politic in Gregory, but certainly speaks trumpet-tongued as to the morals and intellects of the new sect who thus went a whoring after old inventions--but more of this hereafter. At present, it is sufficient to know that the worship of Nature preceded the worship of idols; the first is commonly called natural religion-having nothing whatever to do with any other revelation than that the material universe offers to the senses of man; whereas, idolatry grew up with human error, and is an abomination in the sight of the Lord, as appears in Scripture, where we are told-" Jehovah, he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath-there is none else!"

Few will believe that men in any age worshipped blocks of stone as blocks of stone; but it is evident the word god, having no prototype in nature, philosophers took refuge in their own conceptions, which being more or less grand and imposing, were put into shape by the chisel of the sculptor, hence signs, emblems, or, as they are generally termed, symbols; which latter word we shall hereafter use as being the most expressive; the full and true meaning will, we trust, soon fall within the comprehension of the dullest. We did intend to have entered at large into a consideration of the word Symbol; but such a course would too far distract the attention of our readers from the great question we have pledged ourselves to consider; but as it is indispensable that all should have a correct idea of symbolic worship fully before them, we have determined to publish a SUPPLEMENT with our fifth Letter, containing the great Lord Bacon's curious, and truly extraordinary explanation of PAN, or, as the name imports, UNIVERSAL NATURE! We cannot too highly recommend this singular performance to all those who would fully understand in what cousists the essence of physical mythology. To the unlettered, we recommend it as a simple explanation of what a symbol is, which in no way else can they so well comprehend. To the philosophic we recommend it as a key with which to open the great store-house of ancient wisdom-a performance at once simple and sublime, containing the most profound reflections and speculations touching the nature of man and the origin of the universe. We may add, that in no other of his works did that great philosopher, publish his sentiments so unreservedly and so fully as when explaining and enlarging on ancient fable.

London: H. Hetherington, Strand; A. Heywood, Manchester; and all Booksellers. J. Taylor, Printer, 29, Smallbrook Street, Birmingham.

EXISTENCE OF CHRIST

AS A HUMAN BEING,

DISPROVED!

BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

The ancients have with great exactness, delineated Universal Nature, under the person of Pan. They leave his origin doubtful : some asserting him the son of Mercury-and others the common offspring of all Penelope's suitors. The latter supposition doubtless occasioned some later writers to entitle this ancient fable "Penelope" a thing frequently practised, when the earlier relations are applied to more modern characters and persons; though sometimes with great absurdity and ignorance; as in the present case: for Pan was one of the ancientest gods, and long before the time of Ulysses; besides, Penelope was venerated by antiquity for her matronal chastity. A third sort will have him the issue of Jupiter and Hybris that is reproach. But whatever his origin was, the Destinies are allowed his sisters.

He is described by antiquity with pyramidal horns, reaching up to heaven, a rough and shaggy body, a very long beard, of a biform figure, human above, half brute below, ending in goat's feet. His arms, or ensigns of power, are-a pipe in his left hand, composed of seven reeds; in his right a crook; and he wore for his mantle a leopard's skin.

His attributes and titles were the god of hunters, shepherds, and all the rural inhabitants; president of the mountains; and after Mercury the next Messenger of the gods. He was also held

the leader and ruler of the nymphs, who continually danced and frisked about him, attended with the Satyrs, and their elders the Sileni. He had also the power of striking terrors, especially such as were vain and superstitious: whence they came to be called panic terrors.

Few actions are recorded of him, only a principal one is, that he challenged Cupid at wrestling, and was worsted. He also catched the giant Typhon in a net, and held him fast. They relate farther of him, that when Ceres growing disconsolate for the rape of Prosperine, hid herself, and all the gods took the utmost pains to find her, by going out different ways for that purpose-Pan only had the good fortune to meet her, as he was hunting, and discovered her to the rest. He likewise had the assurance to rival Apollo in music-and in the judgment of Midas was preferred; but the judge had, though with great privacy and secrecy, a pair of asses ears fastened on him for his sentence.

There is very little said of his amours; which may seem strange among such a multitude of gods, so profusely amorous. He is only reported to have been very fond of Echo, who was also esteemed his wife and one nymph more, called Syrinx, with the love of whom Cupid inflamed him for his insolent challenge.

Lastly, Pan had no descendant; which also is a wonder, when the male gods were so extremely prolific; only he was the reputed father of a servant girl, called Iambe, who used to divert strangers with her ridiculous prattling stories.

