Another characteristic, to which I would fain attract the reader’s regard, is the circumstance of their being erected in the vicinity ofwater. At Glendalough, what a magnificent lake salutes the Tower? In Devenish and at Killmalloch, is not the same the case? In other parts of the country, also, we find them similarly located. And even where nature has not been so lavish of herinland seas, yet is water, of some shape, always to be seen contiguous to our towers.
What use, it will be asked, do I mean to make of this argument? or how seek support from the accidental propinquity of this element? Remember my remark upon the article, before, in connection with the Egyptian Pyramids. Captain Mignan, besides, tells us that a tradition, handed down from time immemorial, says that “near the foot of the ruin of El Mujellebah,” which he takes to be that of the Tower of Babel, “is awell, invisible to mortals”; and, as all Eastern heathenism, whence ours was deduced, partook in some degree of the same usages and properties, I think it very probable the correspondence will apply in this as well as in other peculiarities; and the rather as from symptoms of vaults, which have already appeared, and the hollow sounds, or echoes, which invariably accompany, the proposition does notcome unwarranted, however singly put forth or without something like argument to recommend its trial.
We know that in Hieropolis, or the “Holy city,” inSyria, where a Temple, with aTower, was erected toAstarte, there stood adjacent alake, wheresacred fisheswere preserved, in the midst of which was a stone altar, which wassaid, and reallyappeared, to float; whither numbers of persons used to swim every day to perform their devotions. Under this temple they showed the cleft where it was said the waters drained off after Deucalion’s flood, and this tradition brought on the extraordinary ceremony now about to be narrated, something similar to which our ancestors must formerly have practisedhere.
“I have,” says Lucian,[196]“myself seen this chasm, and it is a very small one, under the temple. Whether it was formerly larger and since lessened I cannot tell, but that which I have seen is small. In commemoration of this history they act in this manner: twice in every year water is brought from the sea to the temple, and not by the priests only,but by all Syriaand Arabia. Many come from the Euphrates to the sea, and all carry water, which they first pour out in the temple, and afterwards it sinks into the chasm, which though small, receives a prodigious quantity of water, and when they do so, they say, Deucalion instituted the ceremony as a memorial of the calamity above named, and of his deliverance from it.”
Twice a year a man went up to the top of the Priap, and there remained seven days. His mode of getting up was thus:—He surroundeditandhimselfwith a chain, and ascended by the help of that andcertain pegs, which, stuck out of its sides for the purpose, lifting the chain up after him at each resting interval—a method of ascent which will be readily understood by those who have seen men climb up the palm trees of Egypt and Arabia. Having reached the summit he let down the chain, and by means thereof drew up all the necessaries in the way of food, and withal prepared himself a seat, or rather nest on his aërial tabernacle.
On these occasions crowds used to come with offerings, and the custom was for each to declare his name to the priests; upon which one below cried it out to him on the top, who thereupon muttered a prayer, which, in order to arrest the attention of the congregation, and enliven their devotion, heall the whileaccompanied by striking a bell.
One way of their sacrificing was as shocking as it would be otherwise ridiculous. They crowned victims with garlands, then drove them out of the temple-court, on one side whereof was an abrupt steep, where falling they thereby perished. Nay, some tied up their very children in sacks, and then shoved them down, reproaching them as wild beasts, miserably to perish.
This whole proceeding, only under a mythological garb, was in direct harmony with the directions given and the practice pursued by God’s own people. The man ascending to the top of the tower had a parallel in that declaration of the Lord recorded in Ex. xxiv. 1, 2, 3, viz.: “And he said unto Moses, come up unto the Lord, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship ye afar off. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord; but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with him. And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words which the Lord hath said, will we do.’”[197]
His staying there seven days corresponded with Lev. viii. 33, 34, 35: “And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation in seven days, until the days of your consecration be at an end: for seven days shall ye consecrate you. As he hath done this day, so the Lord hath commanded to do, to make an atonement for you. Thereforeshall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not; for so I am commanded.” And again, Ezek. xliii. 25: “Seven days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a sin-offering: they shall also prepare a young bullock and a ram out of the flock, without blemish. Seven days shall they purge the altar, and purify it; and they shall consecrate themselves.”
The enrolment of their names was also sanctioned by Divine command, as Ex. xxviii. 29: “And Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, when he goeth in unto the holy place, for a memorial before the Lord continually.” Whilst the ringing of the bell is particularly enforced by a triple repetition, Ex. xxviii. 33, 34: “And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt makepomegranatesof blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; andbellsof gold between them round about. A goldenbelland apomegranate, a goldenbelland apomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.”
This last-cited text is of the most inconceivable advantage in the development of the subject which we thus pursue. The most superficial must have noticed how that, in the tracing of this analogy between the ceremonies of the Gentiles and the Hebrews, I have studiously guarded against its appearing an imitation, on the part of the former, from the ritual of the latter. The priority in point of date will certainly appear on the Gentile side. Meanwhile, ere other links of conformity crowd upon our path, it will be well to take heed to the frequency of the wordpomegranate, as occurring in theScriptures. It has already appeared that one of the names of theSyrian goddess, in whose honour the Hieropolitan Priaps were erected, wasRimmon. This epithet you have had before expounded as expressive of thatfruit; and as we see that, both in the Jewish and the pagan formulæ, it occupied so prominent a position,[198]it must occasion you no surprise if, by and by, I discover it amongst the mouldings[199]of our consecrated and venerable Round Towers.
As to their devotions at the lake, and the propinquity of the lake itself to the temple, it is in direct similitude to the “molten sea,” mentioned 1 Kings vii. 23, 24, 25, 26, “the brim whereof was wrought like the brim of acup, with flowersof lilies,” etc.;—while the cruel and shocking sacrifice with which the whole terminated, was the exact respondent of the Mosaical scapegoat.[200]
Let it not be wondered at, therefore, if on the summit of one of our Round Towers are to be found the traces of the apparatus for a bell. For independently of what Walsh and others inform us of, viz. that the Irish—enjoying tranquillity and repose after the expulsion of the Ostmen, and so recalling their attention to the cultivation of Christianity after their release from that scourge—converted those structures of exploded paganism to the only obvious use towhich they could then be made subservient, namely, that ofbelfries, for the summoning together of the people to public worship, some remnants of which it is but natural may yet remain—independently, I say, of this, have I not here shown thatbellsentered essentially into the code of the pagan ceremonial, from whence it is more than probable, nay, a downright certainty, that the first Christian ecclesiastics adopted the use, as the Mohammedans, in their minarets, did so likewise.[201]
The instance to which I have referred in an early part of this volume, of astonishment created in the English minds, on their first beholding one of those implements, was that of Gildas, who, having finished his education at Armagh, and returned to Britain about the year 508, was engaged by Cadoc, abbot of the church of Mancarban, to superintend the studies of his pupils during his absence for a twelvemonth. Having done so most successfully, and without accepting of any remuneration for his labour, we find, in anancient life of Cadoc, in the Tinmouth MS., Lambeth observes that “Cadoc, returning to his monastery, found Gildas a noble scholar, with a very beautifullittle bell, which he brought with him from Ireland.”
