first discovers the Araxes and Phasis to be the other two, p. 281.

"This conjecture he endeavours to confirm from etymology; but, as that cannot afford much certainty on so obscure a subject, I shall rather give you an instance of the use it may be of, in settling the true meaning of common words. How grossly is Ovid mistaken, when (in his Fasti, lib. ii. ver. 569) he derives feralia from fero, quia justa FERUNT,' a word which is as applicable to all sacrifices, as to those which are offered for the dead! But we have some foundation for the signification of it, if we derive it from "Epa, Aol. Tega, Terra, unde "Eveço, Inferi, Inferia, p. 217.

"Another use Mr. Baxter makes of etymology, is to unravel the mysteries of the Heathen mythology, and show how they multiplied their gods under 'different names of the same signification; whereas, when that obscurity is once removed, the sun, moon, or stars, generally appear to have been the foundation of their fables, and the original objects of their worship.

"He has shewn likewise the conformity of the Heathen religion among different people, and how they borrowed from each other the same deities, though they gave them new appellations. He has farther illustrated the Heathen theology from the writings of the Oneirocriticks, whose observations being founded on the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, let us into a reason why particular honours were paid to ordinary creatures, instead of the things they once represented. Adonis may be an instance of all these particulars, pp. 37, 38.

"In a Glossary of this nature you will easily imagine Festus is often cited and illustrated; the emendations of Scaliger upon that author are frequently confirmed, and sometimes new ones proposed; and since other authors, both sacred and profane, receive light from Mr. Baxter in abundance of instances, I shall just give a specimen or two of his illustrations in each particular.

"In p. 33, we have a new interpretation of Psalm lxviii. 13, 14. He translates the original thus: Si requieveritis sub oris alarum columbæ deargentatæ, cujus alarum terga sunt de fulgore auri; hæc, ubi disperserit Saddai reges per eam, nivea comparebit in vexillo.' It was the custom, he tells us, for the Hebrew armies, as well as the Syrians and Assyrians, to have a dove for their, standard; to which the Psalmist alluding says, If you shall abide by your standard the silver-coloured dove, whose wings are gilt with gold, when the Almighty by its means has scattered the kings, the marks of victory shall be displayed in your ensign, and your dove appear as white as snow.' All interpreters have blindly followed the LXXII in this place, who either ignorantly, or perhaps wilfully, rendered it obscure; for, being unwilling to gratify the Syrians, who worshiped a dove, with so honourable a mention of their deity, instead of translating the Hebrew word a standard, as they ought to have done, they made a proper name of it, and rendered it Mount Selmon. On this head he observes, there was a sect of Samaritans among the Jews, who corrupted Judaism with heathen notions, and confounded the true God with the Syrian PANTHEUS, who is the same with Deus Lunus, Adonis or Bacchus, Dea Luna, or Semiramis. These worshiped a dove, to speak in the terms of their gross idolatry, as the bird of God. By one of this sect he thinks the 4th book of Esdras was writ, which was justly condemned as uncanonical by the Council of Trent, though cited by Clemens Romanus. Accordingly he endeavours to shew evident marks of the Forger's principles in that book.-But the proofs being too long to insert here, I refer you to them, and several other curious observations, under the article Arossa, P.330.

"To come now to profane authors. In the sixth neid, where the poet represents his hero in Elysium, the commentators are miserably upon

AA 2

the

the rack to explain one particular in the descrip

tion.

"Ver. 658, Æneas sees,

lætum choro Paana canentes

Inter odoratum lauri nemus: unde superne Plurimus Eridani per sylvam volvitur amnis. 6 some the choir maintain

Beneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po Mounts up to woods above, and hides his head

below.

DRYDEN.

"The difficulty in the original I choose to represent in the words of the judicious Mr. Trapp: Servius, and after him Ruæus, interpret superne as of running from Elysium to the upper world. But I wish either of them had given us an instance, in any good author, in which superne is used for sursum, upwards. I imagine it is always used for desuper, from above. But, taking it in the sense which I choose, they know not how to account for unde, just before it. Why not? The river runs from the wood, because it runs beyond it one way, and comes from above, because it is beyond it another way; the wood being situated in a declivity.' Accordingly he translates the passage thus:

In the fragrant grove

Of laurel; whence descending through the wood Eridanus abundant rolls his waves.'

