of the passage, one would think, so intended it to be understood, and not that Nimrod was a mighty hunter against the Lord, as some think. For when the writer of Genesis recorded wickedness he ever recorded divine visitation as a natural consequence; whereas Nimrod is made the successful founder of cities and kingdoms. If it should appear that so many coincidences of habits, customs, and traditions as exist among the

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divers races of mankind, point to a common home and ancestry in their primitive history, the present differences of races is no obstacle to the conclusion. Whatever great changes may have happened in the languages, colour, build, and natures of human families may be amply accounted for by the allowance of sufficient time for the development of the effects of different climates, habits, diet, fashions, and accidents, all operating gradually and diversely upon disconnected communities; and it is no wonder that there are not more vestiges of the original cousinship than we find. Some have doubted that there can be any relationship between the aborigines of the New and Old worlds, because of the intervention of the Atlantic; and Mr. Fergusson appears to entertain no idea that the former may have inherited anything from the latter. We know not how early men began to construct sea-going ships and venture upon the ocean; nor how often arts have flourished and declined to be re-invented. The tradition of the Flood is a tradition also of ship-building already then advanced to a thorough sea-going capacity. And it is possible that there was once another traversable route to America besides that of the Atlantic. I have long held that the earth did not always revolve upon an axis at the same angle to the sun's rays as at present. The now frozen north was once torrid, and may have furnished to wandering tribes an easy way to the American continent. Siberia and the Arctic regions were once warm fruitful regions, supporting a population of huge elephants, whose habitat was such a clime as that of India is to-day. The separate discoveries by Gabriel Sarytschew and Ossip Schumachoff, of entire bodies of the Mammoth, unmutilated and uncorrupted, embedded in solid masses of ice, indicate that the change of temperature in the instance of their calamity was sudden. They were overwhelmed with a flood, which froze into a solid mass around them before a bone had been broken, or their flesh had become tainted; and when disentombed from the ice thousands of years later, their flesh was then sound food for dogs. We know also that Britain has experienced a torrid, a glacial, and subsequently to the glacial, a temperate clime. We now learn too, from the last Arctic exploration, that there are coal-fields and corals not so very far from the North Pole. It is no extravagant surmise that Siberia may at one time, since the appearance of man upon the scene, have been a fruitful country, and a pleasant road, whereby the children of the wanderers from Assyria reached the American continent with only a strait to

cross.

It was probably at that early period of the founding of the communities of Assyria that Sun-worship was established, and the circle made a sacred symbol. I have written elsewhere of the ancient sage who once upon a time was studying eternity or illimitability, whether of time or space. He had been led to the thought of infinity by the impossibility of conceiving a limit of the whole. If I conceive an end of space,' thought he, of what nature is its boundary? Is it a wall of adamant? And what is beyond that?' He strained thought and found it impossible to conceive an ultimate end. There must be something beyond and beyond, whether dark or illumined, whether

void or solid; and it might as well be space as a solid for the possibility of the comprehension of it. As he could not conceive an end, neither could he conceive the infinite continuity whether of space or time. Thus difficult was the prospect; and no less difficult the retro- spect to the ken of the human mind. At length he mentally bent the future downward curvingly; and he bent the past downward curvingly, until they met and became a complete circle, without beginning and without end. That became his symbol of eternity and the Eternal. He engraved it in stone, and added thereto wings, to symbolize unrestraint or omnipresence. Then he carved the circle into the resemblance of a serpent, the emblem of wisdom, head to tail. Thus he combined a. symbol of God, eternal, omnipresent, and omniscient, and made it the object of his worship and prayer. To this day it remains on the stones of the ruins of the ancient temples of Egypt and India. But that circle, after all, was only a lineal circumscribed illustration of endlessness, and is no aid to the conception of expansive boundlessness." Because I say "engraved," and "carved," I do not mean to imply that the circle became a sacred symbol at a later time than the Flint period. It is very easy to carve stone with a flint implement. Besides its fit symbolism of eternity and the Eternal, on account of its endless continuity, the circle was also sacred as the visible form of the supreme deities of the astronomical religion -of Baal and Astaroth, the Sun and the Moon in the heavens, as the obelisk or menhir represented the solar ray, or god-influence on earth. It is curious to note that even Christianity inherits these symbols from Sun-worship, and, in painting, we indicate the divinity of Christ by placing above our Lord's head the sacred circle, or encompassing it with a representation of the solar rays-the Latin nimbus. And so the coronal circle was placed upon the brows of kings originally to signify that the regal office was divine. In it, besides the circle, the solar rays were also generally represented. And, while the kings of antiquity assumed this symbol of their god, they also assumed his name as their royal title, and were distinguished by a cognomen betokening the Sun, to signify that they were his deputies in the governance of men. One instance of this occurs to my memory among the names of the later kings of ancient Britain, namely, Cunobelinus-Belinus being synonymous with Baal or the Sun. If the families of mankind first radiated from the plains of Assyria, then, doubtless, it was on those plains that men first learned to adore the sun and moon, and all the host of heaven; to encompass their altars and places of burial with the sacred circle; and to erect the menhir or obelisk as the holy symbol of the solar ray and a sort of image of God. It has been thought that the science of astronomy was made out by the Assyrian or Chaldean shepherds, while nightly dividing their attention between their flocks and the skies. But it was probably a stronger motive than the ordinary curiosity of a shepherd, lying on his back and watching the stars, that led to the early mapping of the firmament, and traced the courses of the heavenly bodies. The desire to find out God, and the movements of the celestial host, would give earnestness to the observance and study of the