Those bells, then, we may be sure, appertained exclusively to the service of the Round Towers.[202]Having none of these in England, of course they had no bells, and hence the surprise manifested on the above occasion. In Ireland, too, they must have been, now, comparatively obsolete.[203]And hence we find, according to Primate Usher, that their (restored) use was not general in thechurcheshere before the latter end of the seventh century; while another writer assures us that it was not until the ninth century that large ones were invented for the purpose of suspension.[204]
The shape of the Irishpaganbells was preciselythe same as of those in the present day. They were called crotals, or bell-cymbals. Oblongsquareones, some of bell-metal, some of iron, from twelve inches to eighteen inches high, with a handle to sound them by, have been also dug up in our various bogs. Of these the museum of the Dublin Society possesses one; another is preserved by the Moira family. The writer of this article not having seen either of these relics, is rather diffident in the conjecture which he is now about to express; but from the account received of that in the possession of the house of Moira, he feels strongly disposed to identify its origin with the worship of the above-mentioned deity, Astarte. Lucian expressly tells us that under the veil of this goddess was really meant themoon; and that “the host of heaven,”—including sun, moon, and stars, and typifying the fulgor of that Omniscient germ whence they all had emanated,—constituted the object of the ancient Irish adoration, no one, I believe, can longer question. Now, in Hall’sTour through Ireland, 1813, I see this bell described as having “a hole in one of its sides like a quarterly moon”; and not knowing whether this is the effect of accident or corrosion, or a symbolical property in its original shape, I trust I shall not be deemed fanciful if I ascribe it as a reference to that planet in whose vain solemnities it had been primarily exercised.
Whether this exposition prove eccentrical or otherwise, and, by inspection, it can be readily ascertained, I cannot presume to determine; nor indeed does it value much.[205]With one thing, however, I amgratified, that in Archer’sTravels in Upper India, published, as before observed, within the last few weeks, I find that distinguished soldier and shrewd observer, delineate a piece of architecture similar in all particulars to this Syrian Priap—the allusion to which has recalled me to ring this second chime upon the bells—and as the notice is of value, I shall give it in his express words: “A curious structure,” says he, “is at the bottom of the hill (Dutteah). It consists of fiveconical pillars, with green painted tops, in a line from east to west; the two larger ones in the centre: thepillarshavetiles stuck in them resembling steps. We could not learn what was its meaning or use. The village is whollyJain, and is named Serrowlee.”
It is not difficult to understand why no information could be obtained, from thepresentinhabitants, as to the object of those edifices. Their remoteantiquityis a sufficient reply. But I flatter myself that the reader, who has accompanied me from the outset of this antiquarian voyage, can now supply the defect, and explain thatthey were a series of Round Towers, orPhalli, erected by the aboriginal Buddhists, of whom theJainaare only the wretched remains; and that those “tiles” which are “stuck in them, resembling steps,”were for the purpose of ascending by the aid of a hoop, such as we have shown at Hieropolis. The projecting stones inourPriaps, or the cavities that appear after their removal, are thus also accounted for.
The universal ignorance which prevails throughout the East as to the origin of those antiquities which excite the wonder of every traveller makes it necessary that we should again direct our course towards that hemisphere, to redeem, if possible, its venerable remains from that moral night which successive ages have accumulated around them.
Persia[206]was the source which poured its vivifying light into the mental obnubilation of our European ancestors. By a reverse of those casualties from which no condition can be exempt, Persia has, in her turn, been made the theatre of darkness; and though, under the fostering auspices of British institutions, the mist has, to a large amount, been dispelled, yet is the proudest era of her splendour left still unexplored,and that is the epoch which called forth into life those monuments of literature and philosophical eminence, which, resisting the corrosion of time and the assaults of war, still proudly elevate their heads towards those orbs, with whose pompous ceremonial they were essentially connected, and whose generative properties they typically symbolised—I mean the Round Towers.
This was the moment of Persia’s halcyon pride: this the period of her earthly coruscation: to this have all the faculties of my ardent mind with vigour been addressed; and while, in the humble consciousness of successful investigation, I announce its issue to have far exceeded my hopes, I shall avail myself of the industry of preceding inquirers to throw light upon the intervals of value which intervene; but, lest I should intrude upon the province of their well-earned honours, I shall, in every such case of borrowed assistance, allow the writers themselves to speak; by which it will additionally appear that, with much good taste, and with historical honesty, they have left a vacuum in their researches, for which the public mind has been long athirst, and which my exclusive resources could alone supply.
“The Persian empire,”[207]says Heeren, “owed its origin to one of those great political revolutions which are of such frequent occurrence in Asia, and the rise and progress of which we have already considered in general. A rude mountain tribe of nomad habits rushed with impetuous rapidity from its fastnesses, and overwhelmed all the nations of Southern Asia,(the Arabians excepted), from the Mediterranean to the Indus and Iaxartes. The mighty empires which arose in Asia were not founded in the same manner with the kingdoms of Europe. They were generally erected by mighty conquering nations, and these, for the most part, nomad nations. This important consideration we must never lose sight of, when engaged in the study of their history and institutions.”
“Not only is Persia[208]Proper memorable on account of its historical associations, but also for the architectural remains which it continues to present. The ruins of Persepolis are the noblest monuments of the most flourishing era of this empire, which have survived the lapse of ages. As solitary in their situation as peculiar in their character, they rise above the deluge of years, which for centuries has overwhelmed all the records of human grandeur, around them, or near them, and buried all traces of Susa and of Babylon. Their venerable antiquity and majestic proportions do not more command our reverence, than the mystery which involves their construction awakens the curiosity of the most unobservant spectator. Pillars which belong to no known order of architecture; inscriptions in an alphabet which continues an enigma; fabulous animals which stand as guards at the entrance; the multiplicity of allegorical figures which decorate the walls,—all conspire to carry us back to ages of the most remote antiquity, over which the traditions of the East shed a doubtful and wandering light.”
