for the bravery, of his exploits against the domestic tyrants and foreign invaders of his country.

In metaphysical speculation alone, I have observed, it is impossible to account for the strange species of devotion above-mentioned, and that still stranger representation of deity; but it is equally possible, that they might have originated in the perverted principles of a mind depraved by sensual gratifications, and that the argument, used in the defence of them, might be posterior to the establishment of the superstition. Reluctant as I am to appear to follow the example of those who labour to deduce from Egypt every antient inexplicable custom and every obscure religious rite of India, yet, of this superstition at least, so diametrically opposite to the tenor of the Vedas, and so directly congenial with the ITHIPHALLIC rites of Egypt, which in succeeding ages were so widely diffused throughout the earth, I am inclined/ to think those rites were the grand prototype. The early annals of the latter country record the circumstances that gave rise to the institution; and, however deeply blended those circumstances were with their mythologic fables, yet, in an investigation of this nature, it would be improper wholly to omit taking notice of them.

Diodorus

*

Diodorus Siculus then relates, that OSIRIS,, after his return from the conquest of Asia, was slain by his jealous and enraged brother Typhon, who, after cutting the mangled body into twenty-six pieces, dispersed them in various parts of Egypt. Isis, his affectionate queen, diligently sought for the dispersed limbs, which after a long search she found, and committed to the care of the priests, instituting at the same time sacred rites in honour of her murdered lord. In memory of this eager and tedious search of the disconsolate queen, at every celebration of the mystic rites of Isis and Osiris, a similar search, with many and bitter lamentations, was affected to be made by the priests, and hence that expression of "Nunquam satis quæsitus Osiris." Not all the anxious inquiry of Isis, however, could for a long time discover the genitals of Osiris, which Typhon had thrown into the Nile. At length the portion of Osiris missing was found, interred with the utmost solemnity, and, in memory of this recovery, Phalli, or poles, (for, that is the meaning of the word Phalli,) with figures of the male pudenda fastened to them, were constructed, and ever after carried about

in solemn procession during the continuance of the festival. Athenæus acquaints us,* that Ptolemy Philadelphus, at one of those magnificent festivals, displayed to the Egyptians a Phallus of gold, richly painted and adorned with golden crowns, a hundred and twenty cubits in length, with a star of burnished gold upon the top, the circumference of which was -six cubits. This was borne aloft, like the other idols, on a splendid car, and, like them, received homage from the gazing crowd. This atrocious outrage against decency, this abominable mockery of every thing sacred, under the insulted name of religion, from Egypt spread its infection through all the kingdoms of Asia, and was carried, in Greece, to such a pitch of infamous refinement, that, in celebrating the orgies of Bacchus, according to Herodotus, they fabricated certain obscene images, a cubit in height, so artificially contrived with nerves, that the aidoiov, equal in. magnitude to the rest of the body, might be moved at pleasure, and these images the wo men (those shameless paλλopega) carried about in procession, singing all the time the praises of Bacchus, and dancing to the sound of the flute. He then adds, that it was Melampus who first

*Athenæi, lib. v.

C. 5.

+ Herodoti, lib. ii. p. 122. introduced

introduced among the Greeks the sacrifices in honour of Bacchus, the pomp of the Phallus, and all the other ceremonies of that Egyptian superstition. The vestiges of this antient and nefarious idolatry are evidently traced in the worship of BAAL-PEOR, SO frequently and loudly inveighed against by the prophets in various parts of the sacred writings. The word Baal-Peor is, according to Bishop Cumberland, derived from two Chaldee primitives, the former signifying God, and PEOR, or PAYAR, denudare, which he would literally translate the god PRIAPUS, that obscene deity, born and venerated at Lampsachus, whence he is often so denominated, and concerning whose history and office the reader, if he chooses, may consult Horace, Ovid, and the other licentious Roman poets.

I am unwilling to dwell upon this indelicate topic, which however is intimately connected with the subject of which I treat; but there appears to be so striking a resemblance between a passage in a profane writer, who relates the cause of the first institution of the

* Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 75.

Hor. lib. i. sat. viii. v. 3.

For an account of the establishment of the Phallica, see the Acharnenses" of Aristophanes, act. ii. sc. 1. and the Scholiast upon the passage.

1

festival, called PHALLICA, at Athens, and one in the sacred volumes, that the curious reader will, I am confident, pardon the protraction, especially as I shall afterwards prove, that a custom, similar to that alluded to, at this day exists in India. Pegasus, a native of Eleutheris, in Boeotia, having brought to Athens some statues of Bacchus, was treated by the Athenians with the utmost contempt and ridicule. The deity, indignant at the insult, in revenge, sent among them an epidemic disease of a nature that peculiarly affected those parts which modesty forbids to name. On consulting the oracle upon the best method of preventing the farther extension of so grievous a malady, they were recommended publicly to receive. Bacchus into their city in all the pomp of his worship. The oracle was

obeyed; and, amidst other splendid trophies, to appease the incensed divinity, were displayed THYRSI, with the figures of the parts affected bound to the end of them. The great critic, M. Bochart, and our Bishop Patrick* after him, assert the whole of this relation to be a direct forgery from a passage in Samuel, where the Philistines, having taken and vio

* See Bochart's Canaan, lib. i. cap. 18. Bishop Patrick's Commentary on Sam. I. cap. vi. ver. 1.

lated