dissertation, and therefore his paper is justly entitled to all the honour and merit of an original discovery.

Yours, &c.

SAMUEL PEGGE.

Cubbit, April 2, 1759.

THE flower of the lotus, which adorns the heads of Isis and Orus, was almost peculiarly sacred to those two Egyptian deities. It has, however, the misfortune of losing more than half its beauties with many, because they are ignorant of the meaning of this attribute. For as, when the reverses of medals, or other monuments of antiquity, that express to us any allegorical deities, do clearly reveal to us the mystic knowledge they contain, no species of learning can be found more pleasing and instructive; so, on the other hand, if the devices remain obscure or unintelligible, what are they but mere blanks or chimæras, affording neither curiosity nor entertainment. They, therefore, who have a taste for disquisitions of this kind, will find, that of all rational amusements, which tend to improve and refine the human understanding, none give us more noble ideas of man's benevolence or his public spirit, than what is to be met with on the reverses of ancient coins, when once they are thoroughly understood. They represent their princes and great men in their most glorious characters, exhibiting them as public blessings, and the greatest benefactors of mankind.

Thus, then, if we would have a true knowledge of medals, we must consider their reverses as denoting their meaning, 1st, by representation, 2dly, by symbols, 3dly, by hiero glyphics; these being the characteristics, whereby the ancients were wont to record their public benefactions, together with the virtues of their heroes, on medals.

The device I undertake to explain is, the flower on the head of Isis, and in the hand of Orus, without concerning myself with any other part of the medal; and this I consider, not as it was received by the Romans in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, but as it was understood by the Egyptians in the earliest ages, even on the canonization of those deities. It seems to have been so long immersed and in such dark oblivion, that in the later times there was no vestige remaining of its first and original state. Isis is represented on this reverse as sitting on a chair of state, with a flower of the lotus on her head, and her son Orus sitting on her lap, naked, with the same flower on his head, with a long stalk and a flower at its extremity, in his left hand,

་{

which I shall endeavour to prove, by analogy, to be the stalk and flower of the lotus.

The various opinions concerning this plant have hitherto rendered every determination very uncertain; and such false and precarious explanations must abate and lessen the credit of those who have so grossly misrepresented it: Florem illum sacrum Isidis capiti impositum, loti esse putat Laur. Pignorius in expositione Mensa Isiacæ, et recte, utpote quem Ægyptii magnificerunt, ut constat ex Plinii lib. xiii. c. 17 et 18, aliis abrotonum referre videtur, de quo Plinius, lib. xxi. c. 10 et 21, roborando utero, vel erucam, de qua dictum,

'Excitat ad Venerem tardos eruca maritos,

sunt qui Perseam interpretentur, cujus arbor Isidi sacra fuit. Oiselius. If Pliny means the birds-foot trefoil, or any other land plant, it is certain he knew nothing of the true Jotus; and if this great naturalist knew not what it was, we may take it for granted, that the people of Rome knew less, who seem, in this case, to have worshipped these deities rather from the knowledge they had of their fables, than the history of their lives: in short, they appear to have known them better as gods than as mortals.

As for our modern professors of virtù, they are so wide from the mark, that they have quite mistaken the element in which the plant grows; for if there be any credit to be given to Herodotus, the lotus is not a land plant, as they suppose it, but an aquatic; the water, and not the land being its proper situation; it was on the overflowing of the Nile, that this father of history saw it floating on the water in great abundance: Επεαν πληρης γενηται ὁ ποταμος, και τα πεδία πελάγιση, φύεται εν τῷ ὕδατι κρίνια πολλα, τα Αιγυπτιοι καλέυσι λωτον ταυτ' επεαν δρέψωσι, αυαίνωσι προς ήλιον και έπειτα το εκ τε μεσα το λωτό, τη μηκώνι τον εμφερες, οπτήσαντες, ποιεύνται εξ αυτό αρτες οπτες πυρί εσι δε και η ι ή ρίζα το λωτο τοτε στε εδώδιμη και εγγλυσσει επιείκεως, τον τρογγύλον, μέγεθος za pov. When the river is become full, and all the grounds round it are a perfect sea, there grows a vast quantity of lilies, which the Egyptians call lotus, in the water. After they have cut them, they dry them in the sun; then, having parched the seed within the lotus, which is most like the poppy, they make bread of it, baking it with fire. The root also of the lotus is eatable, casily becoming sweet, being round, and of the size of an apple.' Herodotus, Eut. c. 92. From so plain a direction, in so celebrated an author, it is strange how the writers, mentioned by Oiselius, could be guilty of such a notorious blunder, as to seek this plant

on land, where it never did or could grow, instead of the water, where they might have been sure to have found it without much trouble, if they had but trusted to the evidence of an eye-witness, and not to their own fanciful imaginations.

The lotus being thus re-instated in its proper element, from whence it has been unfortunately transported for so many ages, the next thing to be done, is, to consider where and to what tribe to refer this plant. This now is no difficult task to one whose wretched destiny it is, to live in the Delta of England, where the principal prospect is water, whereon are crawling insects innumerable, and in which grow some plants, and amongst the rest the lotus.

If analogy, or similitude, can be admitted as a reason, I will then venture to pronounce, that the Egyptian lotus, and the nymphæca alba major, are one and the same plant, and that there is no difference between them, but what is occasioned by the variety or difference of climates.

