floats upon the river Styx as the lunar ark of Osiris floated on the Nile, CHAP.. which is described as the vehicle of Proserpine and Pluto, and which is celebrated as the birth-place of regenerated souls, must plainly be esteemed a mere symbol of the Ship of Noah.

5. This conclusion, which exactly harmonizes with all the preceding observations, renders the curious vision of Timarchus perfectly intelligible. : The two doors of the floating Moon, which afford an ingress and egress to regenerated souls, are those two doors, which Porphyry similarly gives to the Moon, and to which he ascribes the very same office. Their prototype is the door in the side of the Ark; through which eight living souls first entered, and through which they afterwards returned to the light of heaven. From its serving this double purpose it was multiplied in the Mysteries to two; and souls were feigned to enter into the Moon by one door, and to quit it by another. The fruitless attempts of the Styx tooverwhelm the floating Moon are the fruitless attempts of the deluge to overwhelm the Ark. The other islands, which lie lower than the Lunar Island and which consequently do not escape so well, are the representatives of the various parts of the Earth, which the old mythologists compared to a vast island floating on the bosom of the great abyss. The vain endeavours of numerous souls to save themselves, and the washing of them away from the shores of the Moon by the raging waves of the Styx, shadow out the unavailing exertions of the wretched antediluvians: while the happier lot of a chosen few, who are preserved upon the Lunar Island, exhibit to us the better destiny of Noah and his companions. The cavern, finally, of Hecate, within which the wicked are reserved for punishment, represents the great central cavity of the Earth: and it is placed within the floating Moon, because the Ark and the Earth are constantly symbolized by common hieroglyphics, each being alike esteemed a World and a floating island.

6. We may now perceive the reason, why the Moon was styled by the old mythologists Salus or Safety; and why the Orphic poet addresses Musèus, who had been regenerated according to the form prescribed in the Mysteries, as the offspring of the resplendent Moon. We shall also be

'Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 20. Orph. Hymn. lxvii. Orph. Fragm. p. 359. Edit Gesn.

able the better to understand the import of those notions respecting the Moon, which yet remain to be adduced.

7. At Autun in France a sculptured bass-relief has been found, which represents the chief Druid bearing his sceptre and crowned with a garland of oak-leaves; while another Druid approaches him, and displays in his right hand a crescent resembling the Moon when six days old. To this ceremonial Taliesin evidently refers in one of his poems. He describes a solemn act of worship paid to the Moon; and yet he at the same time expressly styles the lunette, borne by the inferior Druid, a boat of glass'.

The toy was doubtless a representation of the lunar ship or floating Moon, which was so highly venerated by the gentile mythologists in every part of the world. This was the Moon, within which Osiris was inclosed by Typhon, within which Crishna and Siva alike found refuge, and within which the seven companions of the diluvian Menu underwent the lustration of a mysterious penance. This was the Moon, of which the Arcadians spoke, when they claimed for their family a higher degree of antiquity than even that possessed by the planet itself. And this was the Moon, which gave its name to so many lofty mountains where old tradition placed the resting of the Ark after the deluge3.

8. From the same source of astronomical mysticism originated the fable of the man in the Moon, which has been carried into regions very widely separated from each other. This personage is no other than Osiris, or Bacchus, or Siva, or Crishna; each of whom is said to have once tenanted the lunar orb. The tales of our English nurseries make him, I believe, perform penance in the Moon on account of his having gathered sticks on the sabbath-day while the children of Israel travelled through the wilderness: but some of the aboriginal inhabitants of South-America, in a manner which better accords with the speculations of ancient Paganism, supposed him to be confined in the Moon as in a prison on account of his having committed incest with his sister. The incest was that, which is so constantly ascribed to the great father on account of the varied degrees of relationship in which he was thought to stand to the great mother. A

' Davies's Mythol. of Brit. Druid. p. 277.

Lycoph. Cassand. ver. 482. Ovid. Fast. lib. ii. ver. 290.

3 Vide supra b. ii. c. 4. § IV. * Purch. Pilgr. b. ix. c. i. p. 822.

2

similar story of the man in the Moon is well known to the inhabitants of CHAP. II. New-Zealand and they derived it, I have little doubt, from the same universally prevailing system of mythology'.

Sometimes we find a variation in the sex: when, instead of Osiris or Siva being placed in the Moon, its tenant is said to be a mysterious female. Thus, according to Serapion, the soul of the most ancient Delphic Sibyl migrated after her death into the Moon; and the human countenance, which imagination has ascribed to the orb of that planet, is really the face of the deified prophetess. This first of the Sibyls was the same personage as Cybelè, or Ila, or Isis, or Proserpine; and those, who in after ages bore her title, were really her priestesses: just as the great father was esteemed the first Priest or Druid or Magus; his sacerdotal votaries, at every subsequent period, studiously adopting his titles and imitating his character. The imagined migration of the Sibyl into the Moon is the same as the parallel translation of Isis into that planet; the same also as the entrance of Proserpine into the floating Moon of which she herself is expressly declared to be a personification, as it is described to us in the vision of Timarchus.

