priests of Augustus. Horace positively tells him

Jurandisque tuum par nomen ponimus arus. Here was truly a sacrilegious adoration; yet we are not told that it excited discontent.

diculous fable about Alexander and a Jewish pontiff, Plutarch, who wrote long after Josephus, in his turn seems not to have been sparing in fables concerning this hero. He has even out done Quintus Curtius. Both assert that Alexander, when marching towards India, wished to have himself adored, not only by the Per-{ sians but also by the Greeks. The ques-Alexander would be more difficult to retion is, what did Alexander, the Persiaus, the Greeks, Quintus Curtius, and Plutarch, understand by adoring? We must never lose sight of the great rule-Define your terms.

If by adoring he meant invoking a man as a divinity-offering to him incense and sacrifices-raising to him altars and temples, it is clear that Alexander required nothing of all this. If, being the conqueror and master of the Persians, he chose that they should salute him after the Persian manner; prostrating themselves on certain occasions; treating him, in short, like what he was, a sovereign of Persia, there is nothing in this but what is very reasonable and very common. The members of the French parliament, in their beds of justice, address the king kneeling; the third estate address the states-general kneeling, a cup of wine is presented kneeling, to the king of England; several European sovereigns are served kneeling at their consecration. The Great Mogul, the Emperor of China, and the Emperor of Japan, are always addressed kneeling. The Chinese Colaos of an inferior order bend the knee before the Colaos of a superior order. We adore the Pope, and kiss the toe of his right foot. None of these ceremonies have ever been regarded as adoration in the strict sense of the word, or as a worship like that due to the Divinity.

Thus, all that has been said of the pretended adoration exacted by Alexander, is founded on ambiguity.

Octavius, surnamed Augustus, really caused himself to be adored in the strictest sense of the word. Temples and altars were raised to him. There were

The contradictions in the character of

concile, did we not know that men, especially men called heroes, are often very inconsistent with themselves, and that the life or death of the best citizens, or the fate of a province, has more than once depended on the good or bad digestion of a well or ill advised sovereign.

But how are we to reconcile improbable facts related in a contradictory manner? Some say that Callisthenes was crucified by order of Alexander for not having acknowledged him to be the son of Jupiter. But the cross was not a mode of execution among the Greeks. Others say that he died long afterwards, of too great corpulency. Athenæus assures us, that he was carried, like a bird, in an iron cage, until he was devoured by vermin. Amongst all these different stories, distinguish the true one if you can. Some adventures are supposed by Quintus Curtius to have happened in one town, and by Plutarch in another, the two places being five hundred leagues apart. Alexander, armed and alone, leaped from the top of a wall into a town which he was besieging: according to Quintus Curtius, it was on the borders of Candahar; according to Plutarch near the mouth of the Indus. When he arrived on the Malabar coast, or near the Ganges,-no matter which, it is only nine hundred miles from the one to the other, he gave orders to seize ten of the Indian philosophers, called by the Greeks gymnosophists, who went about as naked as apes; to those he proposed ridiculous questions, promising them very seriously that he who gave the worst answers should be hanged the first, and the rest in due order. This reminds us of Nebuchadonosor, who would abso

The city was always very flourishing under the Ptolemies and the Romans. It did not decline under the Arabs, nor did the Mamelukes or the Turks, who successively conquered it, together with the rest of Egypt, suffer it to go to decay. It preserved some portion of its greatness

lutely put his Magi to death, if they did the wonders of the world, has also ceased } not divine one of his dreams which he to exist. had forgotten; and of the Caliph of the Thousand and One Nights, who was to strangle his wife as soon as she had finished her story. But it is Plutarch who relates this nonsense; therefore it must be respected, for he was a Greek. This latter story is entitled to the same credit with that of the poisoning of Alex-until the passage of the Cape of Good ander by Aristotle; for Plutarch tells us, that somebody had heard one Agnotemis say, that he had heard Antigonus say, that Aristotle sent a bottle of water from Nonacris, a town in Arcadia, which water was so extremely cold, that they who drank it instantly died; that Antipater sent this water in a horn; that it arrived at Babylon quite fresh; that Alexander drank of it; and that, at the end of six days, he died of a continued fever.