“The Persians have taken more pains than almost any other nation to preserve their records in writing;yet it has been their fate, in common with most other nations of antiquity, to be indebted for the stability of their fame to foreign historians. Notwithstanding the pains they took to register the acts of their government, theoriginal documents of their history, with a few accidental exceptions, have altogether perished. And the inscriptions of Persepolis, like the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, will, in a manner, have outlived themselves, unless a complete key be discovered to the alphabet in which they are composed.”
Now, as a set off to these extracts, it will be necessary to remark that, though true in substance, they are only so as descriptive of a particular epoch. Empire after empire rolled over, in succession, before that which the historian here delineates, and which was but the motley combination of a rugged swarm of mountaineers, who stalked with ferocious insensibility over the consecrated relics of monumental glory.
Herodotus and Arrian were the authorities that seduced him into this mistake, the former of whom states that “the Persians originally occupied a small and craggy country, and that it was proposed in the time of Cyrus that they should exchange this for one more fertile; a plan which Cyrus discouraged as likely to extinguish their hardy and warlike pursuits”; and the latter, that “the Persians, when, under Cyrus, they conquered all Asia, were a poor people, inhabiting a hilly region”;[209]but those writers were as misinformed, as to all events and particulars relating to thislocality, anterior to the time specified above, as any of their contemporaries; and when we reflect how very recent an era in the history of the world was that in which Cyrus appeared, it will be seen how fragile a substratum was that which the professor had adopted for the erection of his materials. We read accordingly, in Terceira’s Spanish history of that country, that “there was not at that time (A.D.1590) one man in Persia (these were the direct descendants of Cyrus’s men) that understood theirancientletters, for having often seen some plates of metal withancientinscriptions on them, I made inquiry after the meaning of them; and menwell versedin theirantiquities, andstudious, told me that wasFars kadeem, ancient Persian, after the old fashion, andthereforeI should findno manthat understood it.”
Indeed the reasonings of Heeren himself,—and learned I cheerfully acknowledge them,—would seem to make him rise above the narrowness of his Grecian supporters.
“Even previous,” says he, “to the time when the Arabs, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, overran and subdued Persia, they were the more open to settlers from the North and East, from the circumstance that Persia was situated on the great highway of nations, by which the human race spread itself from East to West. All that is meant to be asserted is, that the various races who successively had dominion in these parts, all belonged to the same original stock.
“This fact, which the observations of the best modern travellers tend to confirm, may explain how it has come to pass that many districts, anciently celebrated for their fertility, are at present barrenand unproductive. A single invasion, by destroying the water-courses, is sufficient to reduce, in a short time, a fertile and flourishing country to an arid desert; and to how many such disastrous contingencies has not Persia at all times been exposed!”
“Another fact, suggested by the languages of Asia and the ancient dialects of Persia, is too important to be passed over in silence. Not only in the Persian territory but in other parts of Eastern Asia, particularly the two Indian peninsulas, we find languages which still subsist, mixed up with others which are preserved to us only in a few written names. To this class belong, in Persia, the Zend and Pahlivi, already mentioned; in Hindustan, the celebrated Sanscrit, as well as the Pali in the Burman peninsula.
“Accordingly, we shall venture to consider as the same parent stock the race which bore rule in Iran, comprehending all the inferior races, and which may be termed in general the Persian or Medo-Persian, inasmuch as the countries in its occupation were termed, in a wider sense, the land of Persia.
“They have been denominated by Rhode (Heilige sagen, etc.) the people of Zend, not improperly, if we consider the Zend as the original language of all the race ... not confined to Persis, properly so called, but extending over the steppes of Carmania and to the shores of the Caspian. Even at the present day they are comprised under the general name of Persia, though Farsistan, the original country of the Persians, forms a very small part of this territory.
“The Semitic and the Persian were, therefore, the principal languages of Asia; the latter being spoken as far as the Indus. Our knowledge of the languages prevalent on the other side of that river is as yet toodefective to enable us to speak with anything like certainty. Possibly it may be reserved for our own age to arrive at important conclusions on this subject, if the affinity between the Zend and the Sanscrit, the sacred languages of Persia and Hindustan, should be established,—if the spirit of discovery which characterises the British nation should succeed in rescuing from oblivion some more remains of ancient Indian literature, and a second Anquetil Duperron present the public with the sacred books of the Brahmans, with the same success that his predecessor has illustrated those of the Parsees.”
Though I cannot avoid concurring in the laudable hope that “our own age” may witness important conclusions on this subject, still it strikes me,—and I earnestly urge it as worthy of the notice of a Reform Ministry, that until theIrish Languagebe raked from its ashes, no accuracy can ever be obtained either in the Zend, Pahlavi, or Sanscritdialects, which are but emanations from it, or in thesubject matter, historical or religious, which they profess to pourtray.
“In the interior of these districts is situated a considerable lake, called the Lake Zevora, unquestionably theAria Palusof antiquity. A large river, anciently bearing the same name, at present called the Ilmend, empties itself into this inland sea from the deserts to the south-east, and Christie fell in with another stream farther to the north, called the Herat, near a town of the same name.
“I consider (with Kinneir) the city of Herat to be same with the ancient Aria, or, as it was also called, Artacoana. We are told that Alexander on his march to Bactriana inclined to the south to visit Aria. We must carefully distinguish between the terms Ariaand Ariana, as used by the Greeks. The former was applied to a province which we shall have occasion to describe in the sequel. The latter is equivalent to Iran, and appears to have been formed from the ancient term in the Zend language, Eriene. The whole of Iran composes a sort of oblong, the Tigris and Indus forming its sides to the east and west; the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean bounding it to the south; and the Caspian, with Mount Taurus and the river Oxus, shutting it in to the north. These were also the limits of the ancient Ariana (see Strabo, p. 1048), except that, towards the west, its boundary was an imaginary line separating it from Persia Proper. Of this more extensive district, Aria (according to Strabo) formed only a part, distinguished by its superior fertility. Herodotus appears to have been unacquainted with the term Aria; he merely mentions the Arii as a nation allied to the Medes.
