tion, all united to precipitate me into a most fearful dejection, I prostrated myself at the feet of the altar, my heart elanced towards the divinity, and I became consoled. A ray of light seemed to pierce through the shades: my soul swam in all the illusions of an ecstasy. In my devout enthusiasm, I seemed to feel myself blended with the deity, and absorbed in her bosom. A thousand flattering dreams, more ravishing than the delusions of those pleasures of which I am ignorant, lulled my ideas, and darted to the bottom of my soul a delicious intoxication, in which were intermixed tears, sighs, and I know not what subversion of my entire existence. I am confident that my features were then more animated: my bosom palpitated, and my whole frame trembled with an emotion which I was, nevertheless, fearful of losing. I seemed sensible of a crisis like that which is felt in a burning fever. Languor succeeded to the vivacity of this exaltation of all my senses, and I fell by degrees into a soft and profound sleep.

What a disturbance!-I found myself struggling in impi ous and sacrilegious arms. A man, abusing a power which knows no limits, Heliogabalus, by dint of gold, of seduction, and, above all, of threats, had compelled one of the venerable priestesses to open the sanctuary to him. Already his unrestrained hand..... My bosom was uncovered, my dress dis ordered, my veil torn from me. In the very face of the tutelary goddess of divinity, he proceeded....O gods! and ye lanced not your lightnings!-My piercing shrieks resounded, and lost themselves in the murmuring vaults: no voice replied, except a plaintive echo from the bottom of the sanctuary. The barbarian pursued, and pressed me as a kite descending on a dove. I fall: we roll together to the very steps of the altar. The ra visher was overpowering his prey, when, with an utmost effort, extending my arms, and seising hold of the altar, I overthrew the sacred tripod in my resistance. It fell: the fire was extinguished. At that moment was the wretch seised with deserved horror. You well know that an extinction of the sacred fire presages the direst calamities. Ah! unquestionably did it announce to himself the termination of an abominable reign, marked with the most execrable violence. Easily did I now disentangle myself from his arms: I reached abruptly a spot in the temple, where he could not expect to find me: I there heard him, weak as he had before been furious-for he readily passes from the excess of debauchery to that of superstition-I heard him lavish to the Divinity the profoundest prayers, and, with his forehead sunk in the dust, ask pardon for an outrage which he yet burned to consummate.-Indignant, elevated by a sense of my situation, I deemed it right to make that response which the gods would have responded themselves. I was leaning against a statue constructed for the delivery of oracles: the

attist had so dextrously contrived it, that the voice of a person placed in its interior produces a tremendous sound, multiplied by the deep cavities of a subterraneous echo. I inclosed myself in this statue, and I uttered this oracle:- Tremble, villain! thine end approaches: a worthier mortal shall occupy the throne which is stained by thy crimes. The guilt of thy life shall be reflected on thy memory: thou shalt perish like Nero; and, more miserable still, shalt leave a name more infamous than even his."

For a long time he remained silent, his face pressed against the ground, and in a manner thunderstruck. At length he arose, but trembling, but agitated by the Furies. He strove to speak, but could utter nothing more than sounds inarticulate, and cries of terror. He wanders, he raves, he feels lost in this temple, as in a labyrinth: the door was before his eyes-he perceived it not. A hundred times he re-trod his own steps; his knees tottered; he runs headlong against every object he meets. A blow at length pushed him towards the entrance: he beheld it, and ran off with curses. Presently afterwards one of his confidents re-entered with a torch, restored the lamp, re-lighted it, and retired. His emissaries have since brought me letters. How haughtily does he express his will! what a style has he made choice of! Every thing makes me believe that unworthy priestesses, corrupted by this infamous man, have assisted his schemes.-No: the state in which I found myself prior to his attempt was not natural: they must, by a perfidious philter, have striven to disorder my senses. supreme gods! if they have betrayed me!-I have but a confused idea of all that passed at first: I cannot even in thought trace back the succession of every object: my memory and my modesty are equally alarmed. Can I have surrendered either the one or the other? This transaction, in which I suspect both my collegues and the emperor, compels me to throw myself at your feet: save me!'

