they touch they impart fanctity, and the very duft of their feet is confecrated, from the steeps of Caucasus to the point of Comorin ! ! !

This anxious impatience, this ardent fever, of the foul panting after its immortal rest, and afcending progreffively through the stages of purity to that final abode, THE DEITY; these inceffant efforts of the devout brahmins to stifle every ebullition of human paffion, and live upon earth as if they were already, and in reality, difembodied, cannot fail to remind the claffical reader of the noble and beautiful allegory, recorded in Apuleius and other ancient writers, relative to the sufferings of the charming Yun, or Pfyche. This celestial progeny; Pfyche, or, in other words, the human foul perfonified, was generally represented by the ancients under the form of a beautiful young virgin with the wings of a butterfly; and fometimes, on antique gems and marbles, fhe is pourtrayed under the form of the Aurelia itself, in the natural history of which infect we may difcover the reafon as well as the force of the comparison. The general outline of that hiftory is, in brief, as follows:- The Aurelia is, in the first stage of its existence, a common grub, or worm, and lies, during the winter, ni a state of torpor, apparently dead. When

the

the genial spring renovates nature, it bursts its prison, and iffues forth, as it were, to new life, arrayed in beautiful attire. The Egyptians thought this a` just and striking emblem of the human foul, which, after a long imprisonment in a human form, at length bursts its terrestrial bonds, and emerges into immortality. Such, I fay, is the general outline of that history; but, having confidered the fubject with fome degree of attention, and trusting that I can place fome parts of the paral lel between the human foul and the Aurelia in a new point of view, I fhall not be afraid of disgusting my readers by entering into a more particular detail, relative to the growth and maturity of that infect, The whole myfterious fable, likewife, of CUPID and PSYCHE is fo congenial with these Indian fictions, concerning the excruciating feverities to be endured by the tranfmigrating foul, that I hope they will pardon my introducing it into these pages, fince the title of my book profeffes to compare the leading features of the mythology of Egypt, Perfia, and Greece.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE AURE

LIA AND

THE FABLE OF CUPID AND

PSYCHE CONSIDERED.

From the circumftance of the Aurelia occurring, in most of the mystical writers of antiquity, as the picturesque emblem of the soul paffing through the various stages of a mortal to an immortal ftate, there is great reason to believe thofe theological philosophers had vigilantly marked all the wonderful viciffitudes which the Chryfalis fucceffively undergoes, and were scarcely lefs acquainted with its hiftory than the curious and exploring fons of modern philofophy. The first state of the Chryfalis is a state nearly approaching to infenfibility; it scarcely appears to be endued with life; its figure is conical; it has neither legs to walk nor wings to fly, and it can take no nourishment, for it has no organs to receive or digeft it. Is not this a juft picture of the human foul in infancy, when it refts, as it were, dormant in its prifon of clay, incapable of exertion, and infenfible to the dictates of inftruction and wifdom?

Brought

Brought forth amidst the autumnal gloom, and chilled by the ungenial damps and rigours of that inclement feason, the embryo Aurelia remains in this inactive ftate during the early wintry months. As the cold and darkness of winter pafs away, and the fun begins to exert its power both on the animal and vegetable creation, the apparentlyinfenfible atom fhews fome principles of life, and, gradually fhedding its coat, or fkin, and putting on a more brilliant hue, it begins to feed on the tender springing herbage of the infant year. The variety and exquifite beauty of the colours of the different fpecies of the caterpillar in this state are infinite and admirable. Some of them are fuperbly clothed in brilliant gold, whence, in fact, they obtain the name of Chryfalis, from xguros, gold, as they are called Aurelia, from aurum; and it is this brilliant infect by which principally the ancients intended to fymbolize the foul, that radiant emanation of the divinity in man. Some are of an elegant green colour, others of a beautiful and bright yellow. They fucceffively change these colours as they advance towards maturity through the different stages of a caterpillar, a Chryfalis, and a butterfly; and, by this change, as well as by

that of their external coat, exhibit ample evidence of that metamorphofis actually taking place, which formed the bafis of the pleafing fables of the ancients on this fubject. As the vernal season increases, the Aurelia alfo increafes. in vigour, fprightliness, and magnitude, till, at length, its tender wings burfting from the membranous integument that confined them, it mounts into the air a perfect butterfly, and joyfully fpreads its richly-variegated pinions to the fun.

May not the Aurelia, in this improved stage of its existence, be confidered as a ftriking emblem of the foul arrived at the period of maturity in the human state, when education has lent all its aid to expand the daring genius and ripen to perfection the fervid thought; when man, liberated from the reftrictions of grave tutors and the fetters of parental authority, launches forth into the vaft ocean of life, and ranges uncontrolled wherefoever his inclination leads him? This the ancients esteemed the period of the greateft danger; in this ftate are felt the most furious affaults of the various paffions, those vultures of the foul, each alternately exerting its baneful influence to harass it in its terreftrial journey, to ftagger its resolution, and undermine