“Aria, lying to the east of Media, derived its name from the river Arius, the modern Heri: and the Arians and Medes were originally the same race; the Medes, according to Herodotus, having originally borne the name Arians. It is apparent, from the same place (Herod. vii. 62) that what were called theMedian habitswere not confined to Media Proper, but extended to the countries lying eastward, and as these touch on Bactria, we cannot be surprised at the conformity which prevailed.”
These latter quotations I have thought fit to introduce to show the ignorance of the modern Greeks,—those of Cyrus and Herodotus’s days—compared with their Pelasgic predecessors—Iran, the real name for all those countries of higher Asia as far as the Indus,[210]being called, in the Zend,Eriene, the Greeks, whose intercourse with the East now for the first time began, without troubling their brains to ascertain what the word in either form meant, transmuted this latter intoAriana, whereas their forefathers, the Pelasgi, a literary and a religious tribe, changed its namesake in the West, our ownIran—which in the Pahlavi dialect was calledErin, and in the Zend would also be calledEriene—intoIerne, thereby evincing their knowledge of the import of the term, and registering their subscription in itssacredattributes.[211]
The following, however, is more to the point, and in itself sufficient to redeem the professor’s entire work from any occasional inclination to Grecian subserviency.
“It cannot be doubted that at some remote period antecedent to the commencement of historical records, one mighty race possessed these vast plains.
“The traditions of this race preserve some very important particulars respecting their descent, their ancient abodes, and their gradual dissemination through the land of Iran. These traditions are preserved in the beginning of the Vendidat, the most important, and it is probable, the most ancient of all their sacred books, the collection of which is styled the Zendavasta, to which we shall have occasion to refer hereafter. The first two chapters of this work, entitledFargards, contain the above traditions,not wrapt up in allegory, but so evidently historical as to demand nothing more than the application of geographical knowledge to explain them. With the exception of the Mosaical Scriptures, we are acquainted with nothing which so plainly wears the stamp of remote antiquity, ascending beyond the times within which the known empires of the East flourished; in which we catch, as it were, the last faint echo of the history of a former world, anterior to that great catastrophe of our planet, which is attested in the vicinity of the parent country of these legends, by the remains of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the mammoth, and other countries properly belonging to the countries of the South. It would be a fruitless labour to attempt to assign dates to these remains, but if the compiler of theVendidathimself, who was long anterior to the Persian, and as we shall have occasion to show, probably also to the Median dynasty, as known to us, received them as the primeval traditions of his race, our opinion of their importance may be fully justified.
“These legends describe as theoriginalseat of the race, a delicious country, named Eriene-Veedjo, which enjoyed a climate singularly mild, having seven months summer and five of winter. Such was the state at first, as created by the power of Ormuzd; but the author of evil, the death-dealing Ahriman, smote it with the plague of cold, so that it came to have ten months of winter and only two of summer. Thus the nation began to desert the paradise they at first occupied, and Ormuzd successively created for their reception sixteen other places of benediction and abundance, which are faithfully recorded in the legend.
“What then was the site of the Eriene referred to? The editors and commentators on the Zendavesta are inclined to discover it in Georgia, or the Caucasian district; but the opinion must necessarily appear unsatisfactory to anyone who will take into account the whole of the record, and the succession of places there mentioned as the abodes of the race. On the contrary, we there trace a gradual migration of the nation from east to west, not as this hypothesis would tend to prove, from west to east. The first abode which Ormuzd created for the exiled people was Soghdi, whose identity with Sogdiana is sufficiently apparent; next Môore, or Maroo, in Khorasan; then Bakhdi, or Balkh (Bactriana), and so on to Fars itself, and the boundaries of Media or India. The original country of Eriene must therefore lie to the east of Leed, and thus we are led, by the course of tradition, to those regions which we have already referred to as the scene of the traditions and fables of the nation, viz. the mountainous tracts on the borders of Bucharia, the chain of Mustag and Beloorland, as far as the Paropamisan range on the confines of Hindustan, and extending northwards to the neighbourhood of the Altain chain. This savage and ungenial region enjoys at present only a short summer, at the same time that it contains the relics of an ancient world, which confirm, by positive proof, the legend of the Vendidat, that anciently theclimatewas of atotally different character. When the altered nature of their original seats compelled the race to quit them, Ormuzd prepared for them other places of repose and abundance, within the precincts of that territory which haspreserved to the present day the appellation of Iran; the nation carrying with them thename of Eriene, which is obviously the same with Iran.
“Jemshid, the father of his people, the most glorious of mortals whom the sun ever beheld. In his day animals perished not: there was no want either of water or of fruit-bearing trees, or of animals fit for the food of mankind. During the light of his reign there was neither frost nor burning heat, nor death, nor unbridled passions, nor the work of the Deevs. Man appeared to retain the age of fifteen; the children grew up in safety as long as Jemshid reigned the father of his people.[212]
“The restoration of such a golden age was the end of the legislation of Zoroaster, who, however, built his code on a religious foundation agreeably to the practice of the East; and the multifarious ceremonies he prescribed had all reference to certain doctrines intimately associated with his political dogmata; and it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind their alliance, if we would not do injustice to one part or other of his system.
“On these principles Zoroaster built his laws for the improvement of the soil by means of agriculture, by tending of cattle and gardening, which he perpetually inculcates, as if he could not sufficiently impress his disciples with a sense of their importance.
“According to his own professions he was only the restorer of the doctrine which Ormuzd himself had promulgated in the days of Jemshid: this doctrine, however, had been misrepresented, a false and delusive magia, the work of Deevs, had crept in, whichwas first to be extinguished, in order to restore the pure laws of Ormuzd.
“Even Plato, the first Grecian writer who mentions Zoroaster, speaks of him asa sage of remote antiquity; and the same is established by the evidence of Hermippus and Eudoxus, which Pliny has preserved. The second Zoroaster, supposed by Toucher to have flourished under Darius Hystaspes, is the mere figment of some later Grecian authors of little credit.
“On the whole, weare compelledto carry back Zoroaster to the period when Bactriana was an independent monarchy,a period anterior to the very commencement of the Median empire, as related by Herodotus, ascendingbeyond the eighth centurybefore the Christian era. Whether we must refer him to astill more ancient epoch, prior to the Assyrian monarchy, the chronological notices we have already given are all that can be afforded, except we be prepared to transport the sage beyond theutmost limits of recordedhistory.”