Before the reader gives his determination, he should compare what Herodotus has said of the inside of the flowercup of the lotus, with the inside of the flower-cup of the nymphæa, or the white water lily, and he will find an exact similitude. But this is not all; he must view the stalk, with the flower at its extremity, in the medal, along with the nymphæa, when floating in the water in July, in all its glory, from whence he will be clearly convinced, that the stalk in the hand of Orus, with the flower at its extremity, can be no other but the white water lily. This I can assert, that after frequently examining them together, to me they scem in every part alike.

The lotus being now found not only to be an aquatic, but also to belong to a certain species, it is to be hoped we may from hence investigate the reason, why it was so particu larly dedicated to the goddess Isis and her son Orus. It is well known that the Egyptians perpetuated their memorable facts by figures, which, when ascribed to their deities, often inculcated a double meaning; that is, they had dif ferent meanings, according to the different manners in which they were represented. Thus the lotus in this reverse has a two-fold meaning; it is both a representation and a symbol, according to its different situation, and partakes not at all of the hieroglyphic, as it stands here.

In the hand of Orus it is figurative; importing no less a transaction, than his preservation. The Egyptians could hot devise a more significant attribute to perpetuate the momentous event in the life of Isis, the saving of her sof

from perishing in the water, than the making this most beautiful water-flower the type or symbol of the deliverance. "Hunc, dum a Typhone ut spurium accusatum, imo discerptum, et in aquas projectum volunt, a Luna vero, seu Iside mundi matre, in aqua repertum, vitæque restitutum et immortalem redditum dicunt." Oiselius, fig. iii. What interpretation can be more natural, or so expressive of the story, as what is here given of it upon the medal? The flower is placed in her son's hand, as a symbol of the fact, which yet was so ancient and obscure, as to be quite forgotten in the days of Hadrian; for, if the Romans then knew not the plant, how should they know the meaning of the device?

But now, on the other hand, the lotus, placed on the head of the goddess, was not a symbolical but a real representation, signifying that she had discovered the use of meal for the benefit of man, by kneading it into bread, yn gwn καρπον ανθρωποις εύρεσα. A more beneficial invention never was, nor could be, for man's support, than the act of making bread, which was gratefully commemorated by some cities with much pomp and ceremony: Παρ' ενιαις δε των πόλεων, και τοις Ισείοις, εν τη πομπη μετα των άλλων φέρεσθαι πυθμένας πύρων και κρίθων, απομνημονεύμα των εξαρχής τη θεῳ φιλοτέχνως εὑρεθέντων. "In some of the cities, in the feasts of Isis, there were carried in the procession, amongst other things, the stamina of wheat and barley, as a memorial of the original and beneficial inventions of the goddess." Could any other representation be so full to the purpose, or declarative of the goddess's discovery, as the flower of that very plant, from whence the seed proceeded of which the bread was made? This however, must be added, that if the lotus of the Nile made no better bread than the nymphæa alba major of the fens does, whoever sups on it once will never desire a second repast of the same. But still Herodotus assures us, that bread was actually made of it, and that's enough for our present purpose, seeing we are not speaking of the goodness of bread, but the fact of its invention.

1759, April.

BEN. RAY.

XLIV. On the Temples of the Ancients.

AFTER all the wonders that have been related of the temples of Jupiter Olympius, Diana of Ephesus, Serapis, &c.

it may well be questioned, if, upon the whole, those ancient edifices surpassed our modern churches in grandeur and riches. To determine the point, it will be necessary to take a view of the temples, built in the plains, and those erected in great cities.

Traverse the open countries of Greece, Peloponnesus, and the adjacent isles, and you will every where meet with little edifices, said to be temples; some half in ruins, others in tolerable good condition, without any thing material to distinguish them; no external ornaments, most of them brick, and the best of them finished in a dome or roof, ornamented with some slight sculpture. A few, indeed, there are surrounded with groves, consecrated by superstition, or designed to shade the worshippers of the idol; all of them placed in deserts, uninhabited, except by here and there a hermit, who makes it his whole study to amuse travellers with fables. It is not, therefore, among these structures that you are to look for the magnificence of the Grecian temples.

The Romans, who were also accustomed to erect temples in the country, derived all their deitics, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, from Greek origin. There was not a single canton of Attica, or Thessaly, where some metamorphosis had not been wrought, or some divine combat happened. These exploits served to extend superstition, and multiply the monuments that were to perpetuate it. But the Romans, who were the petty imitators of the Greeks, fell short of their masters in the dimensions of their insulated temples.

It may perhaps be said, that we give the name of temples to edifices, which, in ancient times, were never considered as such; but without entering into a discussion, let it suffice, that the buildings we are speaking of, were sacred and public; still retaining their first furniture of statues, altars, and tripods. We meet with nothing more essential to the ceremonious part of worship, among the larger temples of Athens and Corinth. If no other structures were to be comprehended in the denomination of temples, but those whose extent is to be measured by acres and stadia, it must be admitted that Rome herself, the city of all the Gods, had no more than three; those of Jupiter Capitolinus, of Peace, and the Pantheon. These are the only ones that were above the ordinary size; the last, still remaining, is but 144 feet in diameter. Time has also spared the temple of Fortuna Virilis, and of Vesta; the one is an oblong square, the other. round: the Pantheon will hold them both.