Ah!

The two letters that follow, give an account of the prosecution and result of this sacrilegious intrigue. It does not appear that the person of the fair Vestal had been violated: but the emperor was too bold a gallant, and too well versed in the mys teries of priestcraft, to be deterred from the accomplishment of his libidinous intent, by any thing that had hitherto occurred. By threats and corruption, he easily obtained subsequent introductions to the presence of the consecrated maid; and finding, with respect to herself, all entreaties and menaces alike unavailing, he at length, in a fit of revenge, has recourse to the pitiful expedient of publicly accusing her to the whole college of the priesthood of having suffered the Vestal flame of the temple to become extinguished, and to be re-lighted by a stran

ger's hand. Of this execrable crime, under the direction of so truly-generous and noble-spirited a prince as Heliogabalus, she is of course found guilty, and sentenced to the common punishment of being buried alive; when the emperor himself, with wonderful disinterestedness, steps forward to avert so tremendous a punishment, and insists upon raising her to the imperial throne by a public marriage. Deprived of a will of her own, the unfortunate Vestal is compelled to assent: the marriage is consummated; and the lust of the monster being gratified, consistently with his usual caprice, she is instantly repudiated, in order to make way for another favourite.

His perfidy, his debauchery, his vile and besotted selfishness, cannot, however, triumph for ever. The people despise him; the senate hate him; and, what is of far more consequence still, the prætorian bands declare against him. His numerous plans to murder his avowed successor, Alexian, uniformly fail, through the circumspection of those to whom he is entrusted; and at length, consistently with historic truth, in a fit of popular fury, he falls a victim to his own tyranny and lasciviousness; and is murdered, with a thousand stabs, in a filthy ditch, into which he had ran for protection.

His body, after having been dragged through all the streets of Rome, and mangled by an indignant people, was at last thrown into the Tiber; his name was struck out of the list of public feasts; and his memory consecrated to eternal infamy.”

Alexander Severus succeeded, of course, to the empire, amidst the gratulations of the senate and the unbounded plandits of the vociferous citizens.

Such is the subject, and such, so far as we have been able to analyse and give specimens of it, the execution of the historic novel before us. It is not deficient in interest: but a much larger portion might have been added. The period is highly propitious: but the writer is scarcely competent to the task he has undertaken: we should like to see it in abler hands. For a regular drama, or embellished history, it affords ample scope; and we scarcely know in which it would succeed best.

ART. VIII.-De Origine et Usu Obeliscorum, &c. On the Origin and Use of Obelisks. By George Zoega. (Continued from Vol. XXXVII. p. 495, and concluded.)

THE third chapter of this work, to which we now come, is assigned to the consideration of Egyptian pillars; and obelisks, as originating from them. Concerning these, however, a contrariety of opinion hath existed. Kircher, and others who have followed him, on the authority of Arabic writers, maintain,

that the obelisks were those pillars, or Hermetic columns, on which, Jamblichus asserts, the science of the Egyptians, whence Pythagoras and Plato drew their philosophy, was inscribed; whilst Pauw, with most later writers, denies that obelisks and pillars had any thing in common; from thinking that in the former, the figure was the chief object of regard, but in the latter, the inscriptions. Our author, notwithstanding, refers to the opinion he had repeatedly delivered, that the ornan, or pillar, included the obelisk, inasmuch as every cippus, column, or table, which the Egyptians erected with inscriptions, was comprehended under it; the term obelisk being applied to quadrilateral pillars, or to such as had four sides, which, imperceptibly diminishing, were conspicuous from their height, and either consecrated to the gods or placed within temples. Having accumulated various evidences to confirm this opinion, and adverted to the use of pillars among the Greeks, which he shows to have been chiefly monuments of stone, but not very large, containing an inscription, and sometimes decorated with sculpture, he points out their application to sepulchral purposes, roads, boundaries, doors judicatories, and temples, tablets with memorials of the dead, the great exploits of cities, or illustrious individuals, the crimes of off.nders, the limits of districts, leagues, laws, precepts of morality, the praises of the gods, or commemorative vows. After adducing, from the ancients, examples of each, he concludes the first section with observations on the fs, and a notice of documents attesting cures, in the Serapeum at Alexandria.

