twenty cubits high; on which he engraved the number of his forces, the particulars of his revenue, and a catalogue of the nations he had conquered.* At Thebes, Strabo telleth us, there were certain obelisks with inscriptions recording the riches and power of their kings, and the extensiveness of their dominion, stretching into Scythia, Bactria, India, and the country now called Ionia; together with the multitude of their tributes, and the number of the soldiery, which consisted of a million of men:† and Proclus assureth us, that the Egyptians recorded all singular events, memorable actions, and new inventions on columns, or stone pillars. Tacitus is more particular than the rest: for, speaking of Germanicus's voyage into Egypt, and his curiosity in examining its antiquities, he saith: Mox visit veterum Thebarum magna vestigia; et manebant structis molibus litteræ Egyptiæ, priorum opulentiam complexæ ; jussusque è senioribus sacerdotum patrium sermonem interpretari, referebat habitasse quondam septingenta millia ætate militari : atque eo cum exercitu regem Rhamsen Libya, Ethiopia, Medisque et Persis, et Bactriano, ac Scythia potitum. Quasque terras Syri Armeniique et contigui Cappadoces colunt, inde Bithynum, hinc Lycium ad mare imperio tenuisse. Legebantur et indicta gentibus tributa, pondus argenti et auri, numerus armorum equorumque, et dona templis ebur atque odores, quasque copias frumenti et omnium utensilium quæque natio penderet, haud minus magnifica, quam nunc, vi Parthorum, aut potentia Romana, jubentur.§ But to obviate at once all the cavils of Kircher against this concurrent testimony, I observe, in the last place, that it receives the fullest confirmation from that excellent treatise of Horapollo, which consists chiefly of the ancient and proper hieroglyphics; all of them relating to civil life, and altogether unfit for the abstruse speculations of philosophy and theology. (2.) This is further seen from that celebrated inscription on the temple of Minerva at Saïs, so much spoken of by the ancients; where an infant, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a river-horse, expressed this moral sentence, All you who come into the world, and go out of it, know this, that the gods hate impudence. The excellent Stillingfleet, who was in the common opinion that the Egyptians invented hieroglyphics to secret their profound wisdom, and that this inscription at Saïs was part of that wisdom, pronounces sentence from hence, on all their mystic learning in general:- -"Certainly," says he, "this kind of learning deserves the highest form amongst the difficiles nugæ ; and all these hieroglyphics put together will make but one good one, and should be * Δύο δὲ λιθίνους ἐβελίσκους ἐκ τοῦ σκληροῦ λίθου, πηχῶν τὸ ὕψος εἴκωσι πρὸς τοῖς ἑκατὸν, ἐφ ̓ ὧν ἐπέγραψε τότε μέγεθος τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν προσόδων, καὶ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τῶν καταπολεμηθέντων ἐθνῶν.—Lib. i. p. 37. S. E. † - ἐν δὲ ταῖς θήκαις ἐπί τινων ὀβελίσκων ἀναγραφαὶ δηλοῦσαι τὸν πλοῦτον τῶν τότε βασι λέων, καὶ τὴν ἐπικράτειαν, ὡς μέχρι Σκυθῶν, καὶ Βακτρίων, καὶ Ἰνδῶν, καὶ τῆς νῦν Ιωνίας διατείνασαν· καὶ φόρων πλῆθος, καὶ στρατιᾶς περὶ ἑκατὸν μυριάδας. Lib. xvii. † Αἰγυπτίοις, δὲ ἔτι καὶ τὰ γεγονότα διὰ τῆς μνήμης ἀεὶ νέα πάρεστιν· ἡ δὲ μνήμη, διὰ τῆς ἱστορίας· αὕτη δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν στυλῶν, ἐν αἷς ἀπεγράφοντο τὰ παράδοξα, καὶ τὰ θαύματος ἄξια των πραγμάτων, εἴτε ἐν πράξεσιν, εἴτε ἐν εὑρίσεσιν.—Procl. in Timaeum, lib. i. p. 31. f. Annal. lib. ii. for-labour lost."* But there might be much knowledge in their mystic learning, whatever becomes of the hieroglyphical inscription at Saïs; which was indeed no part of that learning, but a plain and public admonition in the proper hieroglyphic; so far from being a difficult trifle, to be secreted, that it was a very plain and important truth to be read and understood by the people; as appears from the place where it was engraved, the vestibule of a public temple. And here KIRCHER's visionary labours on this subject might have been pitied, had he discovered in any of his voluminous writings on the hieroglyphics, the least regard to truth or probability. This learned person had collected a fact from antiquity, which the notoriety of it will not suffer us to call in question, namely, that the old Egyptians committed their profound and secret wisdom to the seal of hieroglyphics. Egyptian wisdom was a matter of moment. But the learned Jesuit did not duly consider, whether any of the vehicles of that wisdom were yet in being; much less did he reflect that the same antiquity which tells us they had much profound wisdom, tells us likewise, that it was all collected in their sacerdotalt books, books long since lost; and that the ancient monuments of stone still remaining, were records of another nature. However, inflamed with the glory of a discoverer, he launches out in search of this unknown world; guided by some of the latest Greek writings, in conjunction with the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Greek writings indeed pretended (though very impudently) to ancient Egyptian wisdom; but these hieroglyphics constantly disclaimed it:§ by this direction he steered at large: and it is pleasant to see him labouring through half a dozen folios with the writings of late Greek Platonists, and the forged books of Hermes, which contain a philosophy, not Egyptian, to explain and illustrate old monuments, not philosophical. While Hermapion, Diodorus, Strabo, Proclus, Tacitus, and Pliny, are carefully avoided as false lights, which would drive him upon rocks and shallows.-But to proceed. 2. Thus far went the two species, of the proper hieroglyphic; which, in its last stage of the tropical, touched upon SYMBOLS (of which we are now to speak) they having this in common, that each represented one thing by another; in this they differed, that the tropical hieroglyphic was employed to divulge; the tropical symbol, to secrete: for all the several modes of writing by THINGS having had their progressive state, from less to more perfection, they easily fell into one another; so that there was but little difference between the proper hieroglyphic in its last state, and the symbolic in its first. For this method of contriving tropical hieroglyphics, by similar properties, would of itself produce refinement and nice inquiry into the more hidden and abstruse qualities Orig. Sacr. lib. ii. cap. ii. p. 79. † See Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. vi. Book iii. sect. 4. Thus in one place he expresses himself:-Plerique ferè Herodotum, Diodorum, Plinium secuti, obeliscos non nisi historicas regum veterum commemoration escontinere opinati sunt; quod tamen falsum esse, ex dictis luce meridiana clarius patet.—Pp. 269, 270, of his dip. Egypt. t. iii. of things; which meeting at the same time with a temper now much turned to speculation on matters of theology and philosophy, would as naturally introduce a new species of zoographic writing, called by the ancients SYMBOLIC, and employed for SECRECY;† which the high speculations, conveyed in it, required; and for which it was well fitted by the enigmatic quaintness of its representations. As the proper hieroglyphics were of two kinds, curiological and tropical, so were SYMBOLS; the more natural, simply TROPICAL; the more artificial, ENIGMATICAL. (1.) TROPICAL Symbols were made by employing the less known properties of things. The quality was sometimes used for the sake of a fanciful resemblance; as a cat stood for the moon, because they observed the pupil of her eye to be filled and enlarged at the full moon, and to be contracted and diminished during its decrease:‡ sometimes it was founded on the natural history of an animal; as a serpent represented the divine nature, on account of its great vigour and spirit, its long age and revirescence.§ How easily the tropical hieroglyphic fell into the tropical symbol, we may see by the following instances: eternity was sometimes expressed by the sun and moon, sometimes by the basilisk; Egypt, sometimes by the crocodile, sometimes by a burning censer with a heart upon it: where the simplicity of the first representation and the abstruseness of the latter, in each instance, show, that the one was a tropical hieroglyphic employed for communication; the other a tropical symbol contrived for secrecy. ** (2.) ENIGMATIC symbols were formed by the mysterious assemblage of different things, as in the caduceus; or of the parts of different animals, as in a serpent with a hawk's head;" or of things and animals together, as in a serpent with a hawk's head in a circle:†† the change of the tropical into the enigmatic symbol is seen in this. To signify the sun, they sometimes‡‡ painted a hawk, and this was tropical; sometimes a scarabæus with a round ball in its claws, and this, as we see in Clemens, was of the enigmatic kind. Thus at length, though by insensible degrees, these characters, called enigmatic symbols, became immensely distant from those called curiologic hieroglyphics: to conceive this, the reader need only cast his eye on two of the most celebrated of the Egyptian hieroglyphics employed to denote the universal nature; namely, the Diana Multimammia ;§§ and the winged globe with a serpent issuing from it ;|||| the first is in the very simplest style, of a curiologic hieroglyphic; the other mysterious assemblage is an enigmatic symbol: but, under * Τάαυτος, ὃν Αἰγύπτιοι θὼς προσαγορεύουσι, σοφία διενεγκὼν παρὰ τοῖς Φοίνιξι, πρῶτος τὰ κατὰ τὴν θεοσέβειαν ἐκ τῆς τῶν χυδαίων ἀπειρίας, εἰς ἐπιστημονικὴν ἐμπειρίαν διέταξεν.— Sanch. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. i. cap. 10. † See note M M, at the end of this book. † Α' δὲ ἐν τοῖς ὄμμασιν αὐτοῦ κόραι πληροῦσθαι μὲν καὶ πλατύνισθαι δοκοῦσιν ἐν πανσελήνῳ, λεπτύνεσθαι δέ καὶ μαραυγεῖν ἐν ταῖς μειώσεσι τοῦ ἄστρου. Plut. de Is. et us. Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. i. cap. 10. ** Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. i. cap. 10. § See note NN, at the end of this book. Horap. lib. i. cap. i. Lib. i. cap. 22. ++ Ibid. ‡‡ Horap. lib. i. cap. 6. See the Bembine table. the first figure, we must observe that the universal nature was considered physically; under the latter, metaphysically; agreeably to the different genius of the times in which each was invented. But this was not all: the Egyptian hieroglyphic, in passing from an instrument of open communication, to a vehicle of secrecy, suffered another and more remarkable change. We have observed before, that the early Egyptian hieroglyphics resembled, in this, the Mexican, that what things had bodily form were generally represented by figures; what had not, by marks or characters.. Which we find verified in the most ancient of the Egyptian obelisks yet remaining. The reader need but cast his eye into Kircher, to see how exactly their hieroglyphics in this point resembled the American, published by Purchas, not only in their use, which, as Purchas* and Diodorust say, were to record the number of their troops, the particulars of their revenue, and the names of their conquered towns and provinces; but likewise in their forms and figures. But when now every thing was directed to secrecy and mystery, modes as well as substances were painted by images. Thus openness was expressed by a hare, § destruction by a mouse, || uncleanness by a wild goat,¶ impudence by a fly, knowledge by an ant, †† aversion by a wolf, ‡‡ anger by a cynocephalus, §§ &c. And to make the matter still more mysterious, one animal was made to represent many and very contrary moral modes; thus the hawk signified sublimity, humility, victory, excellence, &c. On the contrary, and for the same reason, one thing was represented by many and various hieroglyphics; sometimes for an addition, out of choice, to confound the vulgar; sometimes for a change, out of necessity, when a hieroglyphic by long or frequent use was become vulgar or common. ** Now the ancient Greeks, though they saw this to be a different species of writing from the proper hieroglyphic, and accordingly, as we find by Porphyry, distinguished them into two kinds, hieroglyphical and symbolical, yet confounding their original, in supposing both invented out of choice, have not accurately distinguished either their different natures or uses: they took it for granted that the hieroglyphic, as well as symbol, was a mysterious representation; and, what was worse, a representation of speculative notions in philosophy and theology; whereas it was used only in public and open writings, to register their civil policy and history:-These mistakes involved the whole history of hieroglyphic writing in infinite confusion. But it is now time to speak of an alteration, which this change of the subject and manner of expression made in the DELINEATION of hieroglyphic figures. Hitherto the animal or thing representing was drawn out graphically; but when the study of philosophy (which had occasioned symbolic writing) had inclined their learned to write much, and variously; that exact manner of delineation would be as well too tedious as too voluminous: by degrees, therefore, they perfected another character, which Horap. lib. i. cap 26. lib. ii. cap. 22. + See p. 146. * See p. 119. || Cap. 50. ¶ cap. 49. S lib. i. cap. 14. I cap. 6. ** See pp. 123, 124. we may call the running-hand of hieroglyphics, resembling the Chinese writing, which being at first formed only by the outlines of each figure,' became at length a kind of marks. One natural effect which this running-hand would, in time, produce, we must not omit to mention; it was, that the use would take off the attention from the symbol, and fix it on the thing signified; by which means the study of symbolic writing would be much abbreviated, the reader or decipherer having then little to do, but to remember the power of the symbolic mark: whereas before, the properties of the thing or animal employed as a symbol were to be learned; in a word, this, together with their other marks by institution, to design mental ideas, would reduce the characters to the present state of the Chinese. And these were properly what the ancients call HieroglyPHICAL: † used afterwards on subjects which had employed the ancient hieroglyphic, as we may see by what follows. Dr Robert Huntington, in his Account of the Porphyry Pillars in Egypt, ‡ tells us, there are yet some ancient monuments remaining of this kind of writing;—“The Franks," says he, "call these pillars Aguglias, and the English, in particular, Cleopatra's needles; but the inhabitants content themselves with the general name of pillars. They have no bases or pedestals above ground; and if they ever had any, they must needs be very deep in the earth. The hieroglyphic characters, wherewith they are engraven, are probably the aboriginal Egyptian letters, long become obsolete, and they resemble the Chinese characters, each whereof represents a word, or rather an entire sentence; besides they seem to be written the same way, namely "from top to bottom." Apuleius, § speaking of his initiation into the mysteries of Isis, describes the sacred book or ritual (which we find was written partly in symbolic, and partly in these hieroglyphic characters of arbitrary institution, resembling the Chinese) in this manner: "He [the hierophant] drew out certain books from the secret repositories of the sanctuary, written in unknown characters, which contained the words of the sacred formula, compendiously expressed, partly by FIGURES of animals, and partly by certain MARKS or notes, intricately knotted, revolving in the manner of a wheel, and crowded together and curled inward like the tendrils of a vine, so as to hide the meaning from the curiosity of the profane." The characters here described may be seen in almost every compartment of the Bembine table, between the larger human figures; and likewise on several of the obelisks, where they are disposed in the same manner. As we find these characters mixed with the symbolic, in the ritual of Apuleius; so in the Bembine table we find them mixed both with the proper hieroglyphic and the symbolic. See note 00, at the end of this book. † See note PP, at the end of this book. Metamorphosis, lib. ii. For a specimen of the marks thus described, see Plate IX. fig. 1. De opertis adyti profert quosdam libros, litteris ignorabilibus prænotatos: partim figuris cujuscemodi animalium, concepti sermonis compendiosa verba suggerentes; PARTIM NODOSIS, ET IN MODUM ROTÆ TORTUOSIS, CAPREOLATIMQUE CONDENSIS APICIBUS, a curiositate profanorum lectione munita, |