celeftial vifion vouchfafed him from above, and as a monument of the divine goodness, which had fo confpicuously guarded him in his journey, probably became the occafion of all the idolatry paid, in fucceeding ages, to those shapeless maffes of unhewn stone, of which fo many astonishing remains are feattered up and down the Afiatic, and, I may add, the European, world.

These idol-representations of Deity, it has been obferved, were at first rugged and shapelefs as the rock from which they were torn: and I am of opinion this argument may be fairly urged in favour of the high antiquity of many of those rude and formlefs blocks, both of wood and stone, that are at prefent honoured with adoration in the most venerated pagodas of Hindoftan. As mankind themfelves grew more polifhed, and as ftatuary improved, their deities were represented under forms lefs hideous and difgufting; and those forms were accommodated to the new notions of Deity which their earliest fpeculations in phyfics, and their increasing knowledge of aftronomy, infpired. The maffy unhewn ftones soon shot up into graceful pyramids and lofty obelisks, after the model of the folar ray and the afcending flame. The pyramidal form,

however,

however, did not univerfally prevail. Some of those mighty maffes were hewn into square columns, obtuse at the fummit, whose four polished fides fymbolized the four elements, or were carved to face the four cardinal points. The earth, fays Eufebius, was represented by a cylindrical ftone. The octagon black column, mentioned in the preceding page, might poffibly have been fabricated in allufion to fome fimilar notion deriving its birth from phyfics and aftronomy. Even the form of the CROSS, as allufive to the four elements, was no unusual symbol in the pagan world; and indeed Tavernier, as we fhall hereafter see, describes two of the principal pagodas of India, Benares and Mathura, as erected in the form of VAST CROSSES, of which each wing is equal in extent.

Let not the piety of the catholic Chriftian be offended at the preceding affertion, that the CROSS was one of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India. Equally honoured in the Gentile and the Chriftian world, this emblem of universal nature, of that world to whofe four quarters its diverging radii pointed, decorated the hands of most of the fculptured images in the former country; and, in the latter, ftamped its form upon the

most

most majestic of the shrines of their deities. It repeatedly occurs on the Pamphylian and other obelisks; and the antiquaries Kircher and Mountfaucon have both honoured it with particular notice. The CRUX ANSATA of Hermes is represented by the former as a moft fublime hieroglyphic, as a most mysterious and powerful amulet, endowed with an aftonishing vir tue, and as exhibiting one of the most complete mathematical figures; "babentem longitudinem atque latitudinem, et quatuor angulos rectos;" poffeffing at once both length and breadth, and having four right angles, at once allufive to the four cardinal points of the world and typical of the four elements. In pages 277, 279, 280, and 281, of the third volume of his dipus, are fymbolical representations, copied from the Barberine obelisk, of the four elements; FIRE, defignated by a figure of Ofiris, as the ANIMA MUNDI, or foul of the world, with a hawk's head; the AIR, by a figure bearing on his head a cap adorned with an orb, and WINGS, the ufual emblem of the AIR on Egyptian monuments; the EARTH, by that of Isis, the great mother of all things, with a calathus on her head, containing ears of grain, a bunch of flowers, and the horns of a cow, all emblems, as well as the fwelling

bofom

7

bofom which the goddess difplays, of fertility and plenty; and, laftly, WATER, typified by a ftatue bearing the head and face of the IBIS, a bird facred to the Nile, and with the horns luna fextilis, of the MOON, which in the month of August was supposed to affist in causing the inundations of that river. All these figures, thus emblematical of the ELEMENTS, which are highly worthy a minute examination, bear the hallowed crofs with its circular handle, by which they were collectively and strikingly reprefented. To the confideration of the fame fubject, Mountfaucon has also devoted a few interesting pages, which will hereafter claim our attention.

If M. Volney's argument, that the colour of the ftatue frequently denotes the descent and nation of the person sculptured, be allowed, I trust my own humble affertion, that the qualities and property of the object are often pointed out, by the fame means, will not be refused its weight, because it is founded on very ancient and refpectable authority. I fhall briefly state that authority. Porphyry, cited by Eufebius, expressly fays, that the ancients represented the Deity by a black stone, because his nature is obfcure and infcrutable by man.* The

* Eufeb. de Præp. Evang. lib.iii. 1. 3. p. 31, edit. Bafil. 1542.

The ancient Arabians, who lived in a region of rock, according both to Suidas* and Strabo,† continued to a very late period to worship the image of their tutelary god Mars, erected at Petra under the figure of a square black stone; for black, fay thefe authors, was thought a proper colour to, veil the folemn myfteries of religion. The fame rule feems to have been obferved in statues fabricated of wood, in the formation of which the diftinguishing attribute or function of the deity was generally attended to. Paufanias has enumerated the feveral kinds of wood made ufe of for this purpose. As the ebony, cyprefs, cedar, oak, yew, and box trees. Thus, to the formation of thofe of Jupiter, the fovereign of gods and men, the oak, the monarch of the woods, was devoted. Hence the myrtle, facred to Venus, composed the beautiful ftatue of the queen of love. The olive, a tree confecrated to science, of which whole groves adorned Athens, the feat of learning and philofophy, gladly fubmitted to the axe to form the statue of Minerva, the patron of the arts. Of the infernal deities, the funereal cyprefs and the baleful yew ufually

Suidas in voce Deus Mars.

+ Strabo is Geograph. lib. xvii.