Plutarch has, it is true, some doubts respecting this anecdote. All that we can be quite certain of is, that Alexander, at the age of twenty-four, had conquered Persia by three battles; that his genius was as great as his valour; that he changed the face of Asia, Greece, and Egypt, and gave a new direction to the commerce of the world; and that Boileau should have been more sparing of his ridicule, since it is not very likely that Boileau would have done more in as short a time.

ALEXANDRIA.

Hope opened a new route to the Indies, and once more gave a new direction to the commerce of the world, which Alexander had previously changed, and which had been changed several times before Alexander.

The Alexandrians were remarkable, under all their successive denominations, for industry united with levity; for love of novelty, accompanied by a close application to commerce, and to all the arts that make commerce flourish; and for a contentious and quarrelsome spirit, joined to cowardice, superstition, and debauchery all which never changed.

The city was peopled with Egyptians, Jews, and Turks, all of whom, though poor at first, enriched themselves by traffic. Opulence introduced the cultivation of the fine arts, with a taste for literature, and consequently for disputation.

The Jews built a magnificent temple, and translated their books into Greek, which had become the language of the country. So great were the animosities among the native Egyptians, the Greeks, MORE than twenty towns have borne the Jews, and the Christians, that they the name of Alexandria, all built by were continually accusing one another to Alexander and his captains, who became the governor, to the no small advantage so many kings. These towns are so many of his revenue. There were even frequent monuments of glory, far superior to the and bloody seditions, in one of which, in statues which servility afterwards erected the reign of Caligula, the Jews, who to power; but the only one of them exaggerate every thing, assert that reliwhich attracted the attention of the worldgious and commercial jealousy united, by its greatness and its wealth, was that cost them fifty thousand men, whom the which became the capital of Egypt. Alexandrians murdered. This is now but a heap of ruins; for it is well known that one half of the city has been re-built on another site, near the sea. The light-house, formerly one of

Christianity, which the Origens, Cle ments and others had established and rendered admirable by their lives, degenerated into a mere spirit of party. The

Christians adopted the manners of the Egyptians; religion yielded to the desire of gain; and all the inhabitants, divided in every thing else, were unanimous only in the love of money. This it was which produced that famous letter from the emperor Adrian to the consul Servianus, which Vopiscus gives us as follows:— ADRIANI EPISTOLA, EX LIBRIS PHLEGONTIS LIBERTI EJUS PRODITA. Adrianus Augustus Serviano Cos. Vo.

glass; others manufacture paper; they seem to be, and indeed are of all trades: not even the gout in their feet and hands can reduce them to entire inactivity; the very blind work. Money is a God which the Christians, Jews, and all men, adore alike."

This letter of an emperor, whose discernment was as great as his valour, sufficiently proves that the Christians, as well as others, had become corrupted in this abode of luxury and controversy: Ægyptum, quam mihi laudabas, Ser- } but the manners of the primitive Chrisviane carissime, totam didici, levem, {tians had not degenerated every where; pendulam, et ad omnia famæ monumenta and although they had the misfortune to volitantem. Illi qui Serapin colunt Chris-be for a long time divided into different tiani sunt, et devoti sunt Serapi qui se sects, which detested and accused one CHRISTI episcopus dicunt. Nemo illic another, the most violent enemies of Archisynagogus Judæorum, nemo Sema-Christianity were obliged to acknowledge rites, nemo Christianorum presbyter, non that the purest and the greatest souls were mathematicus, non aruspex, non aliptes.to be found among its proselytes. Such Ipse ille Patriarcha, quùm Egyptum is the case even at the present day, in venerit, ab aliis Serapidem adorare, ab cities wherein the degree of folly and aliis cogitur CHRISTUM. Genus hominis frenzy exceeds that of ancient Alexseditiosissimum, injuriosissimum. Ci-andria. vitas opulenta, dives, fecunda, in quà nemo vivat otiosus. Alii vitrum constant, ab aliis charta conficitur; omnes certè lymphiones cujuscunque artis et videntur et habentur. Podagrosi quod agant habent, coci quod faciant; ne chiragri quidem apud cos otiosi vivunt. Unus illis deus est; hunc Christiani, hunc Judæi, hunc homnes venerantur et gentes.

