well as to the North-weft quarters by the people of Togarmah, and remained pure, for many ages, in those places fo remote from thefe fcenes of action, in those kingdoms that were first established. We fee idolatry began very early in Greece, and that after its establishment there from Egypt and Phenicia, it overtook, at last, the true religion in every corner of the earth, and fubverted it; except in Shem's line, in which it was moft wonderfully preferved, and confirmed, in Abraham. Hence it will be easy to conclude, that Britain and Ireland were inhabited before it was corrupted in the isles of Elisha; and it amounts to a proof, that they were among the first that were driven out of their own country, who arrived in our islands, long before the irruption made upon them by Deucalion, because they long continued to worship the TRUE GOD, as it is recorded in the annals of Ireland, in these kingdoms, before idolatry overtook them from the

continent.

THAT there was a very early correfpondence by fea, between the Greeks and the Britons and Irish, is very probable, if not certain, from a remarkable anecdote, which ftrongly points out among them, that they were, at length, worfhippers of Bel, or Baal: now the idol Baal, which the Greeks afterwards called Bell, was worshipped by the houfe of Abab, and he began his reign 918 years before Chrift. The Babylonians worshipped, under this name, the ftars and hoft of heaven; or fuch heroes as they paid divine worship to. The Phoenicians adored the fun under that name and Moloch; and this idol-name was worshipped all over Syria; to whom they made fires as a part of their

ceremonies.

ceremonies. Now the first day of May was probably the time of that festival, when the great fires in this worship were made, or about that time of the year.

IN Ireland, the first day of May is celebrated with great rejoicings, by all these original people, throughout the kingdom; and they call May day, Bealteine, Beltine, or Balteine, the meaning of which is the fire of Baal: teine, fire; Beal, or Bel, Baal: La Bealtine is May day. In celebrating this festival, they rise at break of day, and a multitude together go out of the town, or village, to the nearest wood, or grove, and there cut down the tallest and straitest young tree close to the ground; and bear it upon their shoulders, with music before them, and boughs of trees in the hands of the reft, men and women finging and dancing; till they have erected the tree in an open place, and adorned it with flowers. The burden of their fongs tending to the bringing home the fummer, a Saxon word, which the English language now owns, and is derived of the ancient Pelafgic word famrha, from which the Saxons took it, and which generally terminates every verfe of their fong, in words like these :

"We ourselves have brought the fambra home." It is evident, that originally fire was a part of the apparatus for the celebration of that day; for there remains a custom among them of kindling a fire, on that day, in all their houses. And the people, who are ever hofpitable and neighbourly to one another in all refpects, often go to borrow fome fire of their neighbours to kindle their own, when the time comes for providing their dinners ; but, on May day, they will by no means let a spark of fire

be carried away from their houfes, upon any account whatsoever; being the day of the fire of Baal: and this they retain at this time, though they have been converted to Christianity above thirteen hundred years; and, indeed, many more of the pagan cuftoms, which they have in like manner retained, and blended with the Chriftian religion.

It is also clear, that they were in ancient times in the worship of the heavenly bodies; for, to this day, they pay great reverence to the new moon, at the inftant they first fee her; croffing themselves, while they are bowing, or dropping a curtfy to the moon.

Now, notwithstanding they, and the Gomerians in Britain, were in the worship of the TRUE GOD, for several centuries, yet the rites of idolatrous worship followed them afterwards, by the commercial intercourse that was carried on very early from Greece to these islands.

WHATEVER has been lately wrote concerning the mythology of the ancients, has been extracted from many authors, who themselves had scarce any affiftance that could well be relied on, and were therefore obliged to publish their own conjectures; indeed they found many anecdotes scattered among old authors, and endeavoured to connect them; but with much uncertainty: till bishop Cumberland, who seems to have been the moft fit for fuch abftrufe inquiries of any author that ever wrote, being anxious to know by what means idolatry over-run the world, was resolved to examine Sanchoniatho, who, he imagined, had given the oldest account of these matters. Now feveral very learned men, for want of that genius.

which Cumberland was mafter of for thefe purposes, thought that old author a mere inventer of lies; and therefore were never able to obtain those lights that our prelate found in him, and which he only with amazing fagacity discovered, and reconciled to the Mofaic account.

He faw plainly, that this fragment was a profeffed apology for idolatry, and that it contained a very open conceffion, that the gods of the Gentiles had been all mortal men; which, indeed, their priests would have industriously concealed; and he tranflated it from the first book of Eufebius de Præparatione Evangelica; and studied it with no other view, than as it led to the discovery of the origin of idolatry. He spent some time upon it, before ever he had a thought of extracting from it any footsteps of the hiftory of the world, preceding the flood. Now, according to the Reverend Mr. Payne, his Lordship's domestic chaplain, in his preface to this part of the works of that learned man, the first hint given him was from this paffage :

Ισιρις ἀδελφὸς Χνᾶ τε πρώτε Φοίνικ.

Iris, the brother of Chnaa, the first Phænician.

THIS faithful publifher of his learned bishop's works, after he has, with decent regard, run over fome anecdotes of the pious life of that great man, goes on thus:

"THE firft Phoenician was indifputably Canaan, whose pofterity peopled that country; his name in the He"brew is often writ Chnaan; that the Egyptian king, "called by the Greeks Ifiris, was brother to him, was fomething new. The next step was to find that Mifor, "in Sanchomiatho, was Mifraim with Mafes. Mifraim

"was the name of a people, like Ludim, Philiftim, Caph"torim, &c. The fingular number, and the proper name "of the man, was Mifor; in this there is not much diffi“culty, nor that Misor (from whence comes Mifraim) was the brother of Canaan. It is a greater to make

Mifor the fame man with Ifiris, though it is done "without much force: M, in Hebrew, is a fervile letter, "often omitted; leave it out, the name is Ifor; add to "this a Greek termination, which Greek authors always “do to Eastern names, it is Isoris, and by the small

change of a vowel, Ifiris. The next observation was, "that Mifor, or Ifiris, is placed, by Sanchoniatho, about "the distance of twelve generations from Protogonus, the first-produced man, and Mifraim is undoubtedly in the "twelfth generation from Adam.

“OUR author then proceeded to collect, that Protogonus was Adam; what name Sanchoniatho called him by, we know not, it was probably by fome Eaftern name, fignifying the firft created man, which Philo "Biblius translates Protogonus, by a Greek word of the "fame import.

"Eon, and Protogonus, are the two first mortals ; "Eon our author conjectures to have some affinity to "the name Eve. Eon, adds Sanchoniatho, first gathered food from trees. What can this be but an allufion to "Eve's eating the forbidden fruit?

"FROM Protogonus and Æon (fays Sanchoniatho) de"fcended Genus; you cannot well make any other Greek name of the Hebrew Cain, than rév. Hence our au"thor proves, that Sanchoniatho preserved the history of

"the