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PART 11.] Elwick Church.→→Portland Fase.-Death of Richard II. 589

ELWICK CHURCH, Durham.
HE Churety of Elwick, co. Dur

History (vol. III. page 85), is a little picturesque, grey structure, with a low massy tower and buttresses. It occu pies a remarkable knoll, or swell, on the edge of a deep gul, or ravine, which divides it from the long scattered village of Elwick eastward. The prospect from the churchyard stretches far and wide over the level cultivated country to the South and East, with the lofty Beacon-hill on the North

west.

The nave, divided from the chancel by a low circular arch, has ailes from round pillars, supporting pointed arches. The tower seems added to the nave on the South, or front of the South aile. The Church was repaired, and the lead exchanged for slate, in 1813.

The only monument in the Church was erected by the late Chief Justice Parker to his brother, and is as follows: "Memoriæ sacrum Roberti Parker, S. T. P. cujus propè corpus requiescit. Qui stirpe antiquâ et honestâ, in agro Staffordiensi, ortus, apud Carthusianos literis imbutas fuit; deinde Cantabridgiæ, omni liberali doctrinâ politissimus, literas sacras præcipuè coluit, Ecclesiæ Anglicana decus et tutamen; regi et reipublicæ amicus, suavissimis moribus, incorruptâ vitâ, res sacras hujus parochie rector per annos xxxvi feliciter curavit. Obiit XVIII die Augusti, anno Christi MDCCLXXVI. ætatis LXXIV.

"Hoc marmor Thomas Parker, eques auratus, et serenissimo regi, Georgio Tertio, a consiliis secretis, fratri de se optimè merito moerens posuit."

I

Mr. URBAN, Muirtown, Nov. 19. CANNOT help expressing some surprise at the new views given on two very contrary subjects in your Ootober Number.

The first is the Portland Vase, p. 302. I think that any one at all versed in the arts must allow that the side representing the sinking female figure, gives the most unequivocal picture of Death. The figure is sinking upon the broken columns, &c. of earthly grandeur, which are falling to pieces frotn beneath her; the torch of life is not only extinguished, but has fallen from her feeble grasp; the face and attitude incomparably (as so many antient pieces do) represents the departure of the soul from this earthly abode; while the two figures intensely gazing, but with averted bodies, paint the deep interest

and the horror which the fatal moment naturally inspires. The story is carriedsoul into its immortal state, conducted (as in the tomb of Psammis, &c. and on the Hamilton vases, &c.) by its Ge nius; the Serpent denoting the immortal nature of the new existence. The bottom, the silence of the tomb.

This Vase has contained human ashes, and was found in a sepulchral monument under the Monte del Grano near Rome; and no doubt can remain that it gave an account of the states of departure from mortality into immortal life.

As to a figure, from fatigue, resting upon ruinous heaps, and the fallen extinguished torch being the emblem of Fatigue, not of Death, surely no argument is necessary. The same idea (whether part or not of the mysteries of Eleusis) is often expressed upon the Egyptian tombs; and is indeed the paramount idea of every religion which promises an immortal futurity: such promises as are generally given upon all modern sepulchral monuments.

My next remarks are upon the new idea given of the death of Richard the Second, p. 314. That every death of the kind has occasioned a world of surmise, and many pretenders personating the Monarch deceased, is notorious, both in English, Russian, and every other history. Henry IV. was a man of no scruples, and of no lenity; the death of Richard gave the only chance for his holding his usurped sway in peace; and after all, the badness of his title kept himself, his son, and grandson, in constant trouble, till at last the Crown fell to the house of York. That Richard was supposed to have been poisoned, was believed by many; but the general account is, that having by his timorous caution defied his keepers to poison him, Exton went down and slew him in prison. A young man of about 30 years old, strong and healthy, dying of chagrin, or of any natural death, so soon after being deposed, is improbable. In fact, he was of so feeble or grovelling a soul, that his loss is known to have had little effect on his mind: had he been voluntarily or forcibly starved, his face, when displayed in Cheapside to all London, must have shewn the effects of such a death;-or had any one else personated him, his well-known face would have detected

the

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Death of Richard II.-Sculpture at Barnack explained. [xcIII.