Which may be rendered thus

ALGIERS.

THE principal object of this Dictionary is philosophy. It is not, therefore, as geographers that we speak of Algiers, but for the purpose of remarking, that the first design of Louis XIV. when he took the reins of government, was to deliver Christian Europe from the continual depredations of the Barbary corsairs. This project was an indication of a great mind. "My dear Servian, I have seen that He wished to pursue every road to glory. Egypt of which you have spoken so It is somewhat astonishing that, with the highly; I know it thoroughly. It is a spirit of order which he showed in his light, uncertain, fickle nation. The wor- court, in his finances, and in the conduct shippers of Serapis turn Christians, and of state affairs, he had a sort of relish for they who are at the head of the religion ancient chivalry, which led him to the of CHRIST devote themselves to Serapis. performance of generous and brilliant There is no chief of the Rabbis, no Sa-actions, even approaching to the romantic. maritan, no Christian priest, who is not an astrologer, a diviner, a pander. When the Greek Patriarch comes into Egypt, some press him to worship Serapis, others to adore CHRIST. They are very seditious, very vain, and very quarrelsome. The city is commercial, opulent, and populous. No one is idle. Some make

It is certain that Louis inherited from his mother a deal of that Spanish gallantry, at once noble and delicate, with much of that greatness of soul-that passion for glory-that lofty pride, so conspicuous in old romances. He talked of fighting the emperor Leopold, like a knight seeking adventures. The erection of the pyramid

twenty guns, and infest all our seas like vultures seeking their prey. When they see a inan-of-war, they fly; when they see a merchant vessel they seize it. Our friends and our relatives, men and women, are made slaves; and we must humbly supplicate the barbarians to deign to re{ceive our money for restoring to us their captives.

at Rome, the assertion of his right of precedence, and the idea of having a port near Algiers to curb the pirates, were likewise of this class. To this latter attempt he was moreover excited by Pope Alexander VII. and by Cardinal Mazarin { before his death. He had for some time debated with himself whether he should go on this expedition in person, like Charles the Fifth; but he had not vessels "Some Christian states have had the to execute so great an enterprise, whether shameful prudence to treat with them, in person or by his generals. The at-and send them arms wherewith to attack tempt was therefore fruitless: and it could others, bargaining with them as merchants, not be otherwise. while they negociate as warriors.

It was, however, of service in exercising the French marine, and prepared the world to expect some of those noble and heroic actions which are out of the ordinary line of policy, such as the disinterested aid lent to the Venetians besieged in Candia, and to the Germans pressed by the Ottoman arms at St. Gothard.

"Nothing would be more easy than to put down these marauders; yet it is not done. But how many other useful and easy things are entirely neglected! The necessity of reducing these pirates is acknowledged in every prince's cabinet; yet no one undertakes their reduction. When the ministers of different courts acThe details of the African expeditioncidentally talk the matter over, they do are lost in the number of successful or { but illustrate the fable of tying the bell unsuccessful wars, waged justly or un-round the cat's neck.

justly, with god or bad policy. We shall "The order of the Redemption of merely give the following letter, which Captives is the finest of all monastic was written some years ago on the subject institutions, but it is a sad reproach to us. of the Algerine piracies :The kingdoms of Fez, Algiers, and Tunis, have no marabous of the Redemption of Captives; because, though they take many Christians from us, we take scarcely any Mussulmen from them.

"It is to be lamented, Sire, that the proposals of the order of Malta were not acceded to, when they offered, on consideration of a moderate subsidy from each Christian power, to free the seas from the pirates of Algiers, Morocco, and Tunis. The knights of Malta would then have been truly the defenders of Christianity. The actual force of the Algerines is but two fifty-gun ships, five of about forty, and four of thirty guns; the rest are not worth mentioning.

