The chronology of the Hindûs, adapted to their astronomical periods, is extravagance itself. The Vedas are not so old as the Homeric age; and many of the Puranahs are comparatively modern. It is to the institutes of Menú, therefore, the principal sources of the Indian sagas and mythology, that we must chiefly refer, for our guidance through the flowery but perplexed paths of Hindû superstition. According to Schlegel, there are four æras of Oriental learning and superstition. To the first belong the doctrines of the emanation and transmigration of souls: to the second, astolatry, including the worship of nature, the visible elements, and the heavenly bodies: to the third, the dogma of the two principles, or the conflict between the good and the evil principle; and the fourth period is distinguished as the age of Pantheism, a doctrine to which Mr. Schlegel attributes a refined and metaphysical character, approaching in some of its traits to the philosophy of Europe. * Dr. Prichard observes, (sect. v. p. 252.) that this gradation of Hindû mythology has been confirmed by the researches of the Asiatic Society but he justly adds that Pantheism, which Mr. Schlegel attributes to the last period, is as antient as the oldest remains of Indian learning; and that the system of the Vedas may be truly designated as Pantheism, since it includes the idea of the material universe within that of the Divine nature. These observations are illustrated by striking passages from the Vedas; for which, and for the doctrine of emanation, we refer the reader to the work. : We are now come to the analogy between the superstitions of Egypt and those of India, which consists in similar ideas and representations of the Deity; and in both systems the idea of God was not an abstraction but a personification of nature. A satisfactory comparison is then instituted between the ceremonies and figurative representations of antient Egypt, and the rites and doctrines of the third and fourth æras of eastern mythology. All abstract ideas of creation or emanation have taken their flight from India; and the material universe is contemplated as an infinite frame endued with a living nature, of which intellectual and moral attributes form no part, while the merely animal powers are celebrated in all the varieties which a corrupt imagination could suggest. Sensuality and wanton revelry exhibit every where the most obscene emblems. Such is the worship of Siva, and of Bhavani his lascivious consort; and such also was the reli * See an article connected with this subject, in our last Number, p. 173. * gion of Osiris and Isis. The two polytheisms are approximated in detail: Siva is the God of re-production; so is Osiris; and Siva, as the God of destruction, is identified with Typhon, as is Bhavani with Isis. In his fourth book, Dr. P. examines the exoteric or popular worship of the Egyptians, and the various civil institutions emanating from their religion. It is in the rites of animal worship, those disgusting puerilities so well ridiculed by Lucian and Juvenal, that their popular superstition chiefly developes itself; and Dr. P., p. 303., assembles the most remarkable facts from antient authors, to illustrate this part of his subject. We cannot attend him in these details. Cats, dogs, oxen, the hawk, the ibis, goats, deer, monkeys, the ichneumon, the shrew-mouse, the lion, and a list of animals and plants too long to be specified, were objects of religious veneration. Dr. Prichard is of opinion, chiefly on the authority of Plutarch and Porphyry, that animal-worship arose from the doctrine of emanation, which ascribed all the operations of nature to certain dæmons, or spiritual beings, who were supposed to animate different portions of the universe, and were themselves emanations from the Deity, or soul of the universe. In his notes on this subject, he compares these rites with the peculiar superstitions of India; and the comparison brings strong attestation to the affinity of those religions. The civil institutions of the Ægyptians, their division into castes, their hierarchy and its subdivisions, are next analyzed, with considerable learning and correctness; and the treatise closes with a comparison of the Mosaic ordinances with the laws and customs of the Egyptians. With regard to the analysis, which Dr. Prichard has subjoined, of the remains of Egyptian chronology, as it is not connected with the scope and purpose of his work, we must content ourselves with stating that it is an ingenious attempt to reconcile the discrepancy between the historical records of antient Egypt and those of the Sacred Writings, in point of chronology; and to prove that, notwithstanding the high antiquity claimed in the Egyptian records, there is in reality no want of harmony between them, but that on the contrary the antiquity assumed by the Egyptians, from their own archives, is far within the æra assigned by the LXX for the second origin of mankind. We have thus endeavoured to present a slight sketch of this elaborate work. If its arrangement be not clear, and its Compare the worship of the Lingam with the Phallic ceremonies. Maurice, Ind. Ant. vol. ii. diction diction be occasionally too verbose for the intelligible enunciation and simple developement of its propositions, it abounds with much erudition, collected by various and diffusive reading. The recapitulations are so frequently interposed as to break the continuity of the reasoning, and too much space is occupied by conjectural learning and exploded hypothesis; yet the author nevertheless ascends by a copious induction of particulars to the grand and primary truth which, if not the exclusive object, is at least the principal result of his labours. We mean the purpose of shewing that a belief in the existence of a Deity and of a future state, as those words are understood among Christian divines and philosophers, is a principle of the earliest religion of India and of Egypt. Under all its depravations, this primitive spark has been kept alive; and this is no mean argument, we should conceive, for its divine origin. It has been obscured by the luxuriance of its branches and the exuberance of its foliage, but the trunk is impassive and immortal: "Pondere fixa suo est, nudosque per aera ràmos Ostendens, trunco, non frondibus, efficit umbram." We are grateful to the diligence of a writer who has brought so much corroboration to this essential truth; and we confess our obligations, also, for the additional evidence which he has collected to shew the connection