wife, and they were not ashamed." The Egyptians possessed some memorial of this blissful unconsciousness of our first parents in their state of innocence. Diodorus says, "that "the first men amongst them lived very hardy, "before the conveniences or luxuries of life were "discovered; being accustomed to go naked.” Plato, in his politics, has the following:—“ God "their governor fed them, being their keeper: "in the same way, as man looks after the in“ferior animals, being a more divine creature "than they are. They, moreover, fed naked, " and were without garments in the open air."

Very soon, in all probability, was the lovely picture changed; and by the primeval ancestors of mankind listening to the temptation of an evil spirit, in the form of a serpent, who beguiled them to eat of the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge, which grew" in the midst "of the garden," they not only for themselves, but for all their posterity, forfeited paradise, immortality, and happiness.

Her rash hand in evil hour

Forthstretching to the tree, she pluckt, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk
The guilty serpent!

An idea of lost integrity seems to have pervaded the whole pagan world, and to have mingled itself with the religious belief of all nations, as will more fully appear, when we come to consider the universality of the rites of sacrificature. It has been supposed by more than one learned author, that the ancient Druids "believed in the doctrine of the defection of “the human soul from a state of original recti"tude;" and it is actually asserted to be the invariable belief of the Brahmins, that man is a fallen creature. The arguments, in both these cases, are principally derived from the severe penitential discipline to which they submitted, with a view of ultimately regaining their lost perfection. The Hindoos, we are informed, have an entire Purana on this very subject; the story is there told in the same manner as it is narrated by Moses; the facts uniformly corrėspond; and the consequences are equally tremendous.*bot growong doit ile o

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The same doctrine is inculcated by classical mythology in the description given of the gradual deterioration of man during the period subsequent to the golden age. "The second

* Faber. Hor. Mos. vol. i. pp. 65-71. Horne's Introd. Crit. Study of the SS. vol. i. p. 176, with the authorities cited by these, and other authors.

"race," says Hesiod; " dreadfully degenerated "from the virtues of the first; they were men "of violence and rapine; they had no delight in "worshipping the immortals, nor in offering up "to them those sacrifices which duty required.” Similar to this is the doctrine of scripture. By the fall, every faculty of man was debased, and he lost that kind of relish for divine communion which once was equally the glory, the privilege, and the felicity of his nature.

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Some conceive that this dreadful event was alluded to in the story of Pandora. "Eve was "first endowed by God with consummate "beauty and gracefulness; but afterwards being seduced by Satan, she persuaded Adam, through the force of her blandishments, to violate the commandment of the Almighty. "This circumstance is allegorically described by the poets in the fable of Pandora and "Prometheus. That ancient personage is said. "to have stolen fire from heaven, and to have opened the mysterious box which inundated "the world with sin and misery. Hope alone "remained at the bottom of the casket, and "that hope was: Christ."*

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However this may be, we shall be enabled

* Cluverius, cited by Faber. in Hor. Mos.

to trace the primitive tradition of the circumstances attendant upon the fall, far more clearly in the mythic history of Orpheus. This ancient personage is to be met with in the records of various places, widely apart from one another. In short, he is said to have travelled over the whole earth; a tradition, probably arising from the vestiges of his worship, and oracles being found to exist in so many different islands and cities. He is, moreover, affirmed to have been the first philosopher among mankind, and to have handed down to all future generations, accounts of the creation of the world out of chaos, which were revealed to him in communion with the Deity himself. He is said to have charmed the whole brute creation by the sound of his lyre, so that they followed him whithersoever he went; a memorial doubtless of the harmony which reigned amongst the animals in paradise: when "the Lord God "formed every beast of the field, and every "fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam "to see what he would call them; and Adam

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gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of "the air, and to every beast of the field." The various animals flocking to the cave of the

Nat. Com. lib. vii. 14. p. 227.

Centaur, where Orpheus was playing, is described in some ravishing lines by Onomacritus :-*

Θηρες δ' αϊοντες αοιδης

Σπηλυγγος προπαροιθεν αλυσκάζοντες εμιμνον.
Οιωνοι τ' εκυκλουντο βοαυλια κενταυροιο

Ταρσοις κεκμηωσιν, εης δ' ελαθοντο καλιῆς.

The beasts, now wondering at the breathing lyre,
Flock'd to the cave, with all the feather'd choir;
These, high in air, upon their weary wings,
Forget their nests, while the sweet harper sings.

Milton's simile may probably occur to the mind of the reader, with which the angel addresses Adam;

As when the total kind

Of birds in orderly array, on wing,
Came summon'd, over Eden, to receive
Their names of thee;

The poet, probably from traditionary sources, has extended his harmonious influence over creation, even to the rocks and forests. In the Metamorphoses, he draws a complete paradise around him: and it is not a little remarkable, that the first and principal tree men

*Orphic. Argonaut. 434. Gen. ii. 19.

† And even the winds and waves. Antholog. lib. iii. p. 269.

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