they used oftentimes to offer human sacrifices. Typhon was one of these; being a compound of Tuph-On, which signifies the hill or altar of the Sun. Tophet, where the Israelites made their children pass through fire to Moloch, was a 2 And in another mount of this form. And there seem to have been more than one of this denomination; as we learn from the prophet Jeremiah. They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. place: They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal. These cruel operations were generally performed upon mounts of this sort; which, from their conical figure, were named Tuph and Tupha. It seems to have been a term current in - many countries. The high Persian bonnet had the same name from its shape and Bede mentions a particular kind of standard in his time; which was made of plumes in a globular shape, and called in like manner, Tupha, vexilli genus, 3 2 Kings. c. 23. v. 10. 2 Chron. c. 28. v. 3. C. 7. v. 31. and c. 19. v. 5. There was a place named Tophel (Toph-El) near Paran upon the Red Sea. Deuteron. c. 1. v. 1. 3 Zonar. vol. 2. p. 227. Τυφαν καλει ὁ δημώδης και πολύς άνθρωπος. * Bedæ. Hist. Angliæ. 1. 2. c. 16. ex consertis plumarum globis. There was probably a tradition, that the calf, worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness near Horeb, was raised upon a sacred mound, like those described above: for Philo Judæus says, that it was exhibited after the model of an Egyptian Tuphos: 5 Αιγυπτιακο μιμημα Τυφα. This I do not take to have been a Grecian word; but the name of a sacred orbicular mount, analogous to the Touphas of Persis. $ The Amonians, when they settled in Greece, raised many of these Tupha, or Tapha, in different parts. These, beside their original name, were still farther denominated from some title of the Deity, to whose honour they were erected. But as it was usual, in antient times, to bury persons of distinction under heaps of earth formed in this fashion; these Tapha came to signify tombs: and almost all the sacred mounds, raised for religious purposes, were looked upon as monuments of deceased heroes. Hence Taph Osiris was rendered Tapos, or the burying place of the God Osiris; and as there were many such "De legibus specialibus. p. 320. The Greek term Tupes, fumus, vel fastus, will hardly make sense, as introduced here. • Plutarch. Isis et Osiris. v. 1. p. 359. places in Egypt and Arabia, sacred to Osiris and Dionusus; they were all by the Greeks esteemed places of sepulture. Through this mistake many different nations had the honour attributed to them of these Deities being interred in their country. The tumulus of the Latines was mistaken in the same manner. It was originally a sacred hillock; and was often raised before temples, as an altar; such as I have before described. It is represented in this light by Virgil: 7 Est urbe egressis tumulus, templumque ve tustum Desertæ Cereris; juxtaque antiqua cupressus. In process of time the word tumulus was in great measure looked upon as a tomb; and tumulo siguified to bury. The Greeks speak of numberless sepulchral monuments, which they have thus misinterpreted. They pretended to shew the tomb of Dionusus at Delphi; also of Deucalion, Pyrrha, Orion, in other places. They imagined that Jupiter was buried in Crete: which Callimachus supposes to have been a forgery of the natives. 8 7 Virgil. Æn. 1. 2. v. 713. 8 * Την ταφην (Διονυσω) είναι φασιν εν Δελφοις παρα τον Χρύσουν Arora. Cyril. cont. Julian. 1. 1, P. 11. Κρήτες αεί ψευσαι και γαρ ταφον, ω Ανα, σειο I make no doubt, but that there was some high place in Crete, which the later Greeks, and especially those who were not of the country, mis took for a tomb. But it certainly must have been otherwise esteemed by those who raised it: for it is not credible, however blind idolatry may have been, that people should enshrine persons as immortal, where they had the plainest evidences of their mortality. An inscription Viro Immortali was in a style of flattery too refined for the simplicity of those ages. If divine honours were conferred, they were the effects of time, and paid at some distance; not upon the spot, at the vestibule of the charnel-house. Besides, it is evident, that most of the deified personages never existed but were mere titles of the Deity, the Sun; as has been, in great measure, proved by Macrobius. Nor was there ever any thing of such detriment to antient history, as the supposing that the Gods of the Gentile world had Callimach. Hymn. in Jovem. v. 8. Porphyr. Vita Pythagoræ. p. 20. been natives of the countries, where they were worshipped. They have by these means been admitted into the annals of times: and it has been the chief study of the learned to register the legendary stories concerning them; to conciliate absurdities, and to arrange the whole in a chronological series. A fruitless labour, and inexplicable for there are in all these fables such inconsistences, and contradictions, as no art, nor industry, can remedy. Hence, all who have expended their learning to this purpose, are in opposition to one another, and often at variance with themselves. Some of them by these means have rendered their works, which might have been of infinite use to the world, little better than the reveries of Monsieur Voltaire. The greatest part of the Grecian theology arose from misconceptions and blunders: and the stories concerning their Gods and Heroes were founded on terms misinterpreted and abused. Thus from the word Tapos, taphos, which they adopted in a limited sense, they formed a notion of their gods having been buried in every place, where there was a tumulus to their honour. This misled bishop Cumberland, Usher, Pearson, Petavius, Scaliger, with numberless other learned men; and among the foremost the great Newton. This extraordinary genius has greatly impaired the excellent system, upon which he proceeded, by |