the trick. What then is there to urge
against the common belief that he
fell by the pole-axe of Exton? It is
proverbial that the deposition and
deaths of Kings are events very close
in time. Froissart visited him a short
time before his death, and presented
his "Meliador" to him at Eltham, in-
troduced by Sir Rich. Credon. Though
the precise nature of his death was a
matter of doubt, no one doubted the
violence of it; and the display of his
face in London was merely to show he
was dead, and thus not a subject to
fight for. In fact, Froissart mentions
the guilt of Henry in the most expres-
sive way of naiveté. After the week's
work, which included the murder of
Richard, was finished, Henry went to
confession to his friend the Archbishop
of Canterbury, "of which," says ho-
nest Sir John, "he had indeed much
need." When Henry had the
got poor
King into fetters, the mode of his
death he would conceal or paint as he

pleased. But instead of going through

all that might, could, would, or should have happened, to show a little ingenuity, it is better to take the report of history, and the dictates of common sense: nor did any one, in the long disputes which this event created between York and Lancaster, ever attempt to go against the known facts so much as to relieve the house of Henry from the disgrace of the murder; though that must have been a stronger aid to it, than a whole field of soldiers armed in proof.

Mr. URBAN,

H. R. D.

Nov. 20. N the Supplement of 1810, pl. II.

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Gothic niche in Barnack Church, Northamptonshire, containing a kneeling headless figure in the act of devotion, and an angel descending, bearing in his hand a sealed or closed book, from which proceeds a radiance that falls upon the breast of the figure; above the head is a scroll on which the inscription is illegible. In the foreground is a tree, and behind is seen a town (or temple) in the distance. As every relic of antiquity is interesting in itself, particularly when it exhibits allegorical design, I beg leave to offer an explanation of the above.

It appears from the attitude of the figure, and the remains of Royal robes still visible, to be intended for King David, with the volume of the law

open before him; the angel is bring-
ing him the Gospel, which, as not be-
ing yet revealed, is represented as closed.
The light or radiance proceeding from
which is emblematical of that firm and
lively faith in the promises of God,
which was so conspicuously displayed
in the character of the Royal Psalmist.
The tree in the foreground alludes to
the vigour and strength of his devo-
tion in reference to Psalm xvi. 3. "And
he shall be like a tree planted by the
rivers of water that bringeth forth his
fruit in his season; his leaf also shall
not wither, and whatsoever he doth
shall prosper." The building in the
back-ground represents either the tem-
ple or the city of Jerusalem.
E. G. B.

Yours, &c.

Dissertation on a Sculpture found in
an artificial Cavern near the Town
of Babain in Upper Egypt.
Nov. 19.

Mr. URBAN,

M. visited this curious Monument,

SAVARY, the last person who

gives the following account of it: "A league to the South are the ruins of an antient city, which enrich the town of Babain, &c. Some distance beyond is a curious monument, a rock smoothed by the chisel, in the body of which a grotto has been cut fifty feet in diameter, and six deep; the bottom represents a sacrifice to the Sun, which is sculptured in demi-relief. On the right hand, two priests with painted caps (emblen of solar fire), raise their arms towards that orb, and touch the end of its rays with their fingers. Behind them, two children, with similar

wood piles sustained by seven vases with handles, and placed under the Sun, bear slain lanibs. On the left are two young maidens who are only attached to the stone by the feet and back. The Arabs have broken off their heads, and disfigured them with their lances. Various hieroglyphics around gave, no doubt, the history of the sacrifice, which I believe is meant to Jupiter Ammon, a symbolical deity, by which the antient Egyptians denoted the Sun's entrance into the sign of the Ram. This animal was consecrated to Jupiter, and they then celebrated the commencement of the astronomical year and the renewal of light."

