mythology, as wielding the lightnings (and attendant thunders) of the heathen world. "Cœlo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare," are the words of Horace;-and again in the Ode beginning "Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens," (in which it is immaterial to my purpose, whether the author was or was not serious,) the cause assigned for his conversion is his having heard the thunder rolling in a cloudless sky. -Namque Diespiter Igni corusco nubila dividens Plerumque, per purum tonantes Egit equos, volucremque currum.' We have, in Virgil, a description of this formidable sceptre: the symbol of supreme and absolute celestial power. "His informatum manibus, jam parte politâ, These are the luminous and terrific bolts, which the same poet, in another place, represents the father of the gods as dealing round him. "Ipse Pater, mediâ nimborum in nocte, coruscâ And to recur to Horace, he too has armed Jupiter with this awful and flaming instrument of wrath. "Jam satis terris nivis atque diræ Terruit gentes." The golden brilliancy of those clouds, with which Jupiter and Juno were encompassed, on The commentator on the expressions imbris torti, (in the passage which I have extracted from the eighth book of the Eneid) interprets them to mean hail. His words are these: Accipio de grandine; secutus Servium, et vim vocis. Imbris torti Servius renders constricti, et coacti in grandinem. †This part of the picture corresponds with the words rutili tres ignis, in Virgil's description of the unfinished thunderbolt. Pindar styles Jupiter povosgórav, rubentem fulmine. Mount Ida,*-the manifestation of this God to Semele, with its effects,—the fable of Prometheus, (involving an assertion of the celestial origin of Flame,)—are amongst the innumerable instances, which might be given from profane writers, to prove how universally the notion has obtained, that light is the emanation and effluence of a Divine nature. The practice and mode of sacrifice-prevailing throughout the world-also favour my hypothesis, of a supposed connexion between heaven and the element of fire. To consume the victim in the flames-was to offer it to the Deity. And to turn from heathen abuses, even in the language of Holy Writ, such a sacrifice is described, to the Legislator of his chosen people, by the Deity himself, as "an offering made by fire, unto the Lord."+ * ἐγω νέφος ἀμφικαλύψω Χρύσεον. And again, --ἐπὶ δε νεφέλην ἕσσαντο -II. xiv. It may still be called an element: a simple substance. For Chemistry has not yet attained to the de composition of fire; though it may have conjectured it to be a compound of free caloric and light. Exodus, xxix. 18. Writers, Christian, though not inspired, seem also to admit this doctrine, of the celestial and divine nature and original of Light. Thus Gray has said of Milton "The secrets of th' Abyss to spy, He passed the flaming bounds of Place and Time. The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw, but blasted with excess of light, Again, in Spenser's legend of Holiness, after the Knight of the Red Cross has been contemplating celestial visions, it is said that "Dazed were his eyne, Through passing brightness, which did quite confound So dark are earthly things, compared to things divine."+ That connexion, indeed, which the last * This perhaps is a conceit. But if so, it is of the very best description of concetti. + Faery Queen, b. i. c. 10, st. 67.—“This Divine Light" (says Burnet) "overbears, and distinguishes itself from common light, though it be at mid-day. 'Twas about noon that the light shined from heaven, and surrounded St. Paul. (Acts xxii. 6.) Be it day or night, this Light, which flows from a more vital source, will always be predominant.”—Theory of the Earth. I quotation adverts to and implies, is one in which, by a sort of instinct, we acquiesce; and for example, feel the Divine influences, when we are favoured with them, to be a spiritual illumination; an enlightening of our souls.* Agreeable to this notion is that pious, beautiful, and pathetic invocation, which occurs in the third book of Paradise Lost: "So much the rather thou, celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers, Irradiate there plant eyes: all mist from thence : Purge and disperse; that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight." The same divine Poet, from whom I have just cited, calls angels "celestial Ardours ;" "Sons" and "Progeny of Light." I make no apology for adding the following extracts from the same work. They are authori ties in favour of my hypothesis; and incom * "Ye brethren," (says St. Paul,) "are not in darkness : ye are all the children of Light; and the children of the day. We are not of the night," &c. 1st Thess. ch. 5, v. 4, 5. Our Saviour who (as has already been remarked) calls himself emphatically, "the light of the world"-also describes the Baptist as "a burning and a shining light."—John, v. 35. + In fact, Ardours are but Seraphim; from the Hebrew Zaraph, to burn. |