between the superstitions of Hindustan and those of Egypt. In this comparison, he has proceeded cautiously and surely; evidently with less solicitude to establish systems than to elucidate truths. We gladly make this remark, because it is a track which has misled many learned and ingenious writers. Whoever runs in quest of analogies will be sure to imagine that he has found them, and neither erudition nor genius will protect him from the illusion. We remember the three states through which Dr. Burnet, in his Sacred Theory, a work of the sublimest fancy and most extensive learning, conceived that the world was destined to pass, and his fanciful typification of them by the three Jewish temples. The mephitic vapours of hypothesis seem not, however, to have ascended into the brain of Dr. Prichard, whose analogies are built on the steady basis of the most unquestionable facts. In taking our leave of the subject, we cannot abstain from a transient reflection, irresistibly forced on our minds. The superstition of Egypt has passed away, and its very ruins have almost perished: "Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud." REV. JULY, 1820. R May May we indulge a hope that the hoary systems of India, the degrading brutishness of her idolatry, and the consecrated follies of her mythology, will give way to the benignant influences of Christianity and reason? We are not forgetful of the unsleeping zeal and the undying fervour of Christian exertions in those regions;-a branch only of the same benevolence, which in every corner of the earth gladly treads its pious pilgrimage and endures its salutary toil; of the same healing charity, which comprehends in its embrace of love all the divided families of the world, and proffers to all a share of its blessings. Still, however, it would be presumptuous rashly to answer the question for there is a will that over-rules us sometimes in our best efforts, and our most laudable resolves. With the picture of India before us, and its moral as well as physical condition presented to our contemplation, it might be a topic of inquiry at least, if not of conclusive inference, whether it be not among those destinations which dispose of human projects, and controul human wisdom, to baffle our schemes of conversion, and to leave in that remote country the mind and the nature of man to work their own way to perfection. We are not always permitted to attain that which it is virtuous to wish for it frequently happens that we are required to keep our best feelings in subjection to times and circumstances; to moderate our zeal by our impediments; to preserve a middle course between immature expectation and an impious despair; to temper our confidence in our capacities by salutary remembrances of their frailty; and to pause in the pursuit even of undisputed good, where the price to be paid for it is inevitable evil. Let us not be deceived by false computations of the advances hitherto made in that pious enterprize, for little has in fact been done. The outer works have been scarcely shaken; and against the fortress of that antiquated error, the inveterate power and traditional influence of the Brahminical priesthood, the key-stone of the civil and religious arch, not a blow has been struck. The work, then, must be long, and the result distant. Every rational being must wish for Hindû conversion to a faith which refreshes and quickens the growth of moral and social virtue, and disciplines the soul for the high enjoyments to which it is destined: but the noblest aspirations of the heart must be often checked by the law and condition of humanity. Time and space will not be annihilated by the fervent desire of lovers; nor will the vast impediments that oppose our beneficent endeavours give way to the wish of piety and the efforts of wisdom. ART, ART. II. Notice sur le Caractère et les Ecrits de Mad. de Staël, par Mad. Necker de Saussure. 8vo. pp. 318. Treuttel and Würtz, London. 1820. ART. III. Sketch of the Life, Character, and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein. By Mad. Necker de Saussure, 8vo. pp. 364. 12s. Boards. Treuttel and Würtz. ART. IV. Treasures of Thought, from Mad. de Staël-Holstein. To which are prefixed cursory Remarks on her Writings, and a Monody on her Death. By the Author of " Affection's Gift," &c. 12mo. 5s. Boards. Baldwin and Co. THE HE first of these volumes is a London reprint of the French biography of Mad. de Staël, which has been recently published by her cousin and friend Mad. Necker de Saussure: the second is a faithful and not an unskilful translation of the same book; and the third is a selection of beauties from the writings of Mad. de Staël, which would agreeably illustrate the biographical notices if it had been made with critical taste, and had comprehended the latest and best effusions of her pen. The brilliant and useful career of this celebrated woman deserves the contemplation of her cotemporaries, and will command with the progress of time an increasing interest, co-extensive with the establishment of those liberal ideas and institutions which she has done so much to recommend and to secure. She stands at the head not merely of female authors, but of influential women; and she may be compared with the Aspasias and Zenobias of antiquity, not only in accomplishment but in practical ascendancy over the great men of her age. Accustomed with the lips of the Graces to proclaim the wish of benevolent genius, she spoke in the name of refinement, of liberty, and of wisdom; became the acknowleged interpretess of the average will, or common sense, of the thinking world; and gave throughout Europe a fashion to what had hitherto been a principle. The mother of Madame de Staël, Madame Necker, at the time of her marriage, had enjoyed a more extensive and finished course of education than that of her daughter at the same age. By her father, a learned clergyman, she had been instructed in branches of learning not common in her sex, and that spirit of method, which leads to the acquisition of knowledge of every kind. Endowed with firmness of character, great strength of mind, and ample capacity for labour, Madame Necker obtained great success in her studies; and hence she was led to suppose, that every thing might be acquired by dint of study. Accordingly she studied her self, she studied society, individuals, the art of writing, that of conversing, that of housekeeping, and above all that of preserving the purity of her principles, without. neglecting any thing that R 2 could |