The second section begins with suggesting a resemblance between the Greek Herme with inscriptions, and the Egyptian mummy-like statues with hieroglyphics. These characters indeed were inscribed in Egypt to almost every object and purpose. It is to be observed of ancient authors, that they have written more accurately on the subject of pillars than of obelisks. The former, presenting inscriptions, were evidently erected as boundaries of kingdoms, or trophies of victory. Sometimes they were placed in front or at the entrance of temples, and were inscribed either with laws or intimations that concerned the utilities of life, the praises of the gods, or historical records. Others in shrines or caverns contained topics of deeper research.

Of the first sort of these pillars the most famous were those of Sesostris, conterminal with Syria and parts of Ethiopia. The consideration of these leading to the inquiry when Egypt began to be inhabited, our author regards that country as receiving colonies from Arabia, who were shepherds; and others from Ethiopia, who were tillers of the ground. The former he assigns to the Pelusian marshes and part of the Delta, with Babylon and Heliopolis, as far as the middle of the Heptanomid district.

While Thebes and Abydos, with many towns in the Thebaïs and Delta were built by the Ethiopians, who waged war, with various success, for many ages with the shepherds. To this date the history of Osiris is referred, who, coming a stranger from Ethiopia, is said to have improved the state of agriculture by the introduction of new inventions, and the communication to the Egyptians of other arts which greatly meliorated their condition. At length, however, being treacherously circumvented by Baby, chief of the shepherds, whom the Greeks call Typhon, he gave occasion to those mournful rites which became so conspicuous. After this the Thebaans prevailed, built Memphis, and took from the shepherds not only Heliopolis, but also Pelusium, or Abaris. But, from being divided into many cities, connected by no federative band, nor in amity with each other, they were often exposed to invasion both from the shepherds of the Delta, and the Arabs, and sometimes rendered subject to them, till at length Sesostris, or Sothis, son of Amenophis, retaking Pelusium, compelled the shepherds to betake themselves to the marshes, or to migrate into Arabia and Syria. Sothis having extended his arms into Palestine with success, returned into his own country, and was constituted the general head. Reducing the several cities of Egypt into the form of one republic, by means of laws which he pretended were communicated from the ancient divinity of the Egyptian priests through Hermes, he fixed, with the universal consent of the people, the rights and prerogatives of sovereign and subjects, and defined, more accurately than before, the duties of the various classes. As a precaution against incursions from Arabia, he built a wall on the isthmus of Hercöpolis, repressed the invasions of the Ethiopians, equipped a fleet in the Arabian galf for trading to India, and, by cutting canals through all its prefectures, rendered Egypt more healthy and fertile. His successors, under the influence of his laws and institutions, exerted themselves in improving their dominions, cultivated the arts of peace, adorned their cities with edifices, and thought not of extending their térritory; except that Mendes, or Osymandyas, who has been confounded with the Memnon of Homer, appears to have repelled the Arabians, Syrians, and Ethiopians (denominated by the later Greeks who have touched on the Egyptian affairs, Indians and Bactrians); and also that Sesac, who was probably the Sesonchis in the twenty-second dynasty of Manetho, called by the Greeks Asychis and Sasychis, took Judea, and plundered Jerusalem: for our author does not admit the condition of the Egyptian empire to have been such as to render credible the mighty expeditions attributed to its kings, nor the conquests of such distant provinces as have been ascribed to them, till, by the reform of the republic under Psammetichus, having arrogated to themselves dictatorial power, through the efforts of their native