Though this translation may possibly be just, the comment upon it, I fear, will hardly hold. That superne does not always signify desuper is plain from Hor. lib. II. od. 20. Album mutor in alitem superne.' So again, De Art. Poet. ver. 4.

Desinat in piscem, mulier formosa superne.' And notwithstanding the authority of Lexicographers and Grammarians *, I much question whether it is

* I add Grammarians, because they place this adverb only among those which express motum à loco; whereas, with equal

ever used in that signification; and much more, whether it is ever so used, without being joined to some other word that necessarily betokens descent, Volvitur superne can never signify rolls from on high, if superne devolvitur possibly may do so. The words then in Virgil, if they are so to be connected, can signify no more than from whence the river rolls on high, not sursum, but in supero loco. But if unde superne joined together will express the same as ex quo supero loco, the sense will then be from which ascent the river rolls. Either of these constructions (and these are the only ones the words can possibly admit) is a confirmation of Mr. Baxter's explication, viz. That we have no occasion to consider this Eridanus in Elysium as descending from Earth; no not of coming from beyond the wood where Eneas views it (for you may, if you please, suppose it to take its rise there); since as the antients divided the world into three parts, so they gave the same names to rivers and places in each of them, and they had a distinct Eridanus in heaven, in earth, and the shades below; as they had three suns, &c. p. 284.

"To give one specimen more of Mr. Baxter's illustrations, I shall mention that of the fainous passage in Martial, lib. xi. Epigr. 95. Jura, Verpe per Anchialum.' Anchialus he supposes to be made from a Hebrew words Anchiel, h. e. Rudens Deus, or' of, a word compounded of

and, as Ariel, Leoninus Deus, is of and. You know it was a common scandal cast upon the Jews, and afterwards on the Christians, that they worshiped an ass. Theodorus, a Latin Jewish poet, to clear himself of the crime he was taxed with, swears by Jupiter Tonans, an oath which Martial knew he took in vain, how

right at least, it ought to be ranked among the Adverbia în loco ; just as intus is placed under both classes, being used to express from within, when joined to exit, evocat, prodit, or a verb com pounded with some such preposition.

sacred

sacred soever it was among the Heathens, who esteemed that God as the more especial avenger of perjury. The heathen poet then thus retorts the sneer upon the Jewish :

No, by thy long-ear'd braying godhead swear, Such is thy Jove, thy dreadful thunderer.' The foundation of this false report concerning the Jews has been matter of as much enquiry as the passage before us. Fuller supposes it to have

taken its rise from what Moses relates of Anah the Horite, Gen. xxxvi. 24. This was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father.' He might with as much reason have pitched upon any other passage in the books of Moses, where an ass is so much as mentioned. Tanaquil Faber, therefore, having justly wondered that so great a man as Fuller should invent, or Vossius subscribe to such a poor solution, proposes another of his own, in Ep. vi. Vol. I. Josephus,' says he, gives us an account of Onias's building a Jewish temple near Heliopolis, from whom the city where the temple stood was called so, and the country thereabouts

xupa Ovís. The people of Alexandria, and other Grecians, hearing the Jews often talk of going up Eis Thy 'Ovie, wilfully mistook it for Ove; and from hence propagated the story, as if they had it from the Jews' own mouths, that they went up to the temple of an ass.'

"Without examining into the probability of this conjecture, I proceed to Mr. Baxter's: and, to prepare the way for your reception of it, be pleased to reflect on the opposition between the Jews and Egyptians in their religious customs. It is remarkable (as Origen observes) that the ceremonial law appointed those beasts in particular to

Miscell. Sacr. 1. iii. c. 8.

De Idololatr. 1. iii. c. 75. p. 565. + Contra Celsum, 1. iv. p. 225.

be