life and existence to all things. A noble leffon in so small a painting. The next Egyptian figure which charmed The image me in this lady's repofitory is an image of of Orus. Orus two feet high. It is of the stone Bafaltes, and well done. The right hand holds a Cornu-copia, which has the head of the Upupa upon the top of it; and in the left you fee a lituus or trumpet. A triangle annexed to a circle is figured on the right-fide, and on the left there is a Gnomon. This image to be fure represents the world, and we are to learn from the circle and triangle, that this world was made by the unerring wisdom of God: the Gnomon fhews the perfect proportion of its parts. The Cornu-copia denotes the fertility of the earth; the head of the Upupa, Hoopoe, the beautiful variety of the creation (a); and the lituus, or trumpet, the harmony of the fyftem. What can be more beautiful and inftructive than this Egyptian fymbolical learning? (a) The Upupa or Hoopoe is one of the most beautiful birds, in figure refembling a plover. The neck is the finest reddish brown, and its breaft milk-white, va riegated with lines of blue. It has fmall bright piercing eyes, and a large head ornamented with a creft the most elegant. The creft is compofed of a double feries of feathers, two fingers breadth high, and continued from the bafe of its black bent beak to the very back part of the head. It confifts of twenty-fix feathers, which are white, black, and yellow, and it has a power of raifing or depreffing them at pleafure. Hh 3 As As to the hiftory of Orus, I think the bifhop of Clogher has made it plain, that he was the fourth fon of Mizor or Ofiris, who was the son of Ham, the third fon of Noah; and that from him the Grecians borrowed the character of their God Apollo: It is likewife plane from the fymbolical reprefenta tion in Montfaucon, that Orus, Neph, Anubis, Thoth, and Hermes, are the fame. A dog holds between his paws the lyre, of Apollo, and the caduceus of Mercury. The dog was the emblem of Anubis or Thoth; the lyre was the fymbol of Orus or Apollo, and the caduceus of Hermes or Mercury. The reason why Anubis, Cnuphis, 'or Cnu» bis, had the dog for his emblem, and is there fore by Virgil called Anubis Latrator, is this, that Neph, the fourth fon of Mizor, or Offris (a), grandfon to Ham or Cham, and great grandfon to Noah, led his colony or nation, upon the difperfion after the flood, about 240 years from the deluge, to the fouthern borders of Egypt, upon the river Nile, to a region from him called Napata, where queen Candace afterwards reigned, and there, in an ifland adjoyning to Syene, made the Nilometre, a machine for meafuring the en (a) It is from the word Neph, or Cheph, the name of this grandfon of Ham, that they made the words Enuphis, Cnubis, and Anubis, which we find on the Talifman's, crease crease of the Nile: And as that brightest star in the firmament, now called the dog-ftar, appears every year in Egypt, when the Nile begins to overflow its bank, that is, in the month of July, Cneph made the dog his first characteristic, or hierogliphical mark in his Nilometre, and intended by the fymbol to warn them to prepare their grounds for the overflowing of the Nile, as the bright July star now appeared, and the water of the Nile in the Nilometre had rifen as high as the first mark, the figure of a dog. When this was fo, the floodings were coming on. The dog, as it were, barked, when the water reached him. This made aftronomers call this ftar the dog-ftar: And from hence Cnuphis did obtain the name of Taautus, or Thoth, or Taaut, that is, the dog. Neph or Cnuphus was called Orus, because the Grecians had made him their Apollo, Ore, being Hebrew, for light: And he was named Hermes, that is, the prophet, or interpreter of the will of the Gods, on account of the importance of his obfervations by his Nilometre. He could know thereby before-hand, when it would begin to rife; and after it had risen, what would be its effects; whether ordinary or extraordinary (a). How long this Orus or Hh 4 Neph, (a) The Nilometre was a canal cut out of one intire ftone, in the bank of the Nile, in which were engraven fe. An image Neph, the great grandfon of Noah, lived, An image of Ofiris of bronze, three feet of Oniris. high, is another fine curiofity in the repofitory of the late Mrs. Harcourt. This figure of a human body has the head of a hawk, and a fceptre in its right hand. A bull, the fymbol of Ofiris, is engraven on the breast, and a beetle, or fearabaus on the shoulder. The defign of this is to reprefent the power and all-feeing providence of the fupreme God. This Ofiris was Mizor, the fourth fon of Ham and my lord of Clogher thinks, that he was brother to Melchizedec, or Canaan, the youngeft. fon of Ham, to whom Abram payed tithes, in the valley of Shaveb, as to the king of righteousness. feveral lines, to denote the different encreases of the Nile ; and to which were added feveral characteristic marks to denote upon certain day's the future encrease of the Nile. By this means they were enabled to form certain future prefages, and prognofticat concerning the enfuing season. By By the way, this notion of Melchifedec is vaftly different from the opinion of fome great divines, who tell us he was the Word. Some fay he was the Holy Ghoft, as I read in the book of a learned doctor not long ago. But bishop Clayton obferves, that Melchifedec in the Hebrew fignifys king, and Tfadec or Sedec, righteoufnefs: That Sedec was a family title conferred on the kings of this place, and as Canaan was the first parent of all the inhabitants of that country, St. Paul speaking from the common tradition, might justly fay, he was without father, without mother, with out ancestors, a generation, or defcent. I think this is juft. The Chinefe fay Fobi, their first king, had no father. Seneca fays, Servius had no mother. ncus had no father: that is, it was not known who was the father of Ancus, or the mother of Servius. And as Canaan had not, according to history, either beginning of days or end of life, the apostle might well fay fo, and that he abided a priest continually Every father of a family was the prieft of the family. And as to tithes paid, this was due to Canaan as prince of the whole country. The tenth of the spoils was the prince's due not only in Judea, but in other countries. This my lord of Clogher fhews from various authors, to which he refers in his chronology of the Hebrew Bible vindicated. You |
