custom, there can scarcely be a doubt, originated in India, where large tanks for the ablution of a people, whose laws of unfathomable antiquity are not less immutable than those of the Medes and Persians, to this day remain invariably placed in the front of their pagodas, without previous ablution in which the Hindoo dares not approach the altar of his God. The antiquity, therefore, and universality of this practice, as well as that of using consecrated beads in their worship of the Deity, common to the Brahmins not less than the Druids,apparently demonstrate from what primæval source the votaries of modern superstition in Rome, have borrowed this Asiatic rite. One incentive of these innumerable prescribed ablutions was, doubtless, to obtain invigorated health in a relaxing clime; but the first origin is to be found in the precepts of religion; for, as they beheld that frequent submersion in water washed away the stains and leprous diseases of the body, so from analogy they conceived that purifying element might gradually absterge the impurities of the polluted soul. I ventured, in a former chapter of this work, when relating the countless ablutions of the Brahmins, to hazard an assertion, and hereafter I shall en

deavour

deavour fully to prove it, that there was another incentive to ablution to be found in traditions handed down in the family of Noah relative to the purgation and purification which the earth underwent from the waters of the deluge. Spencer, in the following passage, speaking of the Jewish purifications by water, is decidedly of this opinion: Hanc ablutionem arbitror fuisse inter instituta vetera orta post MAGNUM DILUYLUM IN MEMORIA AQUA PURGATI MUNDI.*,

We have seen what innumerable vases and basons for the purifying water there were exfodiated in the ancient caverns of Salsete and Elephanta; and both the period of their fabrication and the customs of the Indians, immemorially established must prevent any idea being entertained that they were borrowed from any other people. Now that the Druids invariably used similar rites is evident from the infinite number of hollow vases, or rockbasons, as Dr. Borlase, in his chapter on the subject calls them, continually found sculptured upon, or adjoining to all the Carns, or mercurial heaps, of the old Druids. Some of these rock-basons which he describes

* Vide Spencer de Leg. Heb. p. 1099.

are

are of considerable depth and breadth; are placed in regular and successive order one below the other on the loftiest eminences of their craggy temples, far beyond the reach of defilement, to catch, as it fell, the hallowed dew for lustration, and to receive the pure white flakes of virgin snow, which, refined by the chemical hand of nature, descended from that heaven to which their prayers were addressed, unpolluted by those earthly particles for ever blended with the water immediately derived from ponds and rivers. "I have observed," says Dr. Borlase, so many of those rock-basons in the Carns of Cornwall, that I may venture to say there is hardly any considerable group of rocks in these western parts which has not more or less of them. There are two sorts of them; some have lips or channels to them, others have none. The shape of them is not uniform: some are quite irregular; some are oval; and some are exactly circular. They are frequently found on the tops of Logan, or rocking-stones, and should therefore seem to have some affinity to, and be subservient to, the same species of superstition."*

66

Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 242.

THE

THE TRANSMIGRATION OF THE DRUIDS THE LEADING FEATURE IN. THE BRAHMIN RELIGION AND, ACCORDING TO BOTH, THE WORLD WAS TO BE DESTROYED BY A GENERAL CONFLAGRATION.

IN that ancient book, the Institutes of Menu, compiled, at least,many centuries before Pythagoras was born, there is a long chapter consisting of one hundred and twentysix slocas, or stanzas, on 'TRANSMIGRATION AND FINAL BEATITUDE, and that chapter was perhaps the first public promulgation of this dogma in Asia. The doctrine delivered in it is exceedingly curious, and by no means limits the journey of the metempsychosis to human and bestial forms; it imprisons the wandering soul in vegetables, and plunges it into the depths of the mineral world. All beings emane from the great spirit: " From the substance of that Supreme Spirit are diffused, like sparks from fire, innumerable vital spirits, which perpetually give motion to creatures exalted and base." Stanza 15. These, as they first proceeded from the great Brahmne, after traversing the universe, return to and

are

are finally absorbed in him, as their centre. The Deity is their represented as punishing only to purify his creatures; not to gratify his vengeance, but for the purposes of example and reform. Nature itself exhibits only one vast field of purgatory for the classes of existence: eternal torments, for temporal offences, are utterly disclaimed. The meaning and result of the whole seem to be summed in the 73d and 81st stanzas. "A far as up vital souls, addicted to sensuality, indulge themselves in forbidden pleasures, even to the same degree shall the acuteness of their senses be raised in their future bodies, that they may endure analogous pains." With whatever disposition of mind a man shall perform, in this life, any act religious or moral, in a future body, endued with the same quality, shall he receive his retribution." On the subject of FINAL BEATITUDE there occur, towards the close, some most sublime stanzas on the omnipotence and omnipresence of the Divine Spirit, worthy of the true religion itself, which I shall notice hereafter, when more particularly examining that venerable fragment, concluding my remarks at prescnt with selecting the following one more immediately connected with our subject." Equally per

ceiving