9. Even in the remote island of Otaheitè a similar vein of mysticizing is is not altogether unknown; the general religion of the pagan world having been brought there, most probably from Asia, by the first colonists. The inhabitants of that country assure us on the authority of an ancient tradition, that the seeds of certain trees were once carried by doves to the Moon'. It need scarcely be observed, that this curious legend, inapplicable as it may be to the literal planet, is yet strictly true of the floating Moon or lunar boat into which Osiris or Noah was compelled to enter by the fury of the ocean.

III. Such being the notions entertained of the Moon, since the great mother, by whatever name she might be distinguished and in whatever part of the world she might be worshipped, was equally the Moon and the Earth; we may naturally expect to find a certain intercommunion of cha

'Marsden's acc. of New Zealand. Christ. Observ. vol. ix. p. 724. Serap. apud Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. i. p. 304. 3 Cook's Third Voyage. b. iii. c. 9. C

Pag. Idol.

VOL. III.

BOOK V. racter between these two so nearly allied objects of idolatrous veneration. Nor shall we be disappointed: as the same goddess represented them both; so they are themselves exhibited under common symbols, and are described with similar attributes.

The Moon, we are informed, is a celestial Earth, tenanted by its proper inhabitants, and comprehending within its sphere the Elysian fields or Paradise. It is also, as we have seen, a floating island, and a ship or ark within which the principal god of the Gentiles was once constrained to seek shelter from a dreadful inundation of the sea.

In a similar manner, according to the doctrine of the ancient Babylonians, the Earth is a vast ship floating on the surface of the great abyss ". The same notion prevailed among the Jews, being adopted by them most probably during the period of the captivity. It may also be traced in the writings of the Orphic poet, who describes the Earth as an immense island girt on every side by the circumambient ocean3. And it appears with remarkable distinctness in the speculations of the Hindoo sages, who at once symbolize the earth by a ship and speak of it as a large floating island 4. From the centre of this island rises the sacred mount Meru; on the summit of which, no less than in the Moon, they place their Elysian fields or the Paradisiacal abode of the hero-gods: and, as every smaller island is a transcript of the Earth or a World in miniature; we likewise find an universally prevailing opinion, that the seats of the blessed are to be sought for in certain sacred islands situated far to the west in the midst of the allpervading ocean.

So again: the Moon was typified by the lotos, the cow, and the mysterious ship Argo or Baris or Theba: for we perceive the lunar goddess with the crescent on her forehead floating in the aquatic lotos; we meet with a legend that Isis or Io or the Moon was once changed into a cow, while the horns of that animal are positively declared to represent the lunar crescent and while we are told that the figure of a crescent was studiously impressed

Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 117.

2 Windet de vit. funct. statu. p. 242, 243. apud Magee on atonement. vol. ii. p. 165. 3d Edit.

3

Orph. Frag. p. 401..

Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 133, 137. vol. viii. p. 274, 308, 312.

on the side of the sacred lunar bull of the Egyptians; and we find, that the CHAP. II. luniform ark or floating Moon of Osiris is at once said to be a wooden cow denominated Theba or the ark and to be the very same as the celebrated ship Argo'.

Precisely in a similar manner, the Earth is represented by the lotos, the cow, and the sacred ship Argha: for the Hindoos assure us, that the calix of the lotos with its centrical petal and the ship Argha with its centrical mast equally shadow out the great mundane floating island: while they declare that the cow, which was produced from the deluge, and which was the mystic mother of their god Rudra or Siva who once dwelt in the lunar orb, is no less the Earth than the Moon".

IV. The simple fact of the existence of such notions is undeniable, since it rests upon the most positive and incontrovertible authorities: the only question is, how we are to understand them. And this, so far as I am able to judge, cannot be very difficult; if we only attend to the various concurring legends and speculations, which have now been adduced,

It is sufficiently evident, that the whole preceding mystical jargon really describes a ship, which is said to have floated on the surface of an universal deluge and to have afforded shelter to an ancient personage from the fury of the overwhelming ocean. But I see not what this ship can possibly mean, except the Ark of Noah. The Ark therefore, for some reasons or other, was thought by the pagan mythologists to bear a close affinity to the Moon, to the Earth, and to a floating island. Why it was compared to the last of these, need scarcely be pointed out: and, why it was supposed to resemble the two former, may easily be ascertained by attending to the general principles of heathen theology, which ever delighted in tracing similitudes and in using hieroglyphics.

The Earth then is a larger World, containing the whole of mankind with every sort of beasts and birds and vegetables: the Ark is a smaller World,

› Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. i. p. 322. Luc. Dial. deor, p. 123. Stat. Sylv. lib. iii. p. 49. Plin, Nat. Hist. lib. viii. c. 46. Am. Marcel. lib. xxii. p. 257. Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. iii. c. 13. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 76. Plut. de Isid. p. 359. Plut. Sympos. lib. viii. p. 718.

2 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 134, 136. vol. viii. p. 274, 308, 312. vol. vii. p. 293. vol. iii. p. 161. vol. viii. p. 81. Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 141.