As I have no longer occasion, however, for thesagethan to show that he was areformer; and though at least “eight (more likelyeighteen) hundred years before the Christian era,”—yet was he even then, comparatively, amodern,—I shall now turn to other sources to ascend to the dynasties that had preceded him.
“The rare and interesting tract on twelve religions,” says Sir W. Jones, “entitled the Dabistan, and composed by a Mohammedan traveller, a native of Cashmere, named Moshan, but distinguished by the assumed surname of Fani, or Perishable, begins with a wonderfully curious chapter on the religion of Hushang, which waslong anterior to Zeradust(Zoroaster), but had continued to besecretly professedby many learned Persians, even to the author’s time; and several of the most eminent of these dissenting, in many points, from the Ghabres, and persecuted by the ruling powers of their country, had retired to India, where they compiled a number of books, now extremely scarce, which Moshan had perused, and with the writers of which, or with many of them, he had contracted an intimate friendship. From them he learned that apowerful monarchy had been established for ages in Iran for the accession of Cayemurs; that it was called the Mahabadean dynasty, for a reason which will soon be mentioned; and that many princes, of whom seven or eight only are named in the Dabistan, and among them Mahbul, or Maha Beli, had raised the empire to the zenith of human glory. If we can rely on this evidence,—which to me appears unexceptionable,—the Iranian monarchy must have been the oldest in the world.”
Sir John Malcolm had some scruples as to the authenticity of this production, and entered upon a very severe analysis of its contents; merely because theidolswhich the ancient Persians are therein stated to have adored, and themodeof their adoration, were dissimilar to those of India! Was it necessary that they should be alike? It is true, that from Persia everything Indian flowed; but there, on its importation, it partook of the peculiarities of the soil and climate; while, even in Persia itself, a great degeneracy occurred; and the deterioration and moral laxity, thus superinduced, was what the virtuous Zeradust so deplored, and whatkindledhisfervourto new model the system.
But “the introduction of the angelGabriel,” hesays, “appears of itself enough to discredit the whole work.” Was Sir John sure that this rendering was literal? He himself admits that he was “following a Mohammedan author, who has certainly made afreetranslation of the Pahlavi text.” And, if so in one case, why not in another? But even admitting that there was nofreedomat all used in the matter; and thatGabrielis the rigid version of the name of the messenger employed, this should not,in the least, affect our reliance upon the Dabistan, as I shall adduce a greatercoincidencethan this, nay, a downrightidentity, not only ofnamebut ofessence, between the divine dispensation in all previous ages, and the spiritual form of it with which we are at present blessed.
But you will say, perhaps, that Moshan Fani’s authorities were, in a great measure,floating, and dependent uponhistoriesof a merely oral stamp, which—wanting as they do, the impress of lettered perpetuity, and subject, as they are, to variation, both of curtailment and of addition, besides the colour of depreciation or enhancement, which they must furthermore undergo, according to the nature of the successivemediathrough which they pass,—cannot, after repeated transfusions, retain much similarity with the original truth, nor afford to a rational and thinking mind, however they may gratify selfish or national love, much stability for conviction or satisfactory acquiescence?
To the first I shall reply that it seems not correct, as the manuscripts by which he was guided appear still in existence; and this was not without its influence on Sir John’s own scepticism, when he declares, that “the doubtful authority of this workhas received some support from the recent discovery of a volume in the ancient Pahlivi, called the Dussadeer, or Zemarawatseer, to which its authors refer.”
Then, as to thevanityalluded to, the compiler may well be acquitted of any, as being of a different creed, and proverbially intolerant, he could not,did not truth oversway, have felt much communion of pleasure in celebrating the glories of a defunct religion. And though I concede thatthatspecies of information, which arises from the traditions of successive races of men, cannot be so satisfactory as that which isstereotypedin alphabetic characters; nay, that, according as it diverges from its first outlet, it is likely to diverge also from exactness; still I do insist, that the prevalence of thosetraditions, wherever they occur, argues some alliance withfactandreality; just as idolatry itself, in all its ramifications, is but the corrupt transmission of original pure religion.
The objections against the Dabistan being thus superseded, and the idea of its being an “invention”[213]having never crossed anyone’s thoughts, I shall now give a bird’s-eye view of its tenour in Sir John’s own summary thereof.
“It has been before observed,” says he, “that the idolatrous religion which Mohsin Fani ascribes to the ancient Persians, bears no resemblance to the worship of the Hindoos: it seems nearest that which was followed by a sect ofSabians, who, we are told,believed in God, butadored the planets, whomthey deemed his vicegerents, that exercised an influence over all created things in the world. This sect of Sabians were said to follow theancientChaldeans, and to inherit their skill in astronomy, a science built upon the same foundation as the adoration of the planets.[214]And this leads us to remark, that the very title of the work from which Mohsin Fani gives an account of this worship, appears more like that ofa treatise upon astrology, than upon religion. He calls itAkheristan, orthe regionof thestars. It is, however, impossible to enter into any minute comparison of the religion he ascribes to the ancient Persians, and the sect of Sabians that have been noticed,because we have only a very general account of the tenets of the latter.”
As to theimpossibilityhere complained of, it is obvious thatthere is none: whoever has digested even the early part of this essay will own it was butideal. With this I should have contented myself, but that I feel called upon to correct another misconception, which the above may have produced.
That Sabaism meantidolatryin the way there insinuated, I utterly and altogether repudiate. It was the religion of the early Greeks before their degenerate mythology had loaded it with so many absurdities;[215]and that it was so, is evident from the term in their language, which expresses “to worship,” viz. σεβομαι, an evident derivation, from which is anglicised, Sabaism.[216]The object of this religion was the host of heaven, meaning the sun, moon, and stars. The names assigned to the reputed idols, viz. Uranus,i.e.Heaven, and Gea,i.e.Earth, with the energies of the sky and nature typified under the names of the “Cyclops” and “Giants,” incontrovertibly demonstrate the truth of this position.
I have said that the name Cyclops, in this religious code, was meant to figure forth the energies of the atmosphere; I need but mention their denominations to establish my proof. They are “Steropes,” from στεροπη, lightning; Argues, from αργης, quick-flashing; and Brontes, from βροντη, thunder. Even the celebrated name ofHercules[217]himself, and the twelve labours poetically ascribed to him,—who, we must observe, many ages before the Tirynthian hero is fabled to have performed his wonders, or his mother Clymena to have been born, had temples raised to him in Phœnicia and Egypt, as well as at Cadiz and the Isle of Thasos,—are nothing more than a figurative denotation of the annual course of the solar luminary through the signs of the Zodiac.