This fable is perhaps the noblest of all antiquity; and pregnant with the mysteries and secrets of nature. Pan, as the name imports, represents the Universe, about whose origin there are two opinions, viz. that it either sprung from Mercury-that is, the divine word, according to the Scriptures and philosophical divines; or from the confused seeds of things. For they who allow only one beginning of all things, either ascribe it to God, or if they suppose a material beginning, acknowledge it to be various in its powers; so that the whole dispute comes to these two points, viz.—either that Nature proceeds from Mercury, or from confused mixture, according to the fable.

The third origin of Pan seems borrowed by the Greeks from the Hebrew mysteries, either by means of the Egyptians, or otherwise; for it relates to the state of the world-not in its first creation, but

as made subject to death and corruption after the fall; and in this state it was, and remains the offspring of God and sin, or Jupiter and reproach. And therefore these three several accounts of Pan's birth may seem true, if duly distinguished in respect of things and times. For this Pan, or the universal nature of things, which we view and contemplate, had its origin from the divine word, and confused matter, first created by God himself; with the subsequent introduction of sin, and consequently corruption.

The destinies, or the natures and fates of things, are justly made Pan's sisters- —as the chain of natural causes links together the rise, duration, and corruption-the exaltation, degeneration, and workings the processes, the effects, and changes of all that can any way happen to things.

Horns are given him, broad at the roots, but narrow and sharp a-top, because the nature of all things seem pyramidal: for individuals are infinite; but being collected into a variety of species, they rise up into kinds; and these again ascend, and are contracted into generals,till at length nature may seem collected to a point. And no wonder if Pan's horns reach to the heavens, since the sublimities of nature, or abstract ideas, reach in a manner to things divine for there is a short and ready passage from metaphysics to natural theology.

Pan's body, or the body of nature, is, with great propriety and elegance, painted shaggy and hairy-as representing the rays of things; for rays are as the hair, or fleece of nature, and more or less worn by all bodies. This evidently appears in vision, and in all effects or operations at a distance-for whatever operates thus may be properly said to emit rays. But particularly the beard of Pan is exceedingly long; because the rays of the celestial bodies penetrate and act to a prodigious distance-and the Sun himself, when clouded on its upper part, appears to the eye bearded.

Again, the body of nature is justly described as biform, because of the difference between its superior parts; as the former, for their beauty, regularity of motion, and influence over the earth, may be properly represented by the human figure; and the latter, because of their disorder, irregularity, and subjection to the celestial bodies, are by the brutal. This biform figure also represents the participation of one species with another; for there appear to be no simple natures; but all participate or consist of two: thus man has

somewhat of the brute-the brute somewhat of the plant-the plant somewhat of the mineral; so that all natural bodies have really two faces-or consist of a superior and an inferior species.

There lies a curious allegory in the making of Pan goat-footed; on account of the motion of ascent which the terrestrial bodies have towards the air and heavens: for the goat is a clambering creature, that delights in climbing up rocks and precipices: and in the same manner, the matters destined to this lower globe strongly affect to rise upwards; as appears from the clouds and meteors.

Pan's arms, or the ensigns he bears in his hands, are of two kinds; the one an emblem of harmony, the other of empire. His pipe, composed of seven reeds, plainly denotes the consent and harmony, or the concords and discord of things, produced by the motion of the seven planets. His crook also contains a fine representation of the ways of nature; which are partly strait, and partly crooked; thus the staff having an extraordinary bend towards the top, denotes, that the works of divine Providence are generally brought about by remote means, or in a circuit; as if somewhat else were intended, rather than the effect produced, as in the sending of Joseph into Egypt, &c. So likewise in human government, they who sit at the helm, manage and wind the people more successfully, by pretext and oblique courses, than they could by such as are direct and strait; so that in effect all sceptres are crooked a-top.

Pan's pipe, composed of seven reeds, leads to curious reflections, as the number seven is a mystical number, like the number twelve, and three-hundred-and-sixty-five, or that of the days of the year. In the apocalypse of St. John we find that the numbers seven and twelve are repeated at almost every page,—the first is mentioned fourteen and the second twenty-four times. The chandelier with seven branches, which we are told represented the planetary system, is the Temple of Jerusalem; the seven doors of the cave of Mithra, or the Sun, the seven stages of the tower of Babylon, surmounted by an eighth, which represented the sky, and served as a temple to Jupiter; the seven gates of the tower of Thebes, each carrying the name of a planet; the lyre with seven strings, touched by Apollo, or by the god Sun; the book of destiny, composed of seven tablets; the seven prophetic seals of the Brahmins, on each of which is marked the name of a planet; the seven consecrated stones to the same planets in Laconia; the division into seven