"Nevertheless, they are more attached to their religion than we are to ours; for no Turk or Arab ever turns Christian, while they have hundreds of renegadoes amongst them, who even serve in their expeditions. An Italian, named Pelegini, was, in 1712, captain-general of the Algerine galleys. The miramolin, the bey, "It is shameful to see their little barks the dey, all have Christian females in seizing our merchant vessels every day their seraglios, but there are only two Turkthroughout the Mediterranean. Theyish girls who have found lovers in Paris. even cruise as far as the Canaries and the Azores.

"Their soldiery, composed of a variety of nations-ancient Mauritanians, ancient Numidians, Arabs, Turks, and even Negroes, set sail, almost without provisions, in tight vessels carrying from eighteen to

"The Algerine land force consists of twelve thousand regular soldiers only; but all the rest of the men are trained to arms; and it is this that renders the conquest of the country so difficult. The Vandals, however, easily subdued it; yet we dare not attack it.”

ALLEGORIES.

JUPITER, Neptune, and Mercury, travelling one day in Thrace, called on a certain king named Hyreus, who entertained them very handsomely. After eating a good dinner, they asked him if they could render him any service. The good man, who was past the age at which it is usual for men to have children, told them he should be very much obliged to them if they would make him a boy. The three gods then urined on the skin of a new flayed ox; and from these sprang Orion, who became one of the constellations known to the most remote antiquity. This constellation was named Orion by the ancient Chaldeans; it is spoken of in the Book of Job. It would be hard to discover a rational allegory in this pretty story, unless we are to infer from it that nothing was impossible to the gods

{this method of Plato's. They have, indeed, been reproached with having carried this taste for allegories and allusions a little too far.

St. Justin, in his Apology, says, that the sign of the cross is marked in the limbs and features of man ;—that, when he extends his arms there is a perfect cross; and that his nose and eyes form a cross upon his face.

According to Origen's explanation of Leviticus, the fat of the victims signifies the Church, and the tail is a symbol of perseverance.

St. Augustin, in his sermon on the difference and agreement of the two genealogies of Christ, explains to his auditors why St. Matthew, although he reckons forty-two generations, enumerates only {forty-one. It is, says he, because Jechonias must be reckoned twice, Jechonias There were in Greece two young rakes, having gone from Jerusalem to Babylon. who were told by the oracle to be beware This journey is to be considered as the of the melampygos or sable posteriors. corner-stone: and if the corner-stone is One day Hercules took them, and tied the first of one side of a building, it is them by the feet to the end of his club, also the first of the other side; conseso that they hung down his back with {quently this stone must be reckoned their heads downwards like a couple of twice; and therefore Jechonias must be rabbits, having a full view of his person.reckoned twice. He adds that, in the Ah! said they, the oracle is accomplished; } forty-two generations, we must dwell on this is the melampygos. Hercules fell a laughing, and let them go. Here again it would be rather difficult to divine the moral sense.

Among the fathers of mythology, there were some who had only imagination; but the greater part of them possessed understandings of no mean order. Not all our academies, not all our makers of devices, not even they who compose the legends for the counters of the royal treasury, will ever invent allegories more true, more pleasing, or more ingenious, than those of the Nine Muses, of Venus, the Graces, the God of Love, and so many others, which will be the delight and instruction of all ages.

The ancients, it must be confessed, almost always spoke in allegories. The earlier fathers of the church, the greater part of whom were Platonists, imitated

the number forty, because that number signifies life. The number ten denotes blessedness, and ten multiplied by four, which represents the four elements and the four seasons, produces forty.

In his fifty-third sermon, the dimensions of matter have astonishing properties. Breadth is the dilation of the heart, length is long-suffering, height is hope, and depth is faith. So that, besides the allegory, we have four dimensions of matter instead of three.

It is clear and indubitable (says he in his sermon on the 6th psalm) that the number four denotes the human body, because of the four elements, and the four qualities of hot, cold, moist, and dry; and as four relates to the body, so three relates to the soul; for we must love God with a triple love-with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds.