modern Europe, had stated the retrograde motion of the stars to be a degree in 66 years. The calculation of the Indians is said to be much more ancient, and more exact. If then the Egyptians merited the fame which they possess, how shall we suppose, that they assigned, as Ptolemy and the Greeks of Alexandria did, 100 years for this retrograde motion through each degree, consequently making the great cycle extend to 36000 years?

The Egyptian priests told Plato, that the Greeks were children in science. The Alexandrian Greeks found only the fragments of the demolished edifice of Egyptian learning. Out of these fragments they built up a structure of their own. It was not without solidity and symmetry; but the second temple was not like to the first.

The sages of Egypt did not willingly communicate their know, ledge. They wrote in hieroglyphics and spoke in enigmas, They seem frequently to have been misunderstood by their Greek disciples.

Is it not clear that an enigma, (not quite worthy of the Sphinx perhaps,) was intended, when the priests announced, that the great cycle was to be found by multiplying the Sothic year by a 2 and a 5 The Sothic year, as already stated, consists of 1460 solar years. Now 1460 multiplied by 25 give 36500. This number of years answers to no cycle whatever.

In the calculations of the orientalists, when mystery was intended, we often find units expressed by thousands, with other devices of the same kind, as Bailli, Sir W. Jones, and others have acknowledged. The thousand, for example, was sometimes considered apart from the rest of the sum. Thus the Hebrews made the thousand the leader; and called this number Aleph, as the conductor, or general.

Now in the multiplicand, in the case before us, we have 1000 for the leader, and 460 for the led. We are authorized by the enigma to employ the numbers of the multiplicator (25) as we please. Multiply the leader, 1000, by your whole multiplicator, and you will have 25000. Multiply the led, or the smaller. number of your multiplicand (460) by the smaller number of your multiplicator (2) and you will have 920. Put the two sums together, and you will have 25920. But this is precisely the number of years, in which the fixed stars complete their apparent

revolution, moving backwards, as it seems to us, one degree in 72 years. It is impossible, that I could have brought out the exact sum required, where in all there are only 6 cyphers, if the authors of the enigma had not intended it.

Solinus states the great year at 12954 years. Add only six years to this immense number of years, and you will have, not the whole, but precisely the half of the great year: for at the end of 12960 years the pole of the earth performs one half of its revolution round the pole of the ecliptic, the equinoxes are removed six signs, and the fixed stars appear to us on this planet to have gone to the points opposite to those from which they were at the beginning of the period. 12900 years then make the great half year, as 25920 years make the great whole year. Now multiply the period of the phoenix, (540 years,) by the number of constellations into which the aucients divided the heavens, namely 48, and you Avill have precisely the sum of the great year, namely 25920 years. That the 12954 years, mentioned by Solinus, were intended to express the time, in which the stars recede to opposite positions in the heavens, can, I think, be scarcely doubted. ›

Pliny makes the period of the phoenix 660 years, and Suidas reduces it to 654. They probably repeated the reports which they heard, and which, it may be easily supposed, were vague and various. It is plain, that every feigned interval between the returns of the phoenix must have been intended by the inventors of that enigmatical fable, to correspond with some equal portion of the great cycle. But neither 660, nor 654, years make an equal part in 25920 years. It is likely then, that the period intended to be understood, but altered by common report, was 648 years; because 25920 divided by 40, will give us so many parts equal to 648. Now 40 was one of the mystical numbers of the Egyptians. Each successor of Apis remained 40 days in an island of the Nile, before he was brought in pomp to Memphis. Besides, if the Egyptians preserved any traditions of Noach, as I think they did, they must have known, that the flood was on the earth 40 days. It seems natural enough then, that they should divide the great period of the phoenix, of which the history seems not to be unconnected with those of Noach, or Phinoach, and Henoch or Phenoch, (whose names were probably mistaken for each other,) into 40 parts. In all events the fortieth part of the great cycle answers

to 648 years, and I am inclined to think that this was the number which Pliny and Suidas should have stated instead of 660, or 656. The priests of Egypt obliged their kings to take an oath to preserve the year of 365 days unchanged. In consequence there was for this year a new thoth every fourth year. But they themselves intercalated a day every fourth year, and thus followed within a few minutes the annual revolution. Their great years were established in order to rectify the calendar, when after certain periods it became necessary, even with the use of the lcap year, to alter the style. They had besides another vague year of 360 days as the circle had 360 degrees. The choice of this number seems to be in both instances sufficiently arbitrary; but we shall presently see a reason for it.

The same priests divided the ecliptic into 12 principal divisions, and the constellations, through which the ecliptic passes, into the same number of signs. Each of these signs, which the Greeks called zodiacal, because living creatures were represented as their symbols, was again divided into 3 parts, and thus the belt of constellations, called the zodiac, was partitioned into 36 divisions called decans. These were again divided into halves, and thus the whole number of these zodiacal partitions amounted to 72. But as the circle contains $60 degrees, the ecliptic was portioned into that number; and 50 degrees were of course allotted to each sign. Now these divisions of the year into 360 days; of the ecliptic into 360 degrees; of the zodiac info 72 partitions; must appear altogether whimsical and unaccountable, if the Egyptians did not know that the fixed stars retrograde a degree in 72 years, and that 360 multiplied by 72 give 25920, the exact period of the great cycle.

But while I call this the great cycle, I do so rather on account of its importance than its length. The Egyptians certainly had besides another cycle of 36000 years. This was the Neros, or cycle of 600 years, multiplied by 60. Noach was 600 years of age, when he entered the ark. Cassini, I believe, was the first of the moderns, who calculated the positions of the planets for the beginning and end of the Neros. Whether, or not, this period, multiplied by 60, gives more exact results, I cannot pretend to determine.

That the period of Noach's life, when he entered the ark, should

have corresponded with the cycle called the Neros, is remarkable, whether this happened by accident, or by the order of Providence, The Antediluvians, whose lives lasted for 8 or 9 centuries, must have acquired a degree of knowledge far greater than is possessed by us, who have only "just time to look about us and to die." The immediate descendants of Noach probably retained some portion of the science acquired by their long-lived ancestors; and. it is not likely that Noach himself could have been ignorant, that his life had just completed a cycle when he entered the ark. In fact the very word Neros seems to refer us to the epoch of the deluge. It is a Greek corruption of . Now does not always mean a river, as I believe it is commonly understood to do. It also, and perhaps more properly, signifies what Milton, (from Homer) calls the "Ocean-stream"-the flood of the deep, nay the great abyss itself (see Jonah 2. 3. and Psalm 24. 2.) The name of Nereus, the ocean-god, clearly comes from 17. The cycle in question appears to have been known from the Nile to the Eur phrates; and its name, as we have it, is to be traced to the Hebrew and Chaldaic.

The Tsabeans, or worshippers of the host of heaven, appear to have deified the antediluviau patriarchs, and to have combined the traditions concerning them with the fictitious histories of those mythological persons and symbols, which represented the celestial bodies, and all the phænomena of nature. Many circumstances: lead me to think, that the fable of the phoenix was chiefly suggested to the Egyptians by the traditions which they had preserved and perverted concerning Noach, Anak and Henoch (probably called by them, according to the usage of their language, Phinoach, Phanak and Phenoch); but especially the last. "And all the days of Henoch were three hundred and sixty five years. And Henoch walked with God, and abode not, (I read. 12, quasi 1, for the in 2, though radical, is, as Parkhurst observes, omissible,) for God took him." Here is a person, who lives as many years as there are days in the annual solar period. The mytho logists would easily find in this person a symbol of the year and of! the Sun. But Henoch did not die-he was. translated from one state of existence to another-his being was continupus, though its condition were changed-" he abode not,. for God took him." Here again the mythologists would compare Henoch to the annual

Sun, which abides not, and only concludes one period to commence another. The true history of Henoch, or Phenoch, might then suggest the fable of the Phoenix, that bird, which, as a symbol of the Sun and of the year, periodically renovates its existence, and reproduces itself.

It may be asked, why the Egyptians chose a bird for the hieroglyphic, by which they expressed the soul renewing its existence, and the Sun recommencing a year, or a cycle. The phoenix resembled an eagle; and the eagle in moulting-in casting its old feathers, and in acquiring new ones, presents us with a lively image of renovation. Hence was the eagle feigned to renew its youth, *DITIVI · TUID Wmnn—renovabitur, ut aquilæ, juventus tua. Ilence during the ceremony of an apotheosis the Romans were wont to let fly an eagle.

I shall now proceed briefly to show, that the oriental traditions support my argument. That some of these traditions are absurd, and that all of them are false, I easily admit; but our business is with mythology and consequently with falsehoods.

Henoch is frequently called Edris by the Arabians. He is so called in the Koran (Surat 20). The commentators say that he received that name on account of his learning. I wonder that the page of Golius should present us with another and most absurd association, which might have been avoided. Let us remember the fact, however, that Henoch is pretty generally known to the orientalists by the name of Edris.

But the Arabians also hold, that Edris, i. e. Henoch, was the same with Elijah. (See Hottinger de Muhammedis Genealogia.) Again the Arabians and the Jews had the tradition, that Phinehas, the son of Eleazer, revived in Elijah. (See Hottinger)

Thus the Jewish and Arabian traditions unite Henoch and Elijah, and Elijah and Phinehas. Now how came the Cabbalists to think of Phinehas?

Henoch and Elijah are the only men that have lived on this earth, and that have escaped death. The Egyptians appear to have built the fable of the Phoenix on the true history of Henoch, whom they would call Phenoch; and when the translation of Elijah took place, his disappearance in a fiery chariot probably induced the orientalists to consider him as the same with Henoch, and further to improve on their story of the Phoenix, by making.