In support of this I shall quote the authority of Porphyry, who was himself born in Phœnicia, and who assures us that “they there gave the name of Hercules to the sun, and that the fable of the twelve labours represents the sun’s annual path in the heavens.” Orpheus, or the author of the hymns that pass under his name, says that Hercules is “the god who produced time, whose forms vary, the father of all things and destroyer of all; he is the god who brings back by turns Aurora and the night, and who moving onwards from east to west, runs through the career of his twelve labours; the valiant Titan, who chases away maladies, and delivers man from the evils which afflict him.” The scholiast on Hesiod likewise remarks, “The zodiac in which the sun performs his annual course is the true career which Hercules traverses in the fable of the twelve labours;and his marriage with Hœbe, the goddess of youth, whom he espoused after he had ended his labours, denotes the renewal of the year at the end of each solar revolution.” While the poet Nonnas, adverting to the sun as adored by the Tyrians, designates him Hercules Astrokiton (αστροχιτων), or the god clothed in a mantle of stars; following up this description by stating that “he is the same god whom different nations adore, under a multitude of different names—Belus, on the banks of the Euphrates; Ammon, in Libya; Apis, at Memphis; Saturn, in Arabia; Jupiter, in Assyria; Serapis, in Egypt; Helios, among the Babylonians; Apollo, at Delphi; Æsculapius, throughout Greece,” etc. etc.
Even the father of history himself, the great Colossus of the Greeks, whilst claiming for his countrymen the honour of instituting their own theogony, evinces in the attempt more of misgiving and doubt than was consistent with the possession of authentic information. His words are these: “As for the gods whence each of them was descended, or whether they were always in being, or under what shape or form they existed, the Greeks knew nothing till very lately. Hesiod and Homer were, I believe, about four hundred years older than myself, and no more, and these are the men who made a theogony for the Greeks; who gave the gods their appellations, defined their qualities, appointed their honours, and described their forms; as for the poets, who are said to have lived before these men, I am of opinion they came after them.”
But even this assumption, were it conceded to the utmost, would not militate against the doctrine which I have laid down; for Homer’s education was receivedin Egypt, and India was the medium which illuminated the latter country; nothing, therefore, prevents our yielding to the stream of general authority in ascribing the introduction to the Pelasgi. The word χρονος itself, or “the father of Jove,” was nothing more than an equivalent with the Latintempus; and for the very best possible reason, because the revolutions of this planet, as of the other celestial orbs, came, from their periodical and regular appearances, to be considered the ordinary measurements of the parts of duration or time.
It must, no doubt, appear a contradiction that Chronos—the “son of Uranus, and Terra,” as we were told at school, and the first person, as somewhere else stated, who was honoured with a crown—should be called an “orb,” and have “periodical appearances”; and that those appearances should regulate our estimate of days, weeks, years, and seasons. The difficulty, however, will cease, when we consider that though thesun,moon, andstarswere the primary objects of false worship, the deification of dead men, deceased heroes, afterwards crept in, the consequence of which was a mixed kind of idolatry, consisting ofstarsandheroes, orheroines, deceased—a planet being assigned to each as the greatest possible honour. “That whom men could not honour in presence, because they dwelt far off, they took the counterfeit of his visage from far, and made an express image of a king, whom they honoured, to the end that by their forwardness they might flatter him that was absent, as if he was present.”[218]
Let us now see how the religion of the ancient Irish harmonises with that of the Dabistan, as illustratedin the composition of some of our ancient names. HereBaal, orMoloch, andAstarteare obviously in the foreground; whilst the popular and vernacular names for those luminaries amongst the peasantry themselves, namely,Grianfor thesun,Luanfor themoon,Righforking, andReaforqueen, in their appropriation to several localities throughout the country, indicate but too plainly the melancholy tale of their former deification.
To instance some few of those names, that strike me asdemonstrativeof this Sabian worship, I shall begin with
Baltinglas.[219]—This name of a town and mountainin the county of Wicklow, and province of Leinster, is equivalent to Baal-tinne-glass, that is, “Baal’s-fire-green,” alluding to the colour of the grass at the spring season. Theseigneousbetrayals of human frailty and superstition were celebrated throughout Ireland at both thevernalandautumnalequinoxes, in honour of the twin divinities so often adverted to in the course of this book. The eve of the vernal one was calledAiche Baal-tinne, that is, the night of Baal’s fire, the eve of the autumnal,Aiche Shamain, that is, the night of the moon’s solemnity; on both which occasions fires were lighted on all “the high places” dedicated to their worship.
The return of these respective seasons gave rise to various superstitions amongst the illiterate populace, one of which was that of borrowing a piece of money at the first sight of the new-moon, if they had it not themselves, as an omen of plenty throughout the month.[220]And their praying to that luminary, when first seen after its change, is so well known as to be mentioned even by a French writer, whom Selden,De Diis Syriis, quotes in these words:—“Se mittent a genoux en voyant la lune nouvelle, et disent en parlant a lune, laise nous ausi sains que tu nous as trouvé.”[221]
The new moon nearest to the winter solstice wascelebrated with peculiar ceremonies. On that night the chief Druid, attended by crowds of the people, used to go into the woods, and cut with a golden sickle a branch of the mistletoe of the oak, which he would carry in procession to the sacred grove. This golden sickle or crescent corresponded in form and nature with that which Aurelius Antoninus, the Roman emperor, wore at his coronation, to intimate his adherence to the Phœnician doctrines in which he had been early instructed—his adopted name still further intimating that he had been, whatitliterally signifies, Heliogabalus, that is, priest of the sun.[222]The crescent itself is the favourite badge ofSheevah, thematrimonialdeity of the Indians, which he is represented as wearing in front of his crown.
After the introduction of Christianity, its first preachers wishing to defer to the prejudices of the inhabitants, yet not so as to interfere with the celebration of Easter at the vernal equinox, with an accommodating policy, retained the Baal-tinne ceremonial, only transferring it to thesaints’ days; thusdivertingtheir attention from their former devotion, and fixing it upon those who, in their zealous propagation of the gospel truths, may be considered as Christianstars;—conformably to that gracious character of “a burning and shining light,” which our Saviour Himself applied to His precursor, St. John.
In honour of this apostle, June 24th, the day of his nativity, was substituted, in the old ecclesiastical calendar, for the pagan solstice festival, and called solstitium vulgi, the vulgar solstice.
The intention of the transfer was, however, lost sight of by the illiterate; and when they wouldkindle their fires on the tops ofmountainson those occasions, they used to blend with them the features of the pagan institution, by passing children and cattle between them for the purpose of purification.
The propriety, therefore, of thus subserving to deep-rooted prejudices, has by some been impugned; but “surely,” after all, to use the words of a very able writer, “they were much wiser and better who, in those early times, grafted the evangelical upon the druidical culture, than they who, in subsequent times, instituted a system of extirpation in order to regenerate.”
The other pagan solemnities were similarly metamorphosed, and partook of similar transmutations. The 1st of May alone retained the name and characteristics of its original appropriation, being still called “La Beuil-tinne,” that is, the day of Baal’s fire, as familiarly as the nameChristmasis given to the 25th of December. On it, too, fires are kindled on “high places,” as before; and children and cattle purified by passing between them;—
————“Yet, oh! rememberOft I have heard thee say, the secret heartIs fair Devotion’s temple: there the saintEven on that living altar lights the flameOf purest sacrifice, which burns unseen,Not unaccepted.”[223]
I next turn to Killmalloch, the ancient name of which, as given by Ptolemy, was Macollicon,—a metathesis for Mallochicon; and the final,icon, which is only a Greek termination, being taken away, leaves Malloch, that is, Moloch, the Apollo or great divinity of the ancient universe.
To divert the natives from this misplaced enthusiasm, one of the early converts to Christianityassumed to himself the name ofMaloch; and then prefixing to it the adjunctKill, made it thechurchofMaloch, instead of thecityofMoloch.
Here is still to be seen, careering towards the skies, one of those “singulartemples of round form,” of the existence of which Vitruvius was so ignorant, but whose dogmatic enunciation of “monopteres” and “peripteres,” sounds as feebly inmyears, as Montmorency’s assumption that the round towers were dungeons!—and the violence which this structure has latterly undergone—by the effort made to incorporate it with the Christian cathedral, built beside it in rivalship, after an interval of nearly three thousand years—is one of the most triumphant evidences which truth can produce in suppression of error. My soul burned with earnestness to visit this hallowed scene, upon which I had revolved so much, and which I associated in my fancy with the recorded glories of Apollo. I have, at last, seen it; and he must be indeed a slave to faction, or the dupe of prejudice, who will not subscribe to that evidence which the very stones proclaim.
Apollo’s Temple, or the Round Tower, stands at the corner of the cathedral, subsequently built half-around it: and, as you ascend the parapet of the latter, by anintermuralstaircase, having to pass, afterwards, from one side of this parapet to the other, just at the very corner by which the Tower is girt, the pass being very narrow, and almost terrific in dimensions, wholly defenceless besides, on the right hand which looks down into the body of the cathedral, the constructors of this latter edifice were obliged, in their desire to intermarry Christianity with paganism, to scoop off, or rather to file, about six inches of theancientrotund structure, all along, on the left, to theheight of the human figure, so as to allow more room; yet even thus mutilated, I could not but reverence and bow down before the Tower.
“For, even the faintest relics of a shrine,Ofanyworship, wake some thoughts divine.”[224]
After this transformation, Kilmalloch assumed an entirely Christian aspect; and the monastic buildings that crowded the town surpassed, in their style, anything similar throughout the island. The materials, however, of which those were constructed, being inferior in quality to theTuathancomposition, did not long keep place; so that now, whilst the Round Tower still maintains its bold preoccupancy, the Christian churches exhibit but a pile of ruins!
The dreariness of this once imperial site is a moving instance of worldly vicissitudes; and one can scarcely avoid, when passing by the loneliness of its dilapidated mansions, applying the apposite and melancholy apostrophe attributed to Ossian, “Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers to-day; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy empty courts.”
Ard-Mulchan, the name of a village in the barony of Duleck, county Meath, comes fromArd, the high place, or mound,Mulchanof Moloch. And, however extraordinary it may appear to some readers, I cannot but hazard my opinion, that the name of the individual to whom St. Patrick had been sold during his captivity in this island, viz.Milco-Mac-Huanan, that is, Milco, the son-of-Huanan, originated in the circumstance of the family’s devotion to the service of this idol; and if a doubt remained as tothe justness of this conclusion, it will, methinks, be removed, when we consider the close of his mortal career, and the unfortunate blindness with which he clung to his fatuity.
He was a petty prince of that part of the country, afterwards called Dalruadia, or the principality of the Dalruads, from the prevalence of that demi-tribe, in Ulster; and when Patrick—in prosecution of that mission of grace, to which he had been deputed by divine interposition; and impelled, perhaps, moreover, by a compassionate zeal and Christian recollection of his previous bondage—undertook, amongst other conversions, that of his former master, we find that the sentiment was not reciprocated onhispart; but that, either ashamed of allowing himself to be persuaded, in his old age, to abandon the religion in which he had been early initiated; or marked out by Providence as an awful victim to the prevailing superstition, he plunged himself into a fire which had accidentally broken out in his castle, and so was consumed by that element which he had before worshipped as his God!
Athlone,—or as anciently and correctly written, Ath-luain,—the name of a town situated on the river Shannon, whereit is fordable, bounding Leinster in Westmeath, and Connaught in Galway, is compounded of the wordsAth, which signifies a ford, andluain, of the moon. The common people still call it Blah-luin, an evident corruption ofBaile-ath-luin, that is, the village of the ford of the moon; equivalent to Moon-ford-town. This name establishes the analogy of the Syrian Astarte with the worship here paid to the “queen of night,” and the many lunettes, or gold crescents, found buried in theneighbourhood, are “confirmation strong” of the inference deduced.
The moon, whose course through the heavens regulated the months of the early lunar year, and whose influence was regarded by the ancients, in common with that of the sun, as one of thefertilising principlesofnature, and as exerted chiefly amid wilds and woods, at a distance from the crowded abodes of man, had in this spot, apparently, a peculiar claim for her special appropriation. For here the aged majesty of the river Shannon, the Ganges of Ireland,—as we find reciprocally that Shannon is one of the Gangian names, and Saor, or Suir, the name of another Irish river, meaning “sacred” water, belongs also to the Indus itself,—displays its imposing grandeur in all the varieties of sublime and delightful scenery. Not far off is one of those beautiful lakes into which this monarch of waters expands himself, to bask, as it were, in repose, from the tiresome gaze attending the crowded path of his ordinary travels—
“Tho’ deep, yet clear; tho’ gentle, yet not dull;Strong without rage; without o’erflowing full.”[225]
Lough Rea is the name of the lake above referred to, which, from its proximity to Athlone, gives concurrent sanction to the derivation above assigned. ForRea, in Irish, corresponds to Malcoth, or Astarte,i.e.queen, that is, Shamaim, of the heavens; asRighdoes to Baal, or Molock, master, or king of the same; and both re-echoed in thereginaandrexof the Latins.[226]
I should further notice, that in the Barony of Castle-reagh—a name, which, though prefaced byamodernadjunct, still testifies its devotion, at one time, to the moon—there has been, some years ago, dug up one of those beautiful plates of gold, shaped like a half-moon, at once confirmatory of the propriety of the local name, and of the nature of the worship of its primitive incumbents having been lunar or Sabian. This relic is now in the possession of the Downshire family.
In reference toShannon, to which I have before adverted, as being one of the names of theGanges, it is not a little curious thatDurga, the supposed divinity of this water, and whose festival is annually solemnised all through Hindoostan, should be represented byDerg, the supposed divinity of theShannon, and should have its name still more perpetuated in the Irish wordDearg-art, that is, the abode of Derg, in Lough Derg, the lower lake upon this river.
From its mouth to its source this noble stream is characterised with relics of primeval worship, corresponding, in form and tendency, with those on the banks of its Indian namesake. Scattery Island, or, as it should more properly be called, Inis Catty, situated very near where it discharges itself into the sea, retains a beautiful Round Tower, to which has been afterwards appended, in the Christian times, the mystical number of seven churches, and the ruins of which are still perceptible. The circumstance of an early professor of our heaven-taught religion having taken up his secluded residence within the precincts of this spot, has led many moderns to suppose that the river obtained its name from him, whereas the wordShannonis derived fromShan Aoun, that is, the “aged river”; and the saint received his namefrom thatpious policybefore explained, as well as from the constancy of his abode in its vicinity—notvice versâ.[227]
Killeshandra, the name of a town in the county of Leitrim, on the borders of the county of Cavan, signifies, in Irish, “the temple of the moon’s cycle,” or circle. In Sanscrit, which is a dialect of the aboriginal Irish,[228]it denotes exactly the same. We find besides Herodotus making mention, B. xi. c. 98, of a city in Egypt, during the Persian dominion, called Archandra, that is, “the city of the moon.” He asserts that it is not Egyptian, neither derived from the wife of Danaus, the daughter of Archander: yet the opposite may be well supported without at the same time injuring this derivation, for the daughters of Danaus were certainly initiated in thePhallic rites; nay, they were the persons who first imported them into Attica: and it is eminently worth notice, that this was the very spot[229]where the Tuath-de-danaan kings happened to be stationed upon the first Scythian deluge; the word “Kill”having beenprefixedto it only upon the introduction of Christianity.
Granard, the name of a town in the county of Longford, is compounded of the wordsGrian, the sun, andard, a height, that is, the sun’s high-place. Nor, I suspect, will it be deemed an over-effort of criticism, if I repeat, that in our IrishGrianis to be found the root of that epithet of Apollo,Grynæus,[230]which was also the name of a city of Asia Minor, consecrated to his worship, and favoured, as Strabo informs us, with a grove, a temple, and an oracle of that deity. The river Granicus, too, was derived therefrom, because its source lay in Mount Ida, sacred toGrian, or the sun, whereon was situated theIdean stone, upon which, we are told, Hector was wont to sacrifice; and corresponding to theCromleachs, so common throughout this island. The wordCarne, also, meaning a heap of stones, on which an inferior order of clergy, thence calledCarneach, used to officiate, belongs to the same root, as both Ovid and Macrobius declare that it was called, by the ancients, Grane.[231]
As LoughReahad been dedicated to the moon, so was the other luminary also honoured with alake,—called after his name,—which we find in the adjoining country, where LoughGranysignifies the Lake of theSun; as we do alsoBeal-ath, or Ath-en-righ, that is, theFord of Baal, or theFord of the King,i.e.theSun; corresponding toAth-lone, orFord of the Moon.
The above are but a few of those imperishable memorials intertwined round those haunts which our forefathers have trod; the import of which, however, has been so perverted bymodern scribblers, as to give occasion to O’Flaherty to give up their solution in despair, and, as a cover to his retreat, to pronounce them “as outlandish in their sound as the names of the savages in some of the American forests.”[232]In this rhodomontade, however, he was much more fortunate than he had intended, or, as the Englishmen say of our countrymen, “he blundered himself into the right.” Little did he suspect how near a connection there existed between the two people whom he affected, thus ridiculously, to associate; and anyone who attends to the position which I subjoin, independently of many others that could be brought in support of it, will admit the happiness of this unintentional coincidence. The Algan Kinese are the most influential and commanding people in the whole of North America; their name in Irish indicates as much, namely,Algan-Kine, orKine Algan,[233]anoblecommunity. The language of this people is the master one of the whole country; and, what is truly remarkable, understood, as Baron de Humboldt asserts, by all the Indian nations except two. What then are we to infer from this obvious affinity?Most undoubtedly, that a colony of the same people who first inhabited Ireland, and assigned to its several localities those characteristic names which so disconcerted the harmony of Mr. O’Flaherty’s acoustic organs, had fixed themselves, at an early date, in what has been miscalled theNew World.
Small, however, as is the number of the names here selected, they are enough, I flatter myself, to establish the prevalence of our Sabian ritual. But what puts this matter beyond anything like a question is the inscription upon a stone, still extant, in the county of Dublin, evidently a symbol of theSunandMoon, which, like Osiris and Isis of Egypt, were considered by the ancient Irish asunitedin matrimony.
“God, in the nature of each being, foundsIts proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:But as He framed a whole the whole to bless,On mutual wants built mutual happiness;So from the first, eternal order ran,And creature linked to creature, man to man.Whate’er of life all quickening ether keeps,Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps,Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feedsThe vital flame, and swells the genial seeds.Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood,Each loves itself, but not itself alone,Each sex desires alike,till two are one.”—Pope.