The Sun, in whose honour the sculpture represents a sacrifice, was the first

PART II.]

Dissertation on a Sculpture found in Egypt.

deity of the Pagan world, originally adored by the Sabians on the extensive plains of Chaldea; this worship by degrees commingled itself with the pure deism of Zoroaster, as the Polytheism of India and Egypt. But it was not always that his worshippers adored him as the real God of the universe; they proceeded gradually from reverencing him as the great external symbol of the Deity, to sacrificing victims on his altars as the immediate source of earthly benefits. Under the name of Mithra, he was adored as the mediator between God and mankind; the animated intelligence supposed to reside in the planets, were his servants; the revolution of years was at last under his influence to usher in a period of universal sanctity and virtue; and Mithras himself, become incarnate on earth, was to purge it of evil demons, and rule an undivided empire. Such Iwas the Mithratic creed. From the sculpture in question, such appears also to have been the original belief of the Egyptians, introduced probably by Ham. The process from worshipping the Host of Heaven to the multitude of Egyptian deities, is easily conceivable. The origin of the Egyptian Trinity is explained by this worship, and the connection of their philosophy and mythology becomes more lucid as we trace them to this single source. The first thing which strikes the eye in the sculpture in question, is the arrangement of the sacrifice; three lambs are disposed on three altars of wood, each of which is composed of ten bundles, and the whole arrangement is supported by seven sacred vases. This disposition is pregnant with a clue to the mystery of the ancients. The numbers 3, 10, and 7, were their most sacred numericals. Thence they became so famous in the Pythagorean and Platonic effusions. The three altars are evidently representations of the triune nature resident in the Sun, fire, light, and spirit, a well-known portion of Hindoo philosophy. The number 10 is the famous magical decad of the ancients, and the reverence in which they held it was transferred to the Rosycrucians, who revived the Egyptian philosophy.

The veneration for these numbers was equal among the Hebrew Cabalists; for their famous mysteries of the Sephyroth, which, according to them, is the fountain of knowledge, and

591

which, translated, means light, consists either of ten branches, or ten concentric circles, the three outermost of which are devoted to the sacred names of the mystic Triad, the seven internal to their animated intelligence or angels. The whole theory probably was derived from the creed of the antient philosophers. That there is a sympathy and connection between all things, that the image of the great Deity is conspicuous everywhere, but most of all, in the Mirror of Himself, the Sun, and in the form of man made expressly after his image. Thence the seven prismatic colours, or light, which melt themselves into that of the Sun, became an adorned symbol of the attributes of God; and the three* radical colours, of His essence. Thence the Seven Voices of Memnon, which sympathized with the beams of the Sun; and the mystery of the Seven Vases preserved by the priests of Memphis. Thence the Seven Candlesticks of the Jews, types of the seven planets, which influenced, according to their belief, the solar light, and all the modifications of colours, metals, and sounds. Thence the antient enthusiasm for the correcting harmony of all things. That the human body was considered in this light, is evident, from the writings of Proclus and the Platonists. The number of the teeth, the tripartite division of the body, and of the decimal branches of the hands, were conceived by them to be abstractedly beautiful, ere they were clothed by Almighty fiat in material forms.

But

Such is the origin of the Pythagorean veneration for numbers. that the Almighty did not disdain to receive sacrifices of this mystic description is evident, from that of Abraham, when he received the promise to his seed;"And he said to him, take thee three heifers, three she-goats, and three rams, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon." The former are the sacred animals of Egypt, and of India; and the latter, common peace offerings of the Jews. When Balaam is proceeding to curse the Jews by incantations, a mystical sacrifice of a similar description, he erects seven altars, and kills a bullock and a ram on every altar. In the latter, the solar worship of the Magi, the founders of magic, is evi

The symbolical colours of the modern Brahmins and